Hands-on With All of Microsoft's New Surface Devices
Laptops
Speaker 1: It's time to talk about some new Microsoft hardware. And of course that means the Surface Pro I've got right here really the flagship, the new Surface Pro Nine. And you may look at it and say, this doesn't seem all that different from the Surface Pro Eight. Although visually this one is a little different because it comes one of the two new colors. This is Sapphire, which is bluish. And even on top of that, this is a limited edition that has the keyboard cover with the floral design. And you can actually see the floral design is laser etched into the back. Uh, so that's a limited edition on top of the new colors [00:00:30] that not everyone is gonna be able to get the other new color. It's far kind of greenish. Uh, and other than that, just regular kind of computer resurface colors. But for the Surface Pro Nine on the inside, we're moving up to 12th generation Intel chips in some of the models, not all them because there's actually now two versions of the Surface Pro Nine, one of them runs Intel, a very traditional sort of computer device.
Speaker 1: The other one runs the s Q three, which is a new chip that follows along with Theq two and s Q one. And these were arm chips that [00:01:00] Microsoft developed with Qualcomm to originally go in a different device called the Surface Pro X. And that device was a, uh, mobile broadband device. Uh, it ran on, uh, it was a 4G device. Uh, the new version is a 5G device. That 5G model is the one that runs the arm ship instead of Intel, the regular Surface Pro Nine runs the Intel. Now the interesting thing that happens when you do that, you kind of fork the system. Now there's two distinct forks within the surface. It's Pro Nine and on top of one [00:01:30] of them having 5G and an arm ship and one of them, uh, not having 5g just being wifi and running Intel, they're actually a bunch of interesting extra features you can get in that 5G version running on the arm ship because of that Qualcomm chip inside, it has all these studio effects that come into play when you're using the webcam to let's say do video meetings. And I got to see some demos of a few of them. Uh, that includes, uh, you know, better background blurring that includes, uh, you know, following you around, uh, the camera while you move. That [00:02:00] includes drowning out background noise. I saw an interesting demo where somebody had a hair dryer going
Speaker 2: And with voice focus turned on.
Speaker 1: Can't hear it.
Speaker 1: And again, those features, at least for now are only in the 5G arm version. That's the Surface Pro nine with 5G not in the regular Intel Surface. Pro Nine, a couple of other upgrades on the inside. You get, uh, slightly faster random than the previous generation. Um, we've got Thunderbolt Ports. Now here's something I [00:02:30] thought was really interesting. You won't be able to see it, I'm just gonna tell you about it. But right up here to the webcam on this guy. And if you set this up as you normally would to do a video meeting, let's say it's sitting here. I've got the little kickstand out, uh, the camera angle. It's kind of up a little bit. And when I see people on their laptops with their webcams, the camera angle's always little up the nose like that, even if, even if it's not too low down.
Speaker 1: So what they did here was they actually tilted the camera module inside this, I think about four degrees down this way. So it's just pointing the tiniest [00:03:00] bit down. So when I have it set up like this, it's actually pointed right at me and that is gonna look a lot better. Now apart from that stuff, there's not a heck of a lot new about the Surface Pro Nine, but it keeps all the stuff that we've liked about this line for years. This is actually the 10th anniversary of the Surface line. So you still have, uh, this clip on keyboard that is frankly still the best in class for a Windows tablet clip on keyboard. It just kind of ally attaches and detaches like that. You can fold it up and get a nice protective cover and as a, uh, clip [00:03:30] on keyboard, frankly pretty good.
Speaker 1: Touch pad is pretty good. Keyboard is pretty good and you can hide your stylist right in there. This is the Microsoft Slim Pen too. And it actually charges the stylist while you're doing that, here's the catch. It's always the catch with these, I talk about this every year when they do a refresh. You gotta buy the keyboard coverage separately. It's usually 130 some fancier versions like this will probably cost more. You gotta buy the stylist separately. I think that's another $130. And the uh, Surface Pro Nine itself, I don't think we have exact [00:04:00] pricing for it yet, but previous models have started about 800 bucks and gone up from there depending on what uh, CPU you have, how much storage, how much ram, uh, so when you put it all together it is kind of a big investment. Uh, but that said, this is definitely the best tablet keyboard that I've used on a Windows device and the stylist is pretty good too.
Speaker 1: One thing you don't have to pay extra is frankly one of the best engineering parts of this product. And it's been like this since, uh, probably the, I don't know, third or fourth generation of they really nailed it. That's this kickstand down here. Uh, [00:04:30] it's super stiff. You can angle it pretty much almost, almost 180 degrees. Not quite, but it really does stay wherever you put it. Uh, and it's one of those simple things that if you don't get it right, the system is just not gonna feel right. And I have to say the Surface Pro over the last many years has really gotten that kickstand right? So much so that I've seen other brands start to emulate it and try to copy it as much as they can. So one thing I like about the Surface Pro Nine and the stylist combo is that the stylist has a little uh, button on the back.
Speaker 1: You just click on it, it pops open a note so [00:05:00] you can do your note taking or you can do your sketching. I'm not sure what's inspiring me today. I'm just gonna do a little, There we go. I call this person at a Microsoft Press event. So you may ask yourself, well why would I want a complicated device like this instead of just getting a laptop or just getting a tablet? You know, there are a lot of use cases where you want something that's frankly pretty small en light and portable. And that's what this guy is. If you want to sit in bed or on the couch and watch TV or a video or do something like that, you can just pop the top off and you have [00:05:30] a standalone tablet that's much more productivity focused than let's say something like in iPad is. Uh, but if you want to have that typing experience, you need to send some emails, do some work, write some reports, but then you clip on the uh, keyboard cover, which is why you absolutely need the keyboard cover even though it's sold separately.
Speaker 1: And you have something that is probably the closest to a full clamshell laptop like experience I've seen in one of these tablet based uh, two and ones. You can do the same thing with an iPad Pro and get the clip on keyboard for that, but it's not quite the same cuz that operating system is really [00:06:00] built around that sort of productivity. This is just running regular old Windows 11 and all the productivity apps you use with that. Uh, so you get that, you know, entertainment tablet vibe and you get the full laptop vibe. I'm actually very interested in using something like this for uh, gaming. Not local gaming cuz it doesn't have a gpu, but we're seeing so much cloud gaming now, especially for Microsoft with Xbox Cloud gaming, I could totally see taking this device popping open, the uh, kickstand setting it up here, getting a game controller and doing Xbox [00:06:30] Cloud gaming through it.
Speaker 1: And you get a nice little screen for that. So the new Surface Pro Nine, that's the Surface Pro Nine, the Intel version and the Surface Pro nine with 5g, uh, that's that arm version that has 5G built in. They're both gonna be available starting October 25th. The Surface Pro Nine is actually not the only piece of new hardware today. We've got two other updates. One is the Surface laptop that's now up to Surface Laptop five and a little bit surprising the Surface Studio that is an all in one desktop. [00:07:00] This is now the Surface Studio two plus because it's frankly not different enough for the last version to be called the Surface Studio three. I think the Surface Studio two came out in 2018, the original Surface Studio in like 2016. So even all these years later, it's kind of a cult product that has its fans and Microsoft is still making it, still updating it because there's a, you know, install base.
Speaker 1: Uh, a lot of it largely commercial that really use this device cuz frankly it is pretty cool for an all in one. It looks like a big drafting table right here, [00:07:30] but look at that, I can lift it up easily that now it looks more like an all in one computer. I can push it down like this and I can use, you know, a stylist with it. I can use the, uh, old Microsoft dial if my software supports it to uh, you know, go through brushes and stuff. But this is the same exact chassis as the 2018 version. The only real difference is here they have updated the CPU but not to 12th gen, uh, to an 11th gen, uh, new Intel cpu. Uh, the graphic card is now Invidia RTX 30 60, which is pretty good. Uh, [00:08:00] they've added Thunderbolt to some of the ports, but other than that this is the exact same product as it was, uh, 18 90, 24 years ago.
Speaker 1: Uh, uh, the same exact chassis, although frankly it's still pretty nice. I really like the hinge on this and the flexibility screen baled feels kind of big these days frankly in 2022. Uh, but hopefully someday we'll see a fully updated version. Uh, hopefully call the Surface Studio three. And then of course there's the Surface Laptop five, which follows these Surface laptop four, [00:08:30] et cetera, et cetera. You can get a 13 inch or a 15 inch version new this time. Really very, very little. Uh, there's some new colors including this green that actually, uh, looks pretty nice. Again, We've moved up to 12 gen Intel processors, uh, upgraded to Thunderbolt on some of the ports and it's got faster ram but other than that it's really exactly the same as the surface. Laptop for wood was a perfectly fine device. I actually like the Surface laptop line a lot because um, it's a pretty slick looking Windows laptop, but if you want something that has kind of [00:09:00] that MacBook Air vibe, but running at Windows and they're reasonably priced, they're not that expensive anyway, but they're often on sale I find around holiday time, especially through the Microsoft store.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of good discounts on these. So this is one of my secret, uh, ways to get a really good laptop and spend less is to wait for a nice sale on the Surface laptop by Microsoft. And the latest version is gonna be the Surface Laptop five.
