More than surface appeal
MICROSOFT’S FINALLY RELEASED A SURFACE LAPTOP THAT’S BUILT FOR THE MAINSTREAM — AND MIGHT JUST BE THE MOST APPEALING WINDOWS ULTRABOOK EVER MADE.
WHILE ITS EMPIRE may have been built on software, over the last five years, Microsoft has had to reinvent itself in the face of changing tech times — and one area where it’s seen some surprisingly success is as a maker of innovative and fantastically designed computing hardware. While Apple has always been seen as major tech-hardware trendsetter, Microsoft has become a trailblazer in its own right, stepping up to produce a number of products that give the Cupertino company a run for its money. With its Surface Pro line, Microsoft virtually created the 2-in-1 market, which now completely overshadows the flatlining tablet trade. With its more-recent Surface Book convertible laptop, it engineered one of the best MacBook Pro competitors to date. And with the pricey yet gorgeous Surface Studio, the Redmond company has entered the all-in-one space, with a futuristic PC design that makes Apple’s iMac range seem stodgy by comparison.
The real missing piece in Microsoft’s PC lineup has been an affordable all-rounder laptop. With the arrival of the Surface Laptop, that gap’s now been filled. This is an ultrabook aimed squarely at the MacBook Air — it’s perfect for students and people who don’t necessarily need top-level performance in order to be productive. Starting at $1,499 for the Core i5/128GB/4GB RAM config (which is what we tested for this review), that price makes the Surface Laptop $50 cheaper than Apple’s entrylevel MacBook Air. You can go gruntier if you want to, however, with Microsoft offering four
Surface Laptop variants available in Australia, which each bumping the price up by around $500 and peaking with a top-of-the-line $3,299 model, which comes with 512GB of storage, an Intel Core i7 processor and 16GB of RAM.
YOU SEXY MOTHER
The first thing you’ll notice about the Surface Laptop is that it’s an astonishingly wellappointed piece of kit. It’s got an aluminium body that, unlike Apple’s more rounded MacBook products, is made up of flat, clean lines — the only additional flourish being the mirrored Windows logo in the middle of its lid, giving the unit an extra level of sleek sophistication. Side-on, it looks sharp and angular, like the laptop-equivalent of an ‘80s Lamborghini. On the left side, you’ll find a single full-sized USB 3.0 port (Microsoft reckons USB Type-C still isn’t ready for prime time), a mini DisplayPort output and a 3.5mm headphone jack, while the right side houses the unit’s power connector port and nothing else — we would’ve loved to have seen another USB 3.0 port on this side, as having just one is quite limiting. What you won’t see anywhere are the device’s speakers — don’t worry, they’re just hidden under the keyboard, and they sound surprisingly good for such a slim device.
Flip the lid open and the gorgeousness continues, with a keyboard area decked out in swanky Alcantara — a synthetic suede-like material that can also be found in the interiors of many luxury cars from manufacturers like Tesla and Ferrari. That said, some car enthusiasts do think the material is overhyped, pointing out that, despite being sold as an extravagant extra, it doesn’t cost much to manufacture and can also be found in the cheapest automobiles in the world. It also has a reputation for wearing quickly and becoming stained when placed in direct contact with human skin — like it will be here on the Laptop’s palm rests. Still, it feels smoother and less furry than you’d expect, and we have to wonder how quickly it will become worn and dirty looking with daily use, but it’s remarkably comfortable to rest your wrists on while typing — no cold metal here.
CLASSY INPUTS
Speaking of typing, the Surface Laptop’s keyboard is one of the best we’ve ever used on a laptop, with quiet, springy keys that feel sturdy and have a nice travel distance. Below the keyboard, there’s a 125mm clickable trackpad, though you can also opt to use the Surface Laptop’s 13.5-inch touchscreen and stab or swipe at things with your fingers.
The IPS display is beautiful, using the Surface line’s trademark, productivity-friendly 3:2 aspect ratio and a slightly higher-than-usual 2,256 x 1,504-pixel resolution that’s enough to keep everything crisp and sharp, plus of course, there’s its compatibility with the Surface Pen thanks to Microsoft’s PixelSense touchscreen tech. The Pen is an optional extra, but grab one and you’ll be able to annotate your work, draw on websites viewed on Microsoft Edge and much more. The Laptop also supports the recently-released Surface Dial, adding an extra layer of interactivity to your work. Its thin 10mm bezel (the MacBook Air’s is around 18mm) houses a 720p webcam as well as a dedicated Windows Hello face sign-in camera, which makes logins a breeze via facial recognition.
A ‘NEW’ WINDOWS
The release of the Surface Laptop also marks the debut of Microsoft’s newest OS, Windows 10 S. This is essentially a streamlined version of Windows 10 Pro that, like somewhat Apple’s iOS platform, implements strict limitations on third-party apps and will only let you download and install these from Microsoft’s own Windows Store. Because of this approach, the Surface Laptop runs incredibly fast, with snappy performance and a boot-up time of just 15 seconds. It arguably also makes the Laptop more secure, as it completely prevents unapproved programs and executable files from running — try to launch one and you’ll just get a pop-up window explaining that only Store apps (those built using Microsoft’s Universal Windows Platform, or UWP, architecture) are supported by 10 S. That could be seen as either the Surface Laptop’s biggest selling point or its biggest flaw, depending on what you want out of the machine and who’s using it.
Microsoft tried this locked-down approach back in 2011 with the ill-fated Windows RT, but it’s not entirely the same situation this time. For one, the Windows Store has somewhat improved from the barren wasteland it once was: there’s now over 700,000 of these UWP apps to choose from — although there are still many, many gaps in what’s available.
THE APP CAPABILITY GAP
For users, the main problem is that UWP apps
aren’t allowed the same level of access to OS features, which means some functionality is limited and many of the more complex programs are completely AWOL from the Store. Popular media player app VLC, for instance, does offer a UWP Windows Store version, but it lacks many of the capabilities of the standard version, and the Store page description even tells prospective downloaders to go and seek out the ‘real’ version instead.
Apart from Microsoft’s Office suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and so on), you also won’t find many ‘pro’ apps on the Store. Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite isn’t available, for example, although the consumer Elements versions of Photoshop and Premiere are on there. Another category of app you won’t find is big web browsers — like Chrome, Opera and Firefox — so in that area, you’re basically stuck with Microsoft Edge, which on 10 S is also locked to Bing for its search engine.
That app shortcoming isn’t a complete wash, however. Many of us spend a lot of our time (both for work and play) in a web browser anyway, and Edge is a serviceable and speedy — if somewhat no-frills — way of getting around the web. Edge’s functionality has also improved drastically since it first launched with Windows 10, largely thanks to the addition of extension support. There’s now a decent range of these, including the likes of LastPass (our favourite password manager), story-saving utility Pocket and even popular ad-blockers such as uBlock Origin and Ghostery.
And true to Microsoft’s word, using the Surface Laptop with 10 S is a slick experience that maintains good performance — and we clocked 12.5 hours of movie playback in 10 S, versus just 10.5 hours after switching to 10 Pro.
DON’T LIKE 10 S? THEN DITCH IT
Microsoft is hedging its OS bets on the Surface Laptop, too, and while the company would obviously prefer if you stuck with its walledgarden Windows, if you really don’t like 10 S, then thankfully upgrading to Windows 10 Pro is both free and fast. Just a few confirmatory clicks and a roughly five-minute wait will seamlessly switch you over to the real-deal Windows, keeping all your data, settings and user accounts intact. This free upgrade is available until the end of 2017; it’s still available after that, but will cost you $75.
So how does the device perform with Windows 10 Pro? Still quite well, as it happens. Most of our benchmarks were unable to run on 10 S, making a direct objective comparison between it and 10 Pro rather difficult, the Surface Laptop still did well compared to other ultrabooks, lasting around 5 hours in the tough PCMark 8 Home (Accelerated) battery test — from experience, we’ve found that’s enough to get you a good 7–8 hours screen time with low to moderate use.
Elsewhere, the Laptop’s performance results were about on par for a midrange Core i5 device — it’s certainly capable of the day-to-day basics, including photo editing and even a bit of 1080p video editing. The only slightly sore spot we found was the SSD — it’s got nice fast read speeds, topping out at around 650MB/s, but write speeds lag at about half that; they’re less than they should be for what’s otherwise a ‘premium’ device.
DOES WINDOWS FINALLY HAVE ITS MACBOOK AIR KILLER?
There’s no denying that, in most areas, this is one of the most appealing Windows ultrabooks we’ve ever tested. The build-quality is first-rate in most areas, and it manages to replicate the ‘tough and robust but still friendly’ feel that’s helped make Apple’s MacBook Air so popular.
Windows 10 S also turns out to be a bit of a non-issue. The fact that Microsoft is letting buyers upgrade to Windows 10 Pro for free — and that this process is so quick and seamless — means that buyers can play around with 10 S for a day or two and see if it suits. If it doesn’t, you can switch to the ‘real’ version of Windows in the time it takes to make tea.
For a device of this calibre, the price is fair, too. Yes, there’s a bit of the Australia Tax here (this entry-level model sells for US$999 in the States) but that’s par for the course with ultrabooks. So does this beat our previous favourite Windows ultrabook, Dell’s XPS 13? That’s almost impossible to answer and will come down to personal preference — but the Surface Laptop’s slightly cleaner and leaner design and 3:2 display will certainly win a lot of converts in that contest. Not quite an XPS 13 or MacBook Air beater, then — but certainly an equal almost everywhere it counts.
IT’S GOT AN ALUMINIUM BODY THAT, UNLIKE APPLE’S MORE ROUNDED MACBOOK PRODUCTS, IS MADE UP OF FLAT, CLEAN LINES — THE ONLY ADDITIONAL FLOURISH BEING THE MIRRORED WINDOWS LOGO IN THE MIDDLE OF ITS LID, GIVING THE UNIT AN EXTRA LEVEL OF SLEEK SOPHISTICATION.