Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio review: Windows 11’s flagship feels like the future

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Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Studio looks like a glimpse of the long run. Microsoft’s new pull-forward design arguably improves upon the Surface Book 3, its religious predecessor, providing you a lightweight menu of gaming, content material creation, and on a regular basis computing capabilities to select from.

Tell us if you happen to’ve heard this earlier than, although: the Surface Laptop Studio doesn’t come low-cost, and its glorious new inking capabilities require the separate buy of a $130 Slim Pen 2. You can go for Windows 11 to energy this new 2-in-1 PC, although the brand new {hardware}, software program, and drivers could make this a little bit of a bumpy highway to start with. You’ll additionally need to resolve whether or not this arguably area of interest gadget is definitely worth the funding, versus general-purpose notebooks which will supply extra worth. Nevertheless, that is essentially the most intriguing Surface of the final half decade.

Surface Laptop Studio specs

Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Studio is offered in a wide range of configurations, ranging in worth from about $1,600 on as much as over $3,000. Essentially, you’ll have a selection between an 11th-gen Core i5 and Core i7 chip, particularly the “H35” version that Intel launched this previous spring. You can even select from between 16GB and 32GB of RAM, in addition to between 512GB, 1TB, and a whopping 2TB of SSD storage. (The SSD is technically upgradable by a “skilled technician.”) Finally, the Core i7 fashions ship with Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3050 Ti graphics, a reasonably highly effective raytracing-capable GPU for content material creation and light-weight gaming.

Keep in thoughts that one of many standout options that Microsoft s highlighting within the Surface Laptop Studio—inking—requires the separate buy of a brand new Surface Slim Pen 2 ($129.99), which might match beneath the Surface Laptop Studio in slightly receptacle. Selling the pen individually is by now a Surface custom, although the Pen 2 looks like much less of a prerequisite with the Studio than it does on the Surface Pro pill lineup.

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• Display: 14.4-inch PixelSense Flow contact show (2400×1600 (201 PPI), 120Hz)
• Processor: Intel Core H35 i5-11300H, H35 i7-11370H (Core i7 as examined)
• Graphics: Iris Xe (H35 i5-11300H), Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti w/4GB GDDR6 DRAM; Commercial: RTX A2000 with 4GB GDDR6 GPU (RTX 3050 Ti as examined)
• Memory: 16GB/32GB LPDDR4X RAM (32GB as examined)
• Storage: 256GB , 512GB, 1 TB, 2TB SSD (all removeable) (1 TB as examined)
• Ports: 2 USB-C (Thunderbolt 4/USB 4.0), 1 Surface Connect, 3.5mm headphone jack
• Camera: User-facing: 1080p
• Battery: 56.3Wh (design), 57.8Wh (full capability, as examined)
• Wireless: 802.11 ax (Wi-Fi 6); Bluetooth 5.1
• Operating system: Windows 11 Pro/Home, or Windows 10 Pro (Windows 11 Home as examined)
• Dimensions (inches): 12.7 x 9.0 x 0.7in
• Weight: 3.83lb (Core i5), 4.00 lb (Core i7)
• Color: Platinum
• Price: Starting at $1,599; $2,699 as reviewed

Surface Laptop Studio configurations, costs

• Core i5/16GB reminiscence/256GB SSD/built-in GPU: $1,599.99
• Core i5/16GB/512GB/iGPU: $1,799.99
• Core i7/16GB/512GB/GeForce RTX 3050 Ti: $2,099.99
• Core i7/32GB/1TB/ RTX 3050 Ti: $2,699.99
• Core i7/32GB/2TB/RTX 3050 Ti: $3,099.99

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Pull-forward: The sizzling development in 2-in-1 PCs

Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Studio will remind you much more of a Surface Laptop than the Surface Studio all-in-one when it emerges from the field. Upon opening, you could be slightly shocked by the huge expanse of the brand new haptic trackpad that dominates about half of the keyboard tray, seemingly squishing the keyboard into the higher half. Fortunately, that’s extra of an phantasm than a actuality, because the area allotted to the keys stays the identical as on the Surface Laptop—about 12 inches extensive and 6 inches again towards the display.

Some of our hands-on impressions nonetheless maintain true: the Surface Laptop Studio is a kind of hybrid of different Surface units, combining components of the Surface Laptop, Surface Studio, and Surface Book. Physically, it’s a bit heavier than both the 13-inch or 15-inch Surface Laptop 4 (3.4 kilos), however not as a lot because the Surface Book 3 (which tops out at 4.2 kilos). It’s a bit thicker than the Surface Laptop, and a bit thinner than the Surface Book. In truth, it appears to be like very very like the Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel, which was first launched in January 2020 and has been upgraded since then.

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What units the Surface Laptop Studio aside, after all, is the Ezel-like folding show, which transforms the Laptop Studio from a clamshell pocket book to a presentation gadget, after which to an inking platform. To be trustworthy, the Laptop Studio is sort of too good as a clamshell laptop computer. Unlike the Surface Studio, whose complete show folds ahead, the Laptop Studio’s show nestles tightly into the structural backing that permits it to fold ahead and again, supported by what Microsoft calls a “dynamic woven hinge.”

I took a minute or two attempting to pry it free from its backing earlier than remembering you can merely push both of the highest corners of the show to push it again after which angle it ahead, a bit like a lounge chair. You may even flip it solely backward. The SLS doesn’t really feel fairly as sturdy because the ConceptD 3 Ezel we acquired for evaluate, which gives the flexibility to ink in nearly any path. It’s a bit misleading, although, because the Ezel’s stiff hinge doesn’t fairly present all of the help it guarantees.

In clamshell mode, the Surface Laptop reclines to 125 levels. Pull it ahead into what Microsoft calls “Stage” mode, and the display rests at an angle simply in entrance of the keyboard for streaming video or displays. This fully prevents you from typing with the keyboard, however permits you to navigate round utilizing the trackpad and touchscreen. You can even flip it backwards to reverse the display, much like the Surface Book, or fold it flat into “Studio” mode to ink on it.

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We want to emphasise this level: Microsoft nails the Stage mode expertise. The Surface Laptop Studio thrusts the video ahead, proper into your speedy area of view, making a theater-like ambiance that’s strengthened by the wonderful Dolby-augmented audio system mounted contained in the palm relaxation. In my expertise no laptop computer has supplied something near the expertise of a living-room TV, not to mention a movie show. The Surface Laptop Studio almost does. It’s surprisingly spectacular.

Unlike the Surface Book, at no time does the display ever detach. The Surface Pro, with its extra accommodating, folding kickstand, can help the pill at virtually any angle from 90 levels to just about flat. But from a flexibility standpoint, the Surface Laptop Studio is surprisingly adaptive to what you’d love to do.

Throughout the previous few generations of Surface units, Microsoft has seemingly clocked down its laptops and tablets, delivery them in a mode that not often activates the fan. The Surface Laptop Studio follows swimsuit. The further thickness is used for, partially, further cooling and venting. A grille runs up and down both sides of the laptop computer. But the fan not often activates, even when working benchmark software program. It’s far, far quieter than I might have anticipated, besides when gaming. Then, fan noise rises to a breathy however very impartial hiss, with no coil whine. The consequence? The Surface Laptop Studio can be way more thermally delicate than we anticipated, which affected its efficiency, as you’ll see later.

A gorgeous, lower-resolution show

The Surface Laptop Studio takes a step down from the acute decision supplied by the Surface Book. There, Microsoft shipped the 15-inch Book 3 with a 3,000 x 2,000 15-inch show. The Surface Laptop Studio is offered in only a single 14.4-inch show choice, with 2,400 x 1,600 pixels. That’s about 75 % of the pixel density of the 15-inch Surface Book 3 and likewise lower than the brand new Surface Pro 8—although no less than to my eyes, it’s not a very noticeable downgrade on the smaller display, both. What Microsoft calls the PixelSense Flow multitouch show is offered in both a “Vivid” or “sRGB” mode at a brilliant 483 nits of luminance, which is appropriate for a brightly-lit room.

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PixelSense Flow supposedly includes what Microsoft calls Dynamic Refresh Rate, which varies the display’s refresh fee between 60Hz and a brand new 120Hz refresh fee. The latter was a characteristic Microsoft promised for the Surface Laptop Studio, nevertheless it didn’t make the ultimate reduce. Instead, the show refresh fee is locked at 120Hz by default—nice for efficiency, however with successful to battery life, too. Somewhat weirdly, Microsoft promised us that the show would come with HDR help, together with Dolby Vision, however the Windows 11 Settings menu doesn’t point out the show is able to HDR.

A shift to Thunderbolt

From a connectivity perspective, the best change that the Surface Laptop Studio introduces is the Thunderbolt 4 port—two of them. Thunderbolt is basically a supercharged USB-C port, able to throughput that permits for every part from shows to high-speed external devices to be linked. Microsoft reasonably well included each its conventional Surface Connector (able to charging the Surface Laptop Studio) in addition to the 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports, that are additionally able to charging the laptop computer. This permits the Surface Laptop Studio to make use of the small however rising ecosystem of Thunderbolt docks, but in addition use current Surface chargers and the Surface Dock 2. There aren’t any older USB-A ports on the Surface Laptop Studio, nevertheless.

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There’s a catch, although: the Surface Laptop Studio makes use of Microsoft’s 102W charger, and most Surface units (save for the Surface Book 3) use a 65W charger or much less. These legacy Surface chargers don’t provide sufficient energy for the Surface Laptop Studio, particularly whereas gaming.

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Inking is a pleasure with the Slim Pen 2

Inking with a stylus is an actual pleasure on the Surface Laptop Studio. Microsoft stated that the display digitizer has been made extra environment friendly, decreasing the ink latency, and it was particularly designed to work with the Surface Slim Pen 2. The laptop computer helps the Microsoft Pen Protocol. The palm rejection works successfully, and Microsoft lowered the e-ink latency right down to only a tiny smidge beneath good. There’s no line offset that I can detect, however there’s a little bit of jitter, particularly when drawing diagonal strains slowly.

The Slim Pen 2 suits inside…nicely, not a cubby, however a charging nicely beneath the laptop computer that magnetically holds it in place and expenses the pen. It appears slightly bizarre, nevertheless it doesn’t seem to be it might jar free, both. A brief evaluate interval didn’t permit us sufficient time to measure how lengthy the cost lasted.

Microsoft nonetheless hasn’t satisfied me concerning the enchantment of the pen’s haptic suggestions, which gives a tactile response to sure inputs. It felt gimmicky in our hands-on and nonetheless feels much less helpful than maybe Microsoft supposed. That, plus the truth that you’ll be able to solely actually ink on the Surface Laptop Studio in Stage or Studio mode, are slight knocks on an in any other case stable expertise.

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The keyboard meets Surface’s requirements of excellence, nearly

Microsoft’s Surface Book has remained one among my favourite laptops to sort upon for the previous few years, however its luxurious 1.5mm of key journey hasn’t been replicated throughout its different Surface PCs. The Surface Laptop Studio continues this development, with simply 1.3mm of key journey. That’s such a fantastic distinction, nevertheless it’s very noticeable! Fortunately, the Surface Laptop Studio’s keys really feel springy and resilient, and there’s a marked enchancment over the Surface Laptop, whose key journey can be 1.3mm. Keyboards made by HP stay on my private Mt. Rushmore of laptop computer keyboards, however the Surface Laptop Studio calls for consideration, too.

Otherwise, the keyboard appears to be like similar to every other latest Surface, with no adjustments within the keys. There are three ranges of backlighting.

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The touchpad, although? Wow. The Surface Laptop Studio is Microsoft’s first touchpad with haptic suggestions, which means that you just’re not mechanically clicking a touchpad a lot because the touchpad is clicking you. Haptic suggestions is what smartphones just like the iPhone already add to supply tactile suggestions, nevertheless it feels so a lot better as a trackpad than as a smartphone characteristic. The completely large touchpad is easy and completely uniformly clickable over all the floor space. Gestures labored as anticipated, even the four-finger gestures wanted to swipe backwards and forwards between digital desktops. Using it brings to thoughts how Windows Hello face logins reworked the PC—it appears so intrinsically apparent. I can inform I’ll miss this touchpad after I return to different laptops.

The solely quirk I encountered was after I chosen a configuration choice in a recreation utilizing the touchpad, the sport interpreted it as a double click on, inputting my selection and a affirmation of that selection. The Windows 11 Settings menu consists of controls for each haptic suggestions and touchpad sensitivity to assist remedy issues like this.

Webcam improves, simply not as anticipated

Microsoft solely consists of one user-facing digicam on the Surface Laptop Studio, nevertheless it’s finest of sophistication. The colours and white steadiness do look higher than the Surface Book 3, Microsoft’s earlier high-water mark for digicam high quality. (The on-screen picture additionally appears to be like sharper, too, although that may very well be an artifact of the marginally lower-resolution display.) Though it’s unlikely that many individuals take images with their user-facing Surface digicam, the accessible decision choices have diminished significantly, to a most decision of 1920×1080.

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Microsoft additionally promised us that the digicam would use Windows Hello 2.0 know-how, which would come with the flexibility to log you in even with sun shades, a beard, or a surgical masks. That latter state of affairs isn’t true, because the laptop computer couldn’t acknowledge me whereas sporting a masks, and it wouldn’t let me create a facial profile whereas sporting a masks, both.

Excellent audio, too

Microsoft believes that the Surface Laptop Studio gives among the best aural experiences on a laptop computer, and I’m inclined to agree. Microsoft’s “quad Omnisonic” speaker system consists of each a tweeter and a woofer on both aspect, with the bass tones pushed out of the aspect grilles. The quantity is totally bombastic, to the purpose the place I dialed down the amount simply to select up the nuances of my recorded audio. Microsoft makes use of Dolby Atmos (for audio system and headphones) to reinforce the audio, although Microsoft hasn’t included an onboard Dolby app to fine-tune the highs and lows.

When we linked the Surface Laptop Studio to a first-generation Surface Dock, Windows 11 out of the blue couldn’t discover an audio supply. A reboot solved that downside.

Performance

Our evaluate unit shipped with Windows 11 put in, which can possible be the popular choice. For no matter purpose (a clear set up? Synergy between {hardware} and software program?) Windows 11 felt far much less laggy on this new Surface {hardware} than on our separate check PCs. Speaking of efficiency, some have questioned why Microsoft didn’t go for a six- or eight-core processor (or an AMD Ryzen) as an alternative of the quad-core H35 chip Intel debuted this spring for ultraportable gaming.

Still, the Surface Laptop Studio looks like it was tailored for content material creators who would usually be pushed up the wall by loud, noisy followers cooling a robust GPU. The Surface Laptop Studio isn’t fanless, however for the overwhelming majority of duties you’ll hear hardly a whisper from the Laptop Studio’s cooling system, as set within the default “Recommended” mode throughout the Windows 11 energy/efficiency settings. It’s solely once we tried gaming with the Laptop Studio did the fan actually dial up.

That could make a distinction the place efficiency is anxious, although. Normally we re-run our benchmarks a number of instances to generate constant outcomes, however the scores don’t range by that a lot. In locations, the Surface Laptop’s scores deviated considerably, main us to consider that one thing is occurring, whether or not it’s new {hardware}, new firmware, or some interplay inside Windows 11. There merely are too many variables to be completely certain.

From a sensible standpoint, nevertheless, the Surface Laptop Studio streamed 4K video with out even a single dropped body, a seamless expertise. Our evaluate unit additionally shipped with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti graphics chip with 4GB of GDDR6 VRAM inside. Nvidia’s RTX {hardware} is usually related to PC gaming, and its {hardware} raytracing capabilities may be seen in real-time reflections on damp roads in Forza Horizon 4. Forza, for that matter, hit a stable 60 FPS at 1080p decision on the Ultra high quality preset, indicative that the Surface Laptop 4 can be utilized for gaming and content material creation alike.

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Mark Hachman / IDG

We’ve in contrast the Surface Laptop Studio to a number of laptops, together with its religious predecessor, the Surface Book 3, highlighted in orange. We haven’t formally reviewed the $1,499 Acer ConceptD 3 Ezel, however we had been in a position to run our suite of benchmarks on it as an in depth and cheaper competitor. The HP Spectre x360 14 and Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 9310 aren’t designed as a lot for pen-centric content material creation because the Surface Laptop Studio, however they’re amongst our favourite laptops, too. The HP Envy 14 conventional clamshell targets content material creators, too, however for an extremely good worth of below $1,000. Finally, the odd Asus ZenBook Pro Duo 15 is a large powerhouse of a content-creation machine, however in a class of its personal, actually.

We apply a number of benchmarks to check laptops. The first, PCMark 10, applies a number of real-world exams, from videoconferencing to app startup to gentle gaming to CAD work, and generates a last rating. This typically exams simply the CPU, however graphics work like CAD asks one thing of the RTX graphics chip, too.

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The Cinebench R15 check was a little bit of a headscratcher, as we noticed an uncommon divergence of ends in these outcomes. Cinebench R15 asks the CPU to render a scene, utilizing the entire cores and threads to finish the duty. We shouldn’t count on that a lot, because the H35 chip contained in the Surface Laptop Studio is only a quad-core processor. (The single-thread consequence was 187.) We re-ran these exams a number of instances and noticed outcomes starting from 615 to 880. Really, although, it didn’t matter: the best rating Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Studio produced at default settings wouldn’t have moved the needle in our product rankings.

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We use the open-source Handbrake instrument to transcode a Hollywood film. The check measures how nicely the laptop computer can cool itself and protect a excessive clock fee and efficiency all through the duty.

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It’s value noting that we used a second test to see if the Surface Laptop Studio thermally throttled itself, working Cinebench R23 as soon as, after which looping it repeatedly for all through a ten-minute cycle. If the laptop computer was thermally constrained, its looped consequence ought to have been considerably lower than the only run. At a single-run rating of 4,750 versus 4,746 for the check loop, that merely isn’t the case.

Our last efficiency check makes use of the 3DMark Time Spy check for mainstream PCs. Naturally, we’d count on that the Surface Laptop Studio would outperform most of its competitors, because the RTX GPU propels it upward into the territory of gaming laptops. It certain does.

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Battery life, naturally, is vital as nicely. The Surface Book 3 slipped disappointingly right here, and we anticipated Microsoft returning to type with an all-day workhorse. We weren’t upset. But there are some caveats. By default, the Surface Laptop Studio will alter the display brightness in addition to tweak the content material to enhance battery life. (Turn off these tweaks and battery life plunges to 543 minutes, or simply over 9 hours.) We adjusted these choices to create a state of affairs during which we turned off the brightness sensor for repeatability, however left the content material choices unchanged. We carry out our battery check by looping a 4K video repeatedly till the laptop computer shuts itself down.

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Conclusion

What I referred to as soon as because the “Surface Laptop Book Studio” across the workplace nonetheless feels true. This is the area of interest product that, counter-intuitively, tries to do all of it. Microsoft has by no means shied away from asking for a premium worth the place Surfaces are involved, nevertheless, and so that you’ll pay slightly extra versus one other pocket book.

If you’re okay with not really detaching the pill, the Surface Laptop Studio does every part else that the Surface Book 3 does, functionally and arguably extra elegantly. Pull-forward two-in-ones really feel like they could find yourself dominating the class in a couple of years.

Overall, the Surface Laptop Studio is an effective laptop computer—if you happen to’re pondering of it as a laptop computer, that’s. It’s way more than the sum of its components, providing a superior content-creation and content-consuming expertise, plus some gentle gaming capabilities. It has some bugs to work out; new {hardware} plus a brand new working system plus new firmware inevitably generates glitches. And once more, you’ll additionally need to resolve whether or not this arguably area of interest gadget is definitely worth the funding, versus general-purpose notebooks which will supply extra worth. But Microsoft is unquestionably onto one thing with this radical do-it-all pocket book.

Yes, it’s a distinct segment product for now, however the Surface Laptop Studio appears to be providing us a glimpse of the long run, too.