On Geekbench 5, Intel's Core i7 scored an average of 1,485 on single-core and 5,409 on multi-core.
Benchmarks aren't everything when it comes to determining if a laptop is any good, but the numbers don't lie. It's true: Apple's M1 chip is more powerful than Intel's 11th-gen Core i7 chip. Important RAW files into Lightroom slower on Surface Laptop 4 versus Apple’s M1 MacBook Air.
I'm glad Windows Hello sign-in didn't get replaced by a fingerprint reader like on the Surface Laptop Go it's way more natural to open the lid and login than reach over to a biometric scanner.
If there's any feature Microsoft really should have improved, it's the dinky 720p webcam - it's average and a bump up to 1080p or an upgraded sensor for our Zoom reality would have been appreciated. And the touchscreen is responsive, as is the Alcantara-covered tactile keyboard and smooth trackpad. The magnetic Surface Connect port is as useful as ever. The rest of the Surface Laptop 4 is copy and pasted from the Laptop 3, too. Do razor-thin bezels really matter at the end of the day? But if that bothers you, look into an HP Spectre x360 or Dell XPS 13 - they'll have you covered. Do razor-thin bezels really matter at the end of the day? I'll take better CPU and graphics performance or longer battery life over slimmer bezels any day. It's still a sturdy clamshell, but four iterations in, it’s looking a little dated, especially the thicker bezels surrounding the bright and high-res 13.5-inch 3:2 PixelSense touchscreen. For four straight generations, Microsoft's stuck with a CNC'd aluminum wedge design. Same outfitįrom a design standpoint, the Surface Laptop 4 hasn't changed, unless you count the new Ice Blue color. What I can say is that the version I've been testing is very good -again, not M1 MacBook Pro good - but by far still my favorite thin-and-light Windows laptop. I know, it's confusing, and I hate that Microsoft has made it harder for consumers to choose. Which version do you pick? It comes down to this: AMD is for most people doing basic computing things (web browsing, watching movies, working with documents, and light photo and video editing) and Intel is for that extra power. I've been using the $1,699.99 version with Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage.Īs you can see, there's a split between AMD and Intel (11th-gen) processors. The Surface Laptop 4 starts at $999.99, which comes with an AMD Ryzen 5 4680U chip, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. Microsoft doesn't rock the boat in any way. (Unless you're gaming on your laptop in which case it goes without saying that you should get something beefier with a discrete GPU). Like its predecessor, it remains the Windows laptop I recommend to anyone shopping for a new device. (If none of the ones above jump out, then clearly the Laptop 4 isn’t for you). Intel performance is good, but not M1 good, and battery life is solid, but not Apple god level.īut even without a chip that rivals the M1, the Surface Laptop 4 is a robust laptop with plenty of features to like. The Surface Laptop 4 can't match either spec. The M1 MacBook Pro has none of these features.Īpple's M1 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro upped the ante with class-leading battery life and performance. It has a proper row of function / media keys instead of a Touch Bar. There's an M2 SSD that's easily user-replaceable. I can login just by looking at the screen. It has a touchscreen with Surface Pen support, a magnetic port for charging, a USB-C and a USB-A port. If the SP8 has a significantly better battery life I'll probably seriously consider it, I've got lots peripherals I'd love to reuse.The best thing about the Surface Laptop 4 is that it's not a MacBook. Though I love the form factor, I'm really on the fence about picking up a SP as my next device.
The 2017 model at least has huge pen jitter issues which made writing out full notes a nightmare. The battery life is a huge bummer as the battery degraded real quickly. Overall though part of me wonders whether I should have got an iPad (+ separate laptop) instead. Don't underestimate drawing circles and arrows!
That being said, one time I had left my pen at my parents' place and found the lack of pen disrupted my workflow so much that I asked them to mail it over to me. I started off writing out all my notes, but my pace of handwriting just wasn't fast enough to keep up with lecture slides so most of my penning eventually boiled down to circling things and drawing arrows and occasional annotations rather than fully written notes. The pen is nice for note taking and marking up lecture slides. Didn't use it at all in hospital, though I do enjoy tablet mode at home eg. Used a Surface Pro (2017 model) throughout med school.