The Microsoft Surface Pro 4 is still king of the hybrid hill

[MUSIC] Microsoft's flagship hybrid tablet gets even better. I'm Dan Ackerman and this is the Microsoft Surface Pro 4. Now the Surface flying from Microsoft has been around for a few years now. It was originally a proof of concept piece to show consumers, so this year the Surface Pro 4 they're not messing with the formula too much we got a bunch of incremental upgrades but together they're enough that you really feel like it's a fresh new product Number one, the system is about the same size, but it has a bigger screen. It goes from a 12 inch screen to a 12.3 inch screen. You get a little resolution bump there as well. Microsoft calls these high resolution screens PixelSense, Apple calls them retina, it's all kinda the same thing. What's different about this screen compared to a lot of others is that the Aspect ratio is three by two instead of 16 by nine which is standard for most laptops, and televisions, and computer monitors. The reason they do this, they say, is because that is the same aspect ratio as a standard piece of letter A four paper, and one of our favorite things about the surface line has always been these keyboard covers. And that helps it be more productive than just a tablet or a tablet with a really crummy mini keyboard. It's actually a full size tactile keyboard with a touchpad built in. This year they made some nice changes to it. It's now, Island style keys, this is much more natural and pretty much exactly like the keyboard on any other laptop that you're going to find these days. The touchpad also a bit bigger, and I really like the new surface on it, it feels much better against the finger and you get better Sort of multi-fingered gestures like the all-important two finger scrolling. One problem, the Surface, even though it starts at 899, none of those models come with this keyboard cover, even though you really need it. No matter how much you pay, it's an extra $129. Frankly it's worth it, they should just throw into the box. I can never figure out why they don't. You're just gonna have to make the extra $129 investment to get that. What do you get however is the stylus pen. That is thrown in. Every version of the Surface and it has been for years. The new one actually has a magnet in it and sticks to the side just like this. There are 1024 levels of pressure on the stylus and it works things like OneNote. Or any kind if sketching app. I like to use it with the New York Time's crossword puzzle. I can write the answer in and then it converts it to actual text. It doesn't feel quite as natural as writing on regular paper with a pen, but it's a lot better than many of the other stylus systems that I've seen. Big competitor obviously is gonna be Apple's iPad Pro. One of the things we liked about last year's Surface was that they took the kickstand built into it and they made it infinitely adjustable to any angle. And stiff enough, so that no matter where you sit it, you could tap on the screen with your fingers. And it's not gonna move. It's a big improvement over the earlier Surface kickstand, and ones and other hybrids and tablets that kind of may have one or two positions and don't move all that much. When you combine that adjustable kickstand with the keyboard that can pop up and give you a little bit of lift there. You can get almost any angle possible on this, except for one that actually works really well on your lap. But I guess that's why they don't call it a laptop, they call it a tablet or a hybrid. I'm Dan Ackerman and that is the Microsoft Surface Pro 4. [MUSIC]