SURFACE PRO 7
Can the latest flagship hybrid from Microsoft overpower its competition?
£1,499 (From £899) microsoft.com
Microsoft has come out hitting hard with the new Surface range, releasing the Surface Pro 7, the Surface Pro X and the Surface Laptop 3. Two Pro tablets? That’s a bold move.
Granted, they serve different markets; the Pro X is a higher-price, sleeker new professional tablet, while the Pro 7 is a potentially more affordable version that has a lot more in common with the older Surface Pro models – so much that it actually feels a little lazy. Yes, that is a bit uncharitable of us, but comparing it even back to the Surface Pro 4, you can barely tell the difference. Three generations of the Surface Pro have come and gone with only the slightest hint of design innovation. The bezel looks large for a tablet in 2019; the kickstand feels a bit more robust but appears no different.
The Surface Pro X shakes things up, and given the mere weeks between their launches, it surprises us that the Pro 7 looks so… well, normal. It’s still a lovely design that
feels well-made, but it’s simply not exciting any more.
The rear and sides of the Pro 7 are solid metal, which gives the chassis a sturdy feel but is liable to scuff should you drop it. The screen is fairly well protected by the metal encircling it, and looks as bright and colourful as ever, testament to the display quality of the Surface line.
As any Surface owners will know, the Pro 7 looks incomplete without its keyboard cover. We’ve got the Signature Type Cover in a dark ochre, which snaps satisfyingly onto the base of the Pro 7 with its magnetic clasp. The Pro 7 itself is an all-black affair, and with the Type Cover attached looks particularly classy.
But there’s a tell-tale problem on the box of the keyboard: “for Surface Pro 5, 6 and 7”. This piece of hardware hasn’t been changed for three generations, and of course the Pro X has its own unique version. We suspect that the ethos here was ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.
The role of the Surface is a halfwayhouse between tablet and laptop, and Microsoft’s design choices certainly reflect that. The Type Cover’s keyboard still feels good to use, far better than the Touch Cover (which uses capacity pads instead of physical keys).
Under the hood
The Surface Pro 7 does differ from its forefathers in one very key regard: the internal hardware. This tablet is rocking one of Intel’s new 10thgeneration CPUs, which not only brings improved general performance over older processors, but also comes equipped with Intel’s new Iris Plus integrated graphics – provided, that is, you don’t buy the version with an i3 processor.
Our unit has a quad-core i71065G7 processor and 16GB of RAM, making it the most powerful version of the Pro 7 (although this model only has 256GB of storage, which can go up to 1TB). This model is currently priced at £1,449, but more on that later.
The difference is significant; the newer processors offer performance improvements of around 20% over the Surface Pro 6. It’s more competent in every area, whether that’s 3D rendering, video encoding or crunching equations. It’s worth noting that if you’re looking to do serious professional studio work like 4K video editing, you’re still probably going to want a proper laptop.
The new Iris Plus graphics make a huge difference, though. Gaming in 1080p is actually viable here – not at ultra settings, certainly, but good enough for a spot of Fortnite if you have a mouse. We tested a handful of games (including Portal, Dirty Bomb, Everspace and, you guessed it, Crysis) and it handled most of them pretty well.
Unfortunately, this powered-up performance has come at a cost. The Pro 7’s battery is pretty lacklustre, falling short of the older Pro 6 in battery life tests. It can hit the advertised 10.5-hour battery life from full charge if you’re simply word processing, but in practical terms any strenuous tasks will cut that in half or worse, though this is typical for laptops with a bit of grunt to them.
Movie playback affects the battery pretty badly too, unfortunately, but it’ll comfortably play a movie at full volume without needing to be charged. It’s by no means a dealbreaker, but we just wish the battery had a little bit more juice. At least it charges quickly, using Microsoft’s proprietary Surface Connect port.
Clean windows
One of the weirdly most attractive features of the Surface tablets remains present: Windows 10, issued directly from Microsoft, free of annoying bloatware apps or custom Android user interfaces. It’s instantly familiar and software-compatible, and lacks any extra irritations.
Then there’s all the usual stuff: Windows Hello for facial recognition login, tablet mode for easy on-themove changes, Your Phone sync for connecting with Android devices. Of particular mention is the instant-on performance: the Pro 7 boots seriously fast, and with Windows Hello active it can be unlocked before you’ve even finished opening the Type Cover.
The Pro 7 also now has USB-C support, a huge boon for modern connectivity and compatibility, and keeps one conventional USB port to ensure that older hardware is still usable. The USB-C port doesn’t have Thunderbolt 3 data transfer speeds, but it’s still a good addition.
This Surface also comes equipped with superior Surface Pen sensitivity along with gesture control, features that were introduced in previous models and remain backwards-compatible here. If you already own the new-model Surface Pen, it performs better than ever here.
Peripherals are a pretty big deal for Microsoft with the Surface range. The
Pro 7 represents maybe the last chance to flog the older Type Cover and Surface Pen designs, if the different design of the Pro X take off, since it uses different keyboard and a slimmer pen with wireless charging.
The issue here – and this is an issue with Microsoft peripherals in general – is the pricing. The Surface Pen’s price of £100 is not out of kilter with the likes of Apple’s Pencil, but that just makes them both alarmingly expensive, frankly, despite both offering admittedly excellent performance. For digital artists, the Surface Pen is certainly a worthy addition, although we think a dedicated Wacom tablet outranks the Surface series for art.
The current Type Cover is a nice piece of hardware - we particularly like the luxurious woven Alcantara fabric backing (though it can wear awkwardly over time) and the soft white key backlighting - but it isn’t really worth the £140+ Microsoft charges for it. The keys feel nice to use and the keyboard is responsive, so we’d say it’s certainly still the most essential piece of extra kit in the Surface’s repertoire.
The same cannot be said about the Arc Mouse, Microsoft’s ‘artful’ solution to the bulk of the traditional computer mouse. Designed to work best with the Surface, the Arc Mouse is a wireless Bluetooth mouse that folds in half, and turns on when you unfold it. It feels a bit flimsy, and there aren’t distinct left and right buttons. For £70, it’s hard to recommend over any third-party wireless mouse, which will probably be more responsive, too.
Strong performer
We honestly do like the Surface Pro 7 – quite a lot. It’s a powerful tablet that doubles as a perfectly competent laptop, although actually trying to position it on your lap with the keyboard is an exercise in futility.
We just wish Microsoft had been a little braver in the design department. The Pro 7 is unexciting; good, but unexciting. If you’ve got a bigger budget, the Pro X is the sleeker, sexier option, but its Qualcomm processor makes it a bit of unknown right now in terms of usefulness – until we can get a chance to review it. If you want a tablet with a battery capable of supporting all-day work, the Pro 6 is actually the better choice.
The improved graphics and upgraded connectivity are what shines about this product. It’s more powerful than the Pro X, so it is the better option for content creators and gamers in all likelihood, though take the latter with a pinch of salt, because this is still no true gaming laptop.
The Pro 7 is multipurpose. It might not do anything the best – cheaper laptops can outpace it in terms of raw performance – but it does just about everything pretty well. If you’re looking for a really flexible tablet for work and pleasure combined, the Surface Pro 7 is a very good choice.