Surface Copilot Plus PCs Live Up to the Hype (and They're Beautiful Devices, Too)

Meet the new Microsoft Surface Pro and the new surface laptop powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite or plus processors. The first copilot plus P CS to land here at CNET. I'm going to go into whether you should upgrade what I like and dislike. And more importantly, demo some of the new copilot A I features, there's a lot to talk about. So let's get to it. The surface Pro and laptop are similar but definitely not the same. So while there's some overlap, they are different devices for different users. I'm team Surface Pro because it really is the best example of a Windows detachable two in one and the laptop while good is well a laptop and there are lots of them to choose from. The surface Pro is essentially the same device. It's always been a Windows tablet PC with a built in kickstand, a detachable keyboard and a Stylus. This one is $1500 with a Snapdragon X Elite processor, 16 gigs of memory, 512 gigs of storage and an OLED display. The $1000 base config comes with a Snapdragon X plus chip and an L CD display instead of the OL and that's just for the device, the surface pro flex keyboard and pen are an extra $450. The flex part means you can use it attached or remove it and keep using it. If that's not important to you, you can get the regular version for $280. The important thing is neither are automatically bundled and do add to the overall cost. Also, I don't particularly like the pen. The nib feels fine on the display but the slim design can get uncomfortable after a while and it the end rattles a bit having it charge at the top of the keyboard while handy leaves less room for the touch pad. It's just that for the price, it should all be better. The Ola display is worth upgrading for though the default vivid setting covers 99% P three and its peak brightness measured 574 knits with HDR. It went up to 891 knits colors do get warmer as you decrease the brightness. So you'll want to turn off auto optimizations for creative work. Multi core processing performance is right up there with Intel core ultra seven laptops we've tested and the M three Macbook Air and all the M three comparisons do make sense because both are based on arm and to be clear, we've only had these for about a week while this Qualcomm chip may be comparable to the M three. Now, when Apple moves the back air to an M four, it might slip behind. We don't know right now though, we're seeing great results from it. And more importantly, the performance and the battery life are great with roughly 13 hours in our tests on the surface. Pro this really is a nice compact package though, the hardware itself uh is beautiful, it feels great, nice and solid in your hands. Having a 13 inch tablet with a desktop operating system with this OLED display is a better option than a mobile O SS for getting work done. I do wish the keyboard and pen were included for $1500 but they've always been add ons and at least you're getting top performance in battery life. Now, if you do need better battery life, go with the surface laptop. The 13.8 inch model we tested, ran for just under 20 hours and with the same competitive performance as the surface pro the configuration we tested is $2000 with the elite chip, 32 gigs of memory and a one terabyte SSD. However, and this goes for both the pro and the laptop. These aren't for gaming or for demanding content creation. The Qualcomm Arino GP U is roughly on par with Intel's integrated art graphics so you could play some less demanding games and it'll also be ok for cloud gaming, but that's where it should probably stop aside from performance, you're getting a really well built laptop, the metal body is stiff and solid. The keyboard and touchpad are comfortable and responsive. There is no OLED display option, but the L CD touch screen is good and covers 96% of P three at its default vivid setting. It doesn't support pen input though. So stick with the pro if you need that. And again, the processing performance is strong. Now, let's talk about the NPU the neural processing unit which is there to help with A I tasks and what you can expect with a copilot plus PC copilot as an A I chatbot can do the things other chat bots can do and it's easy to launch from the task bar or with the copilot key. But there are other A I powered features that are baked in for you to use. One of those called recall has been delayed over privacy concerns. It's designed to keep track of what you do. So you can use copilot to find things quickly. But Microsoft decided to hold off on releasing it for now that leaves a few other A I tools like rest style which can take photos and recreate them. So for example, I've got this nice abstract here. I'm just gonna open it up in the photos app. Um Go to edit it and then select A I and it gives me a bunch of options to rest. Ile the image that I have and what I'm gonna do is click on fantasy. Here, there's another option and it scrambles it up and makes it sort of fantasy. But as more as you slide this creativity slider down, it recreates that image giving you more and more uh in this case of fantasy or I'll switch over, this is surrealism. And as you can see, as I click them, the NPU kicks in to help with the processing. So you can see I played around with it for a little bit. Um This is the impressionist uh selection in rest style and it does exactly what it's supposed to. It took my original abstract image and restyled it into an impressionist sort of painting. Um If you need help inspiration, that's what this is gonna be good for. Now, let's move on to studio effects that can be used for things like video chats like zoom or teams. Uh the best way to demo that is to open up the camera app. And immediately there's this little icon here gives you a whole list of window studio effects like automatic framing which you can see will zoom in on me. And then if I move a little bit, it should go out and reset and follow me around. Um And then you've got portrait light which will adjust the lighting on your face, eye contact, uh both standard and teleprompter which will um basically track your eyes so that it always looks like you're looking at the camera. Um We haven't gotten it to quite work, right? But um maybe in the future it'll iron itself out. Then you've also got background effects like blur. You can see that's a, it's a portrait blur or a standard blur, which basically the difference between my room behind me looks. Ok. Um But uh the other one is my room behind me is a hot mess and I don't want anybody on the camera to see what is behind me. Also, if you didn't notice, I've got the uh task manager running here in the corner and you can see the NPU is what's doing all of the processing here. So that's the key thing with the MP U. It's gonna take over doing these things so that your uh CPU and GP U don't have to do it anyway. You get the idea, there are A I tools you can use and the MP U will take the load off the CPU and GP U speeding up overall performance and extending battery life. So just to wrap up, here's what I like and don't like about the surface pro and surface laptop for the pro. You get an excellent OLA display, very good battery life, great MP U performance at the moment and competitive CPU performance. What I don't like is paying up to $450 for a keyboard and pen. That's just kind of mah. So for the surface laptop you get up to 20 hours of battery life, which is great, a nice keyboard and touchpad, really good build quality and again, strong NPU and CPU performance, no option for an OLED is disappointing. But really the rest of the package is remarkably solid. The surface pro and laptop are the first of many copilot plus P CS rolling out this year. So you'll have a lot to choose from beyond these two. And if you're indifferent about the A I aspects right now, at least you'll know you're getting a fast laptop with a long battery life. Regardless. You can read more about these surface devices and other copilot plus laptops at cnet.com and let me know in the comments what you think or if I missed anything you're curious about as always, I appreciate you watching. Thanks. And uh you'll see me when you see me.