I just got the base model of the Surface Pro 11 and I got it because I will be traveling with work. So this is perfect as a second personal device to take.
I am a student. The ability to carry one single device, use pen to jot notes. Come home and plug that to monitors with excellent battery life. There is no device like it.
The use case that works for my wife is as a student. First as a tablet with a stylus to take notes in class, then later in the library with its keyboard cover to type things up, and then finally at home as a desktop replacement, with it connected to a 27 inch monitor and full size keyboard. The drawback is when it comes to taking notes in class using it as a tablet, it weighs a ton compared to iPads.
I agree with those that want versatility. Be able to do productivity tasks want taet features like handwriting notes but don't want to carry more than 1 device if for the people this for.
@Garrus-w2h geeze. I got the basic model for 899 then a 65 dollar clearance at best buy keyboard and slim pen model that was open box. Works great as it is still less heavy then a laptop and when I ain't gaming (I have a gaming laptop) and am in a meeting or juts doing productivity it works great for my needs.
Used a surface pro 8 for 2 years a s a CGI artist having to visit family home for longer periods of time, plugged it into two monitors and connected with my workstation in my flat. Worked like that for 6 months and then another 2 very successfully. While at home I used it as media device, music listening (dac and headphones), for reading comics, on holidays for watching movies in hotel room with my gf....I mean, I LOVE this thing And it proved suprisingly well built, running 2 extra screens at 1440p for teamviewer + native screen for youtube distraction while working, got really hot during summer but never failed me once..
Unfortunately this is the perspective missed by many reviewers. I’m fully convinced that as a reviewer you cannot put yourself in the shoes of different consumers with different needs. For many people I know, the surface pro is an outstanding device.
I know the title is supposed to mean "The Surface pro 13 inch" but considering that all the surface pro are 13 inch I think calling it the surface pro 11 is better so no one will confuse it with the surface pro 9, 8 or 10.
I normally agree with Josh but having used this machine travelling extensively between europe, USA and niddle east, I have left my M4 iPad at home as it could not compete with the surface pro and my macbook pro stays with it. I use it for heavy duty content development, presentations, database management and management of resesrch programs. Battery life, speed are all amazing and when in the office it easily runs two extra screens. I'm not a reviewer but a practical user, and the surface pro has been worth every bit of investment.
Would you write the exact specification (CPU, display and RAM) of your surface pro? I am considering to drop tablet and laptop for a single device. Thanks!
All the reviews, including this one, I have watched so far all mention that Surface Pro is heavier than iPad and Yes it is, BUT it is actually lighter when you use the device with keyboard. Apple's magic keyboard is magically heavier than iPad itself, making it heavier than Surface and some thin laptops. And I think this is really worth mentioning because when people want to use it for productivity purposes, they will most likely use it with a keyboard.
I think it matters when someone use it like a hand-hold tablet device. detach the keyboard and only use the top half, and this is when the weight matters. in terms of laptop use, tbf no one cares about less than 500 grams of weight difference when purchasing a laptop device. So having an excellent keyboard experience with some compromises on weight is totally acceptable.
Microsoft has marketed this thing as a laptop replacement since the start so I think comparing the weight to an iPad is just stupid. It's still lighter than the majority of laptops in its class.
It’s also very clear that Josh didn’t actually weigh the device himself and even misleadingly rounded up the officially overestimated weight of 895g to 900g, while using precise figures for the other devices in his graph, for a more dramatic effect. People who actually weighed their SP11s have reported weights in the range of 865g-878g for LCD and 878g-883g for OLED. I suspect that the official 895g is a margin for the upcoming 5G version. Also, he didn't take the built-in kickstand and enhanced structural rigidity into account, and the fact that you rarely have to hold a big tablet suspended in mid-air for extended periods of time, since the load is almost always shared with your hips, legs, or stomach.
iPad is only good with artists. There is no need at all for students to pay more for iPad while Xiaomi Pad 6 even covered all student needs with much much more affordable keyboard and wider app selections.
Surface Pro is an amazing device for college. I used an SP4 for my undergrad. Light, thin, and small. Took the keyboard off and handwrote all my notes in onenote. Attached the keyboard when i needed to code (comp sci major). Also, digital artists
Josh you got 5 hours at full brightness because display consumes most power at those high nits. Even MacBook can't last most than 8hrs at full brightness. It's MS fault to not have good anti reflective coating because, with that coating, you can get by with 350 nits indoors. That would double the battery life
usually quite agree with ur review but today not really with yours.. i have the surface pro 11 and its the best surface pro ever (i have SP2/4/6/8) u need something that can replace ur laptop with a stylus, and doing some work outside home, with the comfort of a touchscreen + pen.. no other device can do that.
I can tell you who the Surface is for - its the Best of both worlds. its not a great tablet and not a great laptop, but it can do both pretty okay. I Use it as my Main Device every day as a master of electrician. In the Moring i use it for Office Work and ansering Mails. While the Workday i use it mostly in Tablet mode to comment and edit PDF Files (Wiring Diagrams) , take notes while im at the Customers house with the key in Onenote (Sync them Right to the Cloud so my Office knows what the Customer wants) and Work with it with some electrican exclusive Programs (ETS 4 and 5) to Programm Smart Homes. (These are Windows Exclusive Programs ) In the Evening i can use it to do more office work while Plugged in into my main Monitor and external keyboard. When i want to i use my External-GPU Setup to play some games with it. EGPU Isnt supportet yet on the ARM Plattform so i will wait a litte bit longer ... So its almost the perfect device for me, when the 5G Version will arrive i will Probaly upgrade from my SP9 to SP11 to get more connectivity. I Have a Ipad Pro M2, i was sure it will replace my SP9, but cant get even close, in the end i use my Ipad only for webbrowsing and netflix / youtube. It can take notes too and do it really well, but when im on my way to a customer i cant switch it into a full productivity device and run real applications on it, so its just a really really expensive toy Best Regards
I have been using my Surface Pro 11 X Elite for 2 weeks now and I absolutely love it. Battery life, contrary to Josh, is great. I only manage to get about 2 to 3 hours from my Lenovo Yoga 7 i7 (bought last year), while I can get 6 to 7 hours from the Surface. This is one review that I have to disagree with Josh on. Weight is great, portability, no issues at all with the apps. Important to get all the updates done when you first get your Surface Pro 11.
Good to hear! My wife wanted one for Christmas, so I bought her the Surface Pro 11 X Plus in the sapphire color, matching keyboard, and pen. She wants it to work on stuff with it on the coffee table and to pick up and go, when going to her Mom’s house. Hopefully, she likes it. I still have my Surface Pro 4 w/ i5 processor and it still works like a champ!
Too expensive for those people, at least this OLED version. Chromebooks are the main school and college go-to device. Especially, as I understand at the moment, the Snapdragon chip does not run many educational software. It's a premium device and not really for the average education budget.
This beats an iPad though. My Surface Pro X had the software my iPad Pro didn’t for college. iPad just has mobile apps and Chromebooks don’t have the necessary exam taking software. Surface Pro is portable and has a stylus support. Perfect for notetaking.
When I was teaching years ago, the school gave us Surface Pro's 7's. They were the best for grading, research, and presentations/teaching. I loved using whiteboard and mirroring to projectors.
I am a teacher and I use surface pro since Version 4. I like the "you can do it all" approach. Since I teach chemistry, math, physics and technology like 3d printing I geht every Software I need, sometimes eben very old Software like Chemsketch. The price is irrelevant, since I buy These items once every 4 years. I got an Ipad from my School and never used it since it would be too much of an hassle to find workarounds for everything I use so far. I hatte the battery life and that it is not really "lap operatable". For my next device I might opt for a 360 convertible like the HP spectre.
Just for anyone who cares: I love this device outside. Coffee shop outside table, no issue seeing everything. Slightly brighter than my MacBook pro m1. Was a little thrown by his comment.
I think this device is best for students. I bought the SP7 years ago and have used it throughout my undergraduate studies in statistics, and now my graduate statistics program. I take notes in class, I use Rstudio, SAS, and VScode for all my python machine learning code and it works perfectly for all of these things. It's really nice to be able to go from taking notes in class to connecting it to an extended monitor and coding my ML stuff. At the end of the day, I will also just lay in bed and watch RUclips on it. Maybe any professionals that need to take notes or write would also benefit from this. My only gripe is the battery life. It's really disappointing to hear that this new Qualcomm chip only provides only an extra hour or so to what I get right now. But, as a student, I take notes while in class, and then in between classes I just go to my office and connect to monitor and charge. I also keep a really great power bank with me. Regardless of the battery, I have LOVED this device for school.
The iPad is misleading as it is not the competition for the Surface Pro; the actual rivals are 2-in-1s on the Windows end, which are less compromised and a lot cheaper. iPads are tablets first, and the Surface Pro is a laptop foremost and irrelevant as a tablet-even MS no longer calls it that and has mothballed Android-on-Windows-subsystem.
@andyH_England Actually, the only reason I didn't get this Surface Pro was because it is running an ARM SoC instead of something from Intel or AMD. Because I use Linux, ARM for now is a no go and also limits apps you can use in Windows.
@@cameronbosch1213 I like the SP11 despite my negativity. My main point was really the false promises of the sponsored reviews. The battery life has to be as advertised to persuade me to buy into Snapdragon with all its compromises. It isn't and was, therefore, a no-go for me.
@@andyH_England It's not a tablet first option, I agree on that. But it CAN definitely be used as a tablet for taking notes, drawing something simple, signing documents, news and ebook reading, watching videos, and so on. The bottom line is that if you need a laptop AND a tablet on the go, it's almost perfect.
My primary device is a desktop PC and I need a secondary device for work/multimedia when I travel or for the bed/couch use. I had a Macbook Air, I used it during travel but at home it was collecting dust 99% of the time because its inconvenient to use in bed. Now I swapped it for the Surface Pro 11 and I use it all the time as a tablet at home + as a work laptop when I travel. I got a tablet "hand" stand on Amazon that I put near my bed that holds the Surface right infront of my face when I'm lying in bed, its SO convenient. I also got a small foldable table stand for 20$ on Amazon to lift surface closer to my eyes when I'm working since Bluetooth keyboard allows it. For my use case Surface is way better so I sold my Macbook Air.
I have an iPad and MacBook and really considering selling both to get surface pro but I would still need to shell out money because it’s so expensive, m1 iPad Pro and m1 mbp
@@baldeeptiwana battery is better than intel laptops but still behind macbooks. I get about 8 hours on full charge on 75% brightness, doing mostly light use like browsing, watching videos and streams, some coding. Heavier tasks consume battery faster.
Good review, but there are some things you say that I can't really understand the logic behind: 1. You say that because it's 13", and not 13.8", it's too small. Well, in my view even my 16" laptop is not as large as I'd like it to be, so for me even 13.8" is way to small. But that's the point: some people do prefer the 13.8" over my 16" laptop, and I am pretty sure some people would prefer the 13" super-compact tabelt-laptop here than a heavier, larger 13.8" normal laptop. I don't really understand these people - but I know they exist... 2. You give the battery life figure under normal use, which I really appreciate. I think these tests that other RUclipsrs use, where they, for instance, dim the screen to 50% of its brightness, are stupid. Why would I buy a laptop with a bright screen and then dim it so much so that it becomes hard to use? However, you say "5 hours of normal use", without comparing it to other laptops. That makes it meaningless, because it's not as if your point is: "laptops suck, don't buy them", but rather that you hint that other laptops achieve better results than those 5 hours. Which other laptops? How much better? What are their drawbacks?
Wow, for someone who prides themselves on being accurate, you are being EXTREMELY disingenuous here when you said you can get the SL7 and an iPad (+ Apple Pencil + Magic Keyboard) for less than the corresponding SP11. You are talking about an entirely different screen size for the iPad. For individuals who do a lot of PDF annotations and handwriting, a large pen-compatible canvas is paramount. So you SHOULD be comparing the SP11 to the 13" iPad Pro, not the 13" Air (lacks ProMotion, lacks OLED), and CERTAINLY NOT the 10.9" model. Hence, you have failed to acknowledge that for people who need to lug around a tablet and laptop for all their use cases in a day, the SP11 fits in that workflow perfectly while not only costing less, but also weighing less and occupying less space than the combination of SL7 + 13" iPad. This is the exact reason why anyone should get the Surface Pro family of devices, and it baffles me that an 'expert' such as yourself has such difficulty deciphering that.
Not to mention you can dock it and use it with a bigger display when needed. It is the perfect device and now with the new chips it has even more promise. I want one but I already have a MacBook Pro and iPad that work fine and if I sold them I’d still have to make up the difference in cash for surface pro so I’m waiting to get it used next year lol
I'm a researcher and my daily activities can be summarized as: reading papers, writing papers, coding, thinking and teaching. For this set of activities the surface form factor is just unmatched. It's very light so traveling is easy (and I travel a lot) but you can snap it with a monitor and keyboard and you have a great system when you need more screen space. Not the beefiest of the machines but if you need something really powerful then servers/cloud is the way.
You have to factor in the dock. People who use it as a Desktop but also want a laptop or tablet for on the go are the target buyers. Yes you can do the same with most laptops, but none of them are also a tablet and in the end, small and light is still small and light. This then becomes the "one" device. No copying, no worrying if you uploaded to the cloud. It's all there on your one device. Great for business travellers who live in constant fear of forgetting something on the office computer. If Apple was smart, they could do that with their iPhones but that would require making IOS useful - and open. Microsoft was moving in this direction with the Windows phone. Like many Microsoft ideas, a little too early to the game. Imagine a world where every hotel, every office desk every bedroom, had a USB-C dock with keyboard and screen and you just plugged your phone into it. There is no technical reason we couldn't have this today.
Thanks for the review. I‘ve had mine for 1-2 weeks by now and think its the perfect replacement for my iPad (100%) and my Macbook (60%) for most cases. It does what i used my ipad for but much better in almost every way, like proper file handling, offline sync of dropbox and real applications. Aside from the drawbacks you pointed out (lap usage) it does it so well, i dont need to bring both my iPad and my Macbook everywhere. Macbook only for heavy video editing now TL;DR: The surface is a much more useful tablet than the iPad and an okay replacement for a laptop in a pinch.
@@IVANTRADESGOLD not really in my opinion. even the apps that are native arm, do quickly push it to its limits. maybe with more optimization it will get better
for digital artist who use a windows drawing and painting apps. This thing will be perfect! Comapre to Ipad that being limited with it's own OS. With Surface you can combine it with some 3d apps to help you creating a background in case you are a webtoonist or comic artist. And since it's using Windows operating systems, you can access all the feature from that digital art apps like Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator Etc
The only reviewer to find the Snapdragon X elite laptops to have subpar battery life. I really have no idea what they're smoking but all the X elite laptops I've tested have waaaay better battery life than any Intel or AMD laptop I've ever owned. I'm averaging 13 hours 45 minutes per 100% charge on my slim 7x, and that's over 40 days of use (very large sample size). It's literally never lasted less than 10 hours based on powercfg.
Thank you, Ziggy. For thr other connebter. I have always stated they have better battery than Intel and AMD's older processors. Also, I know you compared us to all other reviewers. Many of the majors are being paid by Qualcomm. So it doesn't surprise me we are saying different things.
@@ZiggyMercury yes. 100% at all times but you have to use dark mode wherever possible. That’s the advantage of OLED, no backlight so you can keep the power consumption low by not using white backgrounds but still leave the brightness at 100%
@@JustJoshTech no offense Josh but not every reviewer gets paid. I’m not a tech reviewer and I know Qualcomm has delivered a chip that is great for general use. Your battery life tests (30 minutes of cinebench) are out of touch with what people care about.
@SpanishCandle I have said in every video that they are great for general use. Even my first video Warning buyers about the over promises. Please go back and watch it. My issue is that they are being presented as M series equivalents. They absolutely are not
I have spent the last 3 months trying to find the best laptop that is good for my work, light weighted, can connect to multiple screens easily, do not have annoying fan noise, and have a charming display. I have read tons of research and gone through all the videos I can possibly find, and purchased a few different ones and finally decided on the surface pro because (1) With the keyboard, it is still 100 grams lighter than the macbook air M3 13 inch (2) It can connect to multiple external screens easily while the macbook air M3 is lacking in this perspective (3) I contacted my work's tech support, apparently they get more complaints of using Mac OS to connect to Citrix than using Windows OS (4) The device's display is great, compared to the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (5) I also tried the Lenovo X1 Carbon Gen 12, but its fan noise was unbearable, so had to return it. Overall, this Surface Pro 11 is a much better option than all of those I tried: Macbook Air M3 13 inch, ASUS zenbook 14 OLED, and Lenovo X1 Carbon Gen 12.
I think this device is pretty good for travellers who only travel with hand baggage. The surface pro is small and lightweight (smaller and lighter than a real laptop), yet powerful. So you can take it with you on vacation and you can perform tasks you wouldn’t enjoy doing on a small screen like on your phone. What do you think?
I’m sorry, I straight up don’t believe you about the battery life here. There’s plenty of people who haven’t been sponsored by Qualcomm who have said the battery can at least get around 10 hours doing normal everyday stuff. You’re the only person I’ve heard that says it has bad battery life in recommended mode
Also the only one who needed to run the screen at 100% the whole time. If we're going to measure battery life that way then it must be at 100% for ALL laptops and devices from now on.
@@davidneale530 I use a Lenovo Slim 7x snapdragon, and my battery lasts about 20 hours. By the way, I work in IT. This isn't the first time this person has been spreading nonsense, so I recommend finding a more reliable source than the 'Apple boy.'
@@VL_RUclips@VL_RUclips He is just quoting his usage and results, which match mine. I am sure you will get higher if you use low-power mode at 5% brightness at 60Hz and only one app. That is a good result for the Slim 7X, as despite having a larger battery, it didn't get great battery runtimes in most reviews. The Surface Pro averaged about 20 hours and was 4-5 hours ahead of the next best.
Is it though? It's inline with notebookcheck claim of 6 hours of battery life on wifi surfing at maximum screen brightness. Even the much touted MBA only lasted 7 hours using the same parameter, and they have bigger battery.
For students it could be GREAT. There are a lot of classes where we need a tablet esque for notetaking and for research windows is a much better operating system than ipadOS. If you do lots of high intensity tasks, need specific applications, type for long periods of time, or need a larger screen don't get this but otherwise I think this is a great option for students.
Its the surface pro 11. Its the 11th gen of the product. Last years version was surface pro x (10). Its not that hard to understand. Also dont believe your battery life claim.
I do a bit of video and image editing, lots of writing, and lots more research with my current laptop. It's big, powerful and heavy. But considering a Surface Pro for these reasons: Travel light to my workspace, leave the charger at home and connect it to my external monitor at the office. Touch display makes the research work more accessible on the couch or the desk and lightweight. Got a Bluetooth MX keys mini, so the keyboard and mouse thing is not an issue. I don't do serious typing without a proper keyboard. The X Elite feels robust enough to handle what I need for my work and will last for a day. It runs full-blown Windows 11; most apps I use support natively for ARM. Surface Pro supposedly solves all the complaints I have with my current laptop. It's bulky, the battery is a shame, it takes up too much space, and it is less portable, and I have to switch between my tablet and laptop for work and entertainment.
Do you take notes on the phone talking to clients or while listening in class or meetings? Do you want a full desktop computer with access to the normal programs students and professionals use daily? Well, if you are weird enough to fall into this group (as most of us do), then nothing beats the Surface Pro. And, performance and future-proof adaptability for the ARM-program future are tops with the Surface Pro 11. I wish its battery lasted longer, but it is fantastic and Josh’s struggles to find a use case for the SP11 are hard to understand.
I'm trying to rationalize it over something like the Spectre 14, which you can also do what you said on. For alot less. Thank you for the comment though. It's good for people to see different use cases.
@@JustJoshTech Excellent point. Spectre14 is a fabulous counterexample. I have one. For me, though, I take a lot of notes. I am an attorney and part-time judge in a local municipal court. The tablet is easier to use for taking notes than flipping the whole gizmo around. That said, the Spectre 14 is wonderful and I think is a better option than the Surface Laptop 7 precisely because the Spectre lets you take notes but the SL7 does not. Truly weirdly, if the Surface Laptop Studio was lighter, it would be my favorite. It has all the advantages of the laptop and the ability to take notes just by pulling the screen over the keyboard without having to turn the machine upside down. That probably speaks to my strange tastes, but I love that arrangement best of all -- except the damn thing is too heavy. In the task management/efficiency world, they talk about having a "single source of truth," a single repository where you look to see what you must do and the information related to that obligation or task. In the computer world, an iPad with a Zugu cover is light and easy to use and take notes on. (The iPad keyboard makes it f-ing heavy.) But, I use the cross-platform program OneNote and it has lots of add-ons (OneTastic, for example) and features (synchronized recording and transcripts for notes) on its Windows edition that are not available on the other platforms. So, the Surface Pro gives me the single machine with the best options. Perfect. Not close. But I am far more of the limiting force than that amazing machine in my work. Love your channel. take care and get some rest.
I am a SharePoint Consultant. I travel to various clients offices and attend a ton of meetings. I use the Surface Pro 8 around 8-10 hours every day. And it just works. I do some coding, and it can run a vast amount of applications. My only concern is the Citrix client is not ready for ARM and the emulator will be too slow. Except for meetings, I always connect it to external screens and I never work outside anyways. :) I would love the detachable keyboard. That thing is a little on the high pricing for a bluetooth keyboard imho. But I would love to see a keyboard option without the pencil. That thing, I have never seen any use for.
Bro roasts Linus for unclear data, puts surface pro 13 on the title with no indication of inch or a inch sign. Also the battery part is interesting while you state you last 5 hours. As a PhD student I can mine for 2 days during work hours, reading articles, processing experimental data, and just normal browsing. I use it at 50 brightness and the dark mode recommended settings. In a similar case a Lenovo Legion 5 used to barely last half a day.
It is the Surface Pro 11, as in 11th generation. All surface pros have a 13" display size, so calling it the 13 is not sufficient for distinguishing it from other generations. Secondly, that large of a battery life disparity between your claim and Josh's makes me believe there's more going on. Your 2 day battery life was for intermittent usage, while Josh likely means continuous usage at high brightness.
The screen has always been the most power-hungry component in these machines, even on my Surface Pro 5. Not sure how you can complain about battery life when you're running the screen at full brightness and probably pulling about 15 Watts with it.
I am missing from the review what features the pen has. How can I use it? How good is it compared to the Apple pencil? Also a deeper comparison to the iPad would be appreciated.
Hi, this one isn't a regular review. It's a personal experience review. I tried to make that clear at the beginning. Did you not like that style? Or you felt more could be brought in?
Now you know better than a trust a whole battery thing and you know for sure they use at least half brightness. They did not use full brightness, bro. You are a reviewer and you should know better. 5 hours you gotta put it in the middle to at least give it a fair chance. There is no reviews where the battery is exactly like they said, and most reviewers will test the battery with half the brightness. I’m just saying in that aspect be fair.
First quick impression of your video: your voice is so perfect, almost AI-created. Perfect pauses, highs and lows are consistent, and you don't go beyond a certain length in a sentence.. The cameras are so synced up to the point I could see it automated. Just AI-perfect.
Use case: 99.9% of users are NOT content creators but content consumers. They don't give a damm wjeter any adobe software works.or not. They need browsing, office and long battery life with versatility. There is no device that accomplishes that better The form.factor is brilliant for being light on the go and the keyboard actually causes less tiredness then a laptop as it has a much better inclination. I like your videos, just disgaree strongly here. Also never had an issue using it on a couch. Just use it as a tablet...
To be crystal clear. Most of us here are programmers and content consumers. We never view a laptop from just that angle. My point is that many people will be better served consuming content on an iPad, which is lighter with better battery life. Or consuming it off a Surface Laptop 7
@@JustJoshTech well the ipad us an extremely limiting device with an outdated operating system. Doing any work on it is quite miserable. For example the surface allows you to do remote vpn access to a corporate virtual machine with a seamless like in the office experience. The surface laptop is way too bulky for on the road or in a meeting. My point is that the surface pro requires close to no compromises / limitations for the vast majority of users. Main issue is pricing, which is why the ips model is probably the way to go. Battery life was always an issue, but now this is irrelevant for 99% of users. The ipad lasts longer but this has very few practical uses
@pm3390 I strongly disagree re your comment of 99%. I will assume you dont own a MaBook to compare it too. Also most VPNs I know don't currently run on Qualcomm hardware. But the most important thing is that you love your device. If you love it. That's what matters. Everyone's use case is different. If it's great for you I am happy
I've also never had an issue using a surface on my lap or on the couch. Even if you detach the keyboard cover you still have the kickstand so unlike the iPad you don't have to continuously hold it up to have the screen facing you. As for the guy pretending to have balance issues in the video while we could see it was perfectly balanced and stable! 🤦♀️
We will eventually get sales figures, but from what I have heard, there is a very high return rate. I have seen these not being bought for £500 off on eBay, so I assume many people disagree with the sponsored ads we saw on launch. But as you say, if you do not need specific programs like Google Drive or my VPN, you could maximise battery life with light apps. But when I paid nearly $2000 for a laptop, I expected these apps to work and to get better battery life than I did.
I hope so much that Microsoft releases an affordable version of the Surface Go tablet with that chip (or the new Intel if they are any good) and 16Gig RAM. I have the Surface Go 2 i3 and absolutely love it as a travel device (fast enough but battery is not so good). 10" with a detachable, slim keyboard is just perfect for a travel device and Windows as a tablet works perfectly for more intensive usecases (e.g. photo editing on vacations at the beach, coding, light Blender, light CAD, light graphics design, etc.)
I love the Surface. I was waiting for the Snapdragon ones. But I also started to game a lot, and the New x86 releases on the laptop side look promising. And playing on X Elite isn't really a thing for me. The overall package is spot on, but it's so hard to find THE device that can do it all
This review seems to miss the mark. The more I watch your reviews, the more I understand the wisdom in the advice: Don't base your opinion on just one review from a single reviewer; explore different perspectives.
Exactly why I'm getting a bit sus of major reviewers. Josh is unfortunately falling into that category. The last two "reviews" he did just sounds like he's ranting over things that don't matter to every single person. I do own a tablet, albeit, it's not an iPad or Surface.
Many engineering and stem students (not the bloody software kind) ik swear by their surface pro's. Most of us still do our assignments by hand because its just inefficient to type out equations also amazing for annotating slide decks with 100s of slides. Also need to run matlab and other analysis packages. As a tool they are worth their weight in gold.
I'm sure the display is outstanding, but i am a little surprised it only covers 75 percent of P3. Many or even most oleds are covering 100 percent, and I would sort of expect that in a device like this especially.
This tablet when first time launched in 2012, was such a unique device. Even for today. Well, the lack of bundled Keyboard even Stylus make it just felt expensive The rival like Asus and Lenovo, apparently they bundled that (may vary, btw), and it cost less I guess
Thinking of buying one as a developer. The battery life is worrying. Josh states very different results on battery life compared to other reviews I’ve read. The main benefit of arm for me is battery life. I’m now on the fence.
Someone once said that a reviewer's value is in their consistency. Every other laptop review of yours includes a standardized battery life test, usually consisting of a video playback loop, with 60hz and at 200 nits of brightness. And yet, for some inexplicable reason, you chose to basically eyeball the battery life for this review. No standard test, just "I couldn't get more than 5 hours on MAX brightness doing unspecified tasks". I don't know if you got too caught up in some attempt to be different from other reviewers, if you just got lazy, or if you were intentionally trying to mislead your audience by using a completely nonstandard battery life test, but in any case, you should consider issuing some kind of clarification or completely redoing this review.
My first sentence was "This is a really weird review from me" signaling it would be different. I spent a lot of time using the device and felt there were key points that overshadowed those others. My aim is not to do a repeat copy and paste review each time. It's to clearly articulate who should buy the device and at what price (the price one has been added in more recent reviews). I hope this helps
I have always thought this reviewer was a bit SUS. It started when i watched his anti-Linus video. That guy is annoying, but the way this reviewer tries to promote himself as “independent” by pushing down another content creator just was a big RED FLAG for me. And yes, the way he highlighted Surface Pro being heavier than an iPad without taking into account their own keyboards was also 🤨.
No, he nailed it. If you buy the SP11 as a tablet, then an iPad Pro in tablet form is lighter. You assume everyone is buying the iPad Pro to be a pseudo-laptop, but the vast majority are not. For the SP11, you have to buy it as a laptop as it is so wrong as a tablet.
Now he's trying to push down the little guys like Framework. Don't get me wrong, Linus has been a bit sus, but not like Josh has been recently. Don't get me wrong, very few reviewers are good anymore (Jarrod from Jarrod's Tech is one of the few remaining), but Josh is really coming out to be a disappointment.
I completely agree. I watched his live video where he tested Snapdragon laptops. He only pretends to understand IT, but in a live session, you can’t fake it (average windows knowledge, maybe even bellow the average). So, I’d recommend avoiding this reviewer! P.S. I bought a Lenovo Snapdragon laptop and I'm very satisfied with it, so it seems like his reviews are just driven by hate. Without the hate, no one would watch.
He quoted 5 hours of battery life but other reviewers painstakingly took videos of devices’ battery running time. And he’s “independent”. I say thats lazy. “Snapdragon campaign” - i say thats a bold claim. What is his proof that there is indeed a coordinated campaign for Snapdragon? That could truly be a scandal in the tech community if proven true.
one of the biases of youtube content creators - looking for so much flaw to present so they can have enough things to say for a 10-minute video. creators earn more if their videos are a minimum 10minutes. cringe. i hate creators like like you but youtube is the one to blame
I am surprised about Ableton 12, because Ableton 11 Intro installed and run OK on my Windows Dev Kit 2023 and that has a weaker Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 arm processor.
I can't explain it... But it's been my goldilocks... Since surface 9... Now without having to rwach out for charge every 4-5 hours... And better screen... Only grip with the new one, is battery life of the flex keyboard... It's downright annoying that it doesn't even last as long as Surface pro 9 (intel) does...seems more like a firmware infancy problem than the hardware, but if you pay £450 just for a key it shouldn't just work, it better fly.
And me. And probably most people. Plus, "100% brightness" doesn't mean anything in terms of your eyes, because you don't mention what's the maximal brightness. If the maximal brightness is 2 nits, would it still be "RIP your eyes"?
I have a Surface Pro X, is this a worthy upgrade at all? If the new Qualcomm chips aren't supplying substantially better battery life, then what's the point of these new ones?
Any plans to review the Thinkbook Plus Hybrid Gen 5? It's always on a mega sale here in Germany (€ 920). I am playing with one now. It's...interesting.
Need Microsoft to release a Surface Pro 11". Similar form factor as the fanless Surface Go-series but with better performance (obviously wouldn't match larger devices, but if it can be quietly cooled with fans with 80-90% performance that's a compromise I would be okay with), and premium screen (higher brightness, higher refresh rate). The big 'if' is whether such a device could be made with acceptable battery life due to even smaller battery. The use case would be for people that really value portability and one-handed tablet use.
Just to add to the target audiences mentioned already in the comment section, construction professionals that would like the ability to view construction plans via a tablet then be able to send emails like a laptop when in the vehicle or a site shed.
I just think the form factor needs to be looked at again to make improvements. I had surface pro for about a week before I gave up and returned it, it's just sooooooo clunky compared to a laptop even if it's well built. At least this looks to be the best surface made to date, fixing a lot of the issues like heat and fan noise, so that's good for those that do love the form factor.
The camera is wide, but did you try walking around a bit a see how it manages tracking? The pen being seamless from keyboard to screen is about four generations old... And don't most people dock these things? Out and about, yeah it's convenient, but at home I would have thought most people dock it to a 'real' screen. Plus the old 'win+k' project to TV makes the couch work pretty good. Is Apple better at these things? Honest question from someone who uses a surface pro for work but Linux at home and usually uses Android around the house.
I can tell you it's not the experience I have with my base model pro 11 with IPS display. The OLED model has a larger battery but using it at 100% sounds very uncomfortable. It's about 600nits.
Just stumbled on another review of this device (actually comparing both CPU options) by a very small youtuber, and he mentioned being at 84% battery after 2 hours of testing (he did plug in under the heavier loads but still that gives you a much better idea of what this battery will last). Perhaps setting the monitor to a brightness that will only be used in extremely bright conditions is exactly what you shouldn't do to get a meaningful battery life figure?!?!? Most laptops don't even reach 600nits, so why would you purposedly hurt a device for having a good screen is beyond me. Not only that, but Josh is literally making sure that the CPU becomes a less important factor is battery drain and still uses this figure to diss Qualcomm once again. I appreaciate he is at least transparent in what he is doing, but this is an absolute joke.
I've tested the SP11 OLED and the battery life was really good, easily over 10 hours of light use (youtube, emails, note taking on obsidian, discord, browsing the web, video calls, etc)
@@JustJoshTech Unfortunately these policies will change because of widespread abuse. Retailers and even Amazon are gradually trying to wean consumers off these unstainable return policies. According to the National Retail Federation, "the number of returns in U.S. retailers accounted for about $816 billion in lost sales in 2022. ". And this cost is passed onto the consumer. I find it disingenuous for reviewers to say they bought it with their own money when all they intended to do was return it after finishing their review. Not much different than getting a review model from the mfg.
I called Microsoft’ store support to return the 11 ordered for software incompatibility at our company and was told many companies are returning them for 10’s (i7/5) that are compatible. The wireless keyboard isn’t available for the 10.
I thought i was the only one that notice the subpar battery life, i don't have the elite model, i have the X plus, but i do have LTE with 5G and the Flex keyboard. I notice that the keyboard and pen keeps constantly charging and discharging, so i think this might have something to do with the bad battery life... I was going to go pickup the normal keyboard (non flex) to see if it increases the battery life of the unit. I hardly need to use the keyboard separately from the laptop. But yes, i was sold on the battery life, but my old surface go 3 is only marginally worse... Albeit it also having terrible performance to verses the Pro 11.
Quite happy with my base model snapdragon x plus. Actually I seem to get good battery life too. Survived day of normal work for me (excel / outlook / PowerPoint). I have Macs and iPads and for this workflow (corporate) I prefer a surface pro and find the snapdragon ones a good upgrade due to the better battery efficiency and less fan noise. I do have an m1 iPad Pro however that I still use for learning and the odd bit of photo editing / videos.
No, this is the first gen with the snapdragon chip, probably in four or five years you will want to upgrade as software demands increase for a battery chip and 16gb of ram is good to last 5 years. Unless you’re doing monster workloads of work i guess then sure.
I am only 15 seconds into the video, but let me say, I am so so so happy that you titled this video, Surface Pro 11 Review, instead of 'Why I am returning the SP11' or 'not' returning the device. Those titles are an immediate turn off. I expect nothing like that from this channel, thankfully. Okay, I'll be quiet now and watch the review :)
lol I’m rich and I refuse to buy a laptop that isn’t a surface pro. That’s the use case haha. In all seriousness though the thin keyboard in Alcantara is a delight to touch and the touchscreen is literally a non negotiable for me to look at the markets. Fact it’s so portable and premium is the differentiator
Thanks for this review!! I love the little quality of life stuff you mention bc it's helped me decide if I want it or not 🙂↕️ I'm thinking I prefer a laptop rather than this 2-in-1. Good battery life is a must for me and I prefer the ports a laptop has. 10/10 for this review and it's not too long 🤍
I was an early adopter when the first Surface Pros hit the market, and was impressed with the build quality and versatility. I thought it would be great for travel when I flew but found that the footprint was too big for the trays in coach (due to the kickstand). Once the novelty wore off I went back to traditional laptops, and these days I'm using the M3 Pro MBP 14 and an M1 iPad Air 5 as a companion device.
"Can't work out what use case this computer is actually ideal for" That's your mistake. You're looking for *a* use *case* and not multiple use cases. My struggle so far has been finding out what this thing ISN'T good for. It basically takes all the functionality that you'd need two $1k+ apple devices for (I mention Apple specifically because up until this point they were the only company that had a full desktop experience with >12h battery life), and mashes them into one tablet. And thanks to WSL I can still have my *nix environment to work in. Hopefully it won't be long before the surface linux project catches up so I can do away with the one singular downside I've found so far.
나는 배터리 리뷰 부분에 다른 의견을 가지고 있습니다. 맥북과의 비교는 비슷한 폼팩터인 서피스랩탑7과 이루어져야 합니다. M4 아이패드프로 11인치의 경우를 보면 최대밝기에서 SDR 콘텐츠 재생 시 사용시간이 5시간을 조금 넘습니다. 비슷한 폼팩터인 서피스프로에서 최대밝기로 5시간 가량 사용 가능하다는 건 큰 단점은 아닌 것 같습니다. 배터리가 하판에 있는 폼팩터와 배터리가 디스플레이에 일체형으로 있는 폼팩터는 동일하게 비교하면 안 된다고 생각합니다. 오히려 아이패드와 같은 폼팩터에서 윈도우를 사용할 수 있다는 점은 차별점이라고 생각합니다. 만약 5시간보다 더 긴 배터리 작업 시간을 확보해야 한다면, 보조배터리 옵션과 서피스랩탑 옵션을 생각해볼 수 있습니다.
Windows OS is its biggest strength and weakness. It needs more tablet optimized apps. I wish Windows would improve things like the windows store, or better yet they should support proper dual OS sharing with Android OS to add more touch friendly support without much effort. I have Surface 9. My short take is I don't regret buying the device, but the weak tablet UI and proper "tablet app" support means I won't upgrade, which is a shame. The surface lineup has all of the potential in the world, but Microsoft seems too bloated to make it truly shine.
👉 Surface Pro 13: bestbuy.7tiv.net/Py3J1Q
🎉 Surface Laptop 7 13: bestbuy.7tiv.net/oq1GBb
🛒 Surface Laptop 7 15: bestbuy.7tiv.net/Wq7e5M
👉 All Our Favorite Laptops: www.justjosh.tech/best-tech/
I just got the base model of the Surface Pro 11 and I got it because I will be traveling with work. So this is perfect as a second personal device to take.
Running non native app is slower than my i3
I am a student. The ability to carry one single device, use pen to jot notes. Come home and plug that to monitors with excellent battery life. There is no device like it.
Whats the battery backup like?
The use case that works for my wife is as a student. First as a tablet with a stylus to take notes in class, then later in the library with its keyboard cover to type things up, and then finally at home as a desktop replacement, with it connected to a 27 inch monitor and full size keyboard. The drawback is when it comes to taking notes in class using it as a tablet, it weighs a ton compared to iPads.
I agree with those that want versatility. Be able to do productivity tasks want taet features like handwriting notes but don't want to carry more than 1 device if for the people this for.
@Garrus-w2h geeze. I got the basic model for 899 then a 65 dollar clearance at best buy keyboard and slim pen model that was open box. Works great as it is still less heavy then a laptop and when I ain't gaming (I have a gaming laptop) and am in a meeting or juts doing productivity it works great for my needs.
I would just buy an ipad and a proper laptop honestly...
@ajtatosmano2 alot of people just wanna carry one device.
@@alfredoaraujo9294 Yeah, I meant that she carries the ipad, the laptop only needed for heavier tasks/for home use. the ipad pencil is superior
Used a surface pro 8 for 2 years a s a CGI artist having to visit family home for longer periods of time, plugged it into two monitors and connected with my workstation in my flat. Worked like that for 6 months and then another 2 very successfully.
While at home I used it as media device, music listening (dac and headphones), for reading comics, on holidays for watching movies in hotel room with my gf....I mean, I LOVE this thing
And it proved suprisingly well built, running 2 extra screens at 1440p for teamviewer + native screen for youtube distraction while working, got really hot during summer but never failed me once..
Unfortunately this is the perspective missed by many reviewers.
I’m fully convinced that as a reviewer you cannot put yourself in the shoes of different consumers with different needs.
For many people I know, the surface pro is an outstanding device.
I know the title is supposed to mean "The Surface pro 13 inch" but considering that all the surface pro are 13 inch I think calling it the surface pro 11 is better so no one will confuse it with the surface pro 9, 8 or 10.
I normally agree with Josh but having used this machine travelling extensively between europe, USA and niddle east, I have left my M4 iPad at home as it could not compete with the surface pro and my macbook pro stays with it. I use it for heavy duty content development, presentations, database management and management of resesrch programs. Battery life, speed are all amazing and when in the office it easily runs two extra screens. I'm not a reviewer but a practical user, and the surface pro has been worth every bit of investment.
You comment is helpful. Thank you!
Would you write the exact specification (CPU, display and RAM) of your surface pro? I am considering to drop tablet and laptop for a single device.
Thanks!
@@wei-tewang9079 X Elite 16gb 512gb I believe
@@JustJoshTech Thank you for your immediate response! The question was actually addressed to Chris.
@@chriscollins29 What is the exact specifications of your surface pro? I would like to get it in exchange of tablet and laptop. Thanks in advance!
All the reviews, including this one, I have watched so far all mention that Surface Pro is heavier than iPad and Yes it is, BUT it is actually lighter when you use the device with keyboard. Apple's magic keyboard is magically heavier than iPad itself, making it heavier than Surface and some thin laptops.
And I think this is really worth mentioning because when people want to use it for productivity purposes, they will most likely use it with a keyboard.
I think it matters when someone use it like a hand-hold tablet device. detach the keyboard and only use the top half, and this is when the weight matters.
in terms of laptop use, tbf no one cares about less than 500 grams of weight difference when purchasing a laptop device. So having an excellent keyboard experience with some compromises on weight is totally acceptable.
Microsoft has marketed this thing as a laptop replacement since the start so I think comparing the weight to an iPad is just stupid. It's still lighter than the majority of laptops in its class.
It’s also very clear that Josh didn’t actually weigh the device himself and even misleadingly rounded up the officially overestimated weight of 895g to 900g, while using precise figures for the other devices in his graph, for a more dramatic effect. People who actually weighed their SP11s have reported weights in the range of 865g-878g for LCD and 878g-883g for OLED. I suspect that the official 895g is a margin for the upcoming 5G version.
Also, he didn't take the built-in kickstand and enhanced structural rigidity into account, and the fact that you rarely have to hold a big tablet suspended in mid-air for extended periods of time, since the load is almost always shared with your hips, legs, or stomach.
iPad is only good with artists. There is no need at all for students to pay more for iPad while Xiaomi Pad 6 even covered all student needs with much much more affordable keyboard and wider app selections.
Yes !
Surface Pro is an amazing device for college. I used an SP4 for my undergrad. Light, thin, and small. Took the keyboard off and handwrote all my notes in onenote. Attached the keyboard when i needed to code (comp sci major).
Also, digital artists
hi i am a cybersecurity major and I am debating if i should get this or a regular laptop how long did it last you?
@@Mauricio-lm4zx like 5 or 6 years. I was cheap and got the 4GB of RAM option. Would've lasted longer if I didn't skimp
Josh you got 5 hours at full brightness because display consumes most power at those high nits. Even MacBook can't last most than 8hrs at full brightness. It's MS fault to not have good anti reflective coating because, with that coating, you can get by with 350 nits indoors. That would double the battery life
usually quite agree with ur review but today not really with yours..
i have the surface pro 11 and its the best surface pro ever (i have SP2/4/6/8)
u need something that can replace ur laptop with a stylus, and doing some work outside home, with the comfort of a touchscreen + pen..
no other device can do that.
Surface book 3 with quadro its immortal
Just call it the 11, the 13 confused me thinking a new surface just released today
Why call it 11 when it is 13 inches big?
@@Matheheftchen…
Because all surface pros are 13 inches, this model is the 11th generation
Or at least 13 inch
Because it's the 11th gen.. you don't see apple naming all their iPhones the same@@Matheheftchen
I can tell you who the Surface is for - its the Best of both worlds. its not a great tablet and not a great laptop, but it can do both pretty okay.
I Use it as my Main Device every day as a master of electrician.
In the Moring i use it for Office Work and ansering Mails.
While the Workday i use it mostly in Tablet mode to comment and edit PDF Files (Wiring Diagrams) , take notes while im at the Customers house with the key in Onenote (Sync them Right to the Cloud so my Office knows what the Customer wants) and Work with it with some electrican exclusive Programs (ETS 4 and 5) to Programm Smart Homes. (These are Windows Exclusive Programs )
In the Evening i can use it to do more office work while Plugged in into my main Monitor and external keyboard.
When i want to i use my External-GPU Setup to play some games with it.
EGPU Isnt supportet yet on the ARM Plattform so i will wait a litte bit longer ...
So its almost the perfect device for me, when the 5G Version will arrive i will Probaly upgrade from my SP9 to SP11 to get more connectivity.
I Have a Ipad Pro M2, i was sure it will replace my SP9, but cant get even close, in the end i use my Ipad only for webbrowsing and netflix / youtube. It can take notes too and do it really well, but when im on my way to a customer i cant switch it into a full productivity device and run real applications on it, so its just a really really expensive toy
Best Regards
I have been using my Surface Pro 11 X Elite for 2 weeks now and I absolutely love it. Battery life, contrary to Josh, is great. I only manage to get about 2 to 3 hours from my Lenovo Yoga 7 i7 (bought last year), while I can get 6 to 7 hours from the Surface. This is one review that I have to disagree with Josh on. Weight is great, portability, no issues at all with the apps. Important to get all the updates done when you first get your Surface Pro 11.
Good to hear! My wife wanted one for Christmas, so I bought her the Surface Pro 11 X Plus in the sapphire color, matching keyboard, and pen. She wants it to work on stuff with it on the coffee table and to pick up and go, when going to her Mom’s house. Hopefully, she likes it. I still have my Surface Pro 4 w/ i5 processor and it still works like a champ!
Target audiences: Teachers, Educators, Students, Tutors
Too expensive for those people, at least this OLED version. Chromebooks are the main school and college go-to device. Especially, as I understand at the moment, the Snapdragon chip does not run many educational software. It's a premium device and not really for the average education budget.
This beats an iPad though. My Surface Pro X had the software my iPad Pro didn’t for college. iPad just has mobile apps and Chromebooks don’t have the necessary exam taking software. Surface Pro is portable and has a stylus support. Perfect for notetaking.
When I was teaching years ago, the school gave us Surface Pro's 7's. They were the best for grading, research, and presentations/teaching. I loved using whiteboard and mirroring to projectors.
Agree. As a teacher, chrome and iPad are crappy.
I am a teacher and I use surface pro since Version 4.
I like the "you can do it all" approach. Since I teach chemistry, math, physics and technology like 3d printing I geht every Software I need, sometimes eben very old Software like Chemsketch. The price is irrelevant, since I buy These items once every 4 years. I got an Ipad from my School and never used it since it would be too much of an hassle to find workarounds for everything I use so far.
I hatte the battery life and that it is not really "lap operatable". For my next device I might opt for a 360 convertible like the HP spectre.
Just for anyone who cares: I love this device outside. Coffee shop outside table, no issue seeing everything. Slightly brighter than my MacBook pro m1. Was a little thrown by his comment.
I think this device is best for students. I bought the SP7 years ago and have used it throughout my undergraduate studies in statistics, and now my graduate statistics program. I take notes in class, I use Rstudio, SAS, and VScode for all my python machine learning code and it works perfectly for all of these things. It's really nice to be able to go from taking notes in class to connecting it to an extended monitor and coding my ML stuff. At the end of the day, I will also just lay in bed and watch RUclips on it. Maybe any professionals that need to take notes or write would also benefit from this. My only gripe is the battery life. It's really disappointing to hear that this new Qualcomm chip only provides only an extra hour or so to what I get right now. But, as a student, I take notes while in class, and then in between classes I just go to my office and connect to monitor and charge. I also keep a really great power bank with me. Regardless of the battery, I have LOVED this device for school.
Usually how long does the battery last for your daily use?
Actually, there is a precise target for this device: 2 in 1 portability. The iPad (with iPad OS) simply cannot do so.
The iPad is misleading as it is not the competition for the Surface Pro; the actual rivals are 2-in-1s on the Windows end, which are less compromised and a lot cheaper. iPads are tablets first, and the Surface Pro is a laptop foremost and irrelevant as a tablet-even MS no longer calls it that and has mothballed Android-on-Windows-subsystem.
@andyH_England Actually, the only reason I didn't get this Surface Pro was because it is running an ARM SoC instead of something from Intel or AMD. Because I use Linux, ARM for now is a no go and also limits apps you can use in Windows.
@@cameronbosch1213 I like the SP11 despite my negativity. My main point was really the false promises of the sponsored reviews. The battery life has to be as advertised to persuade me to buy into Snapdragon with all its compromises. It isn't and was, therefore, a no-go for me.
@@andyH_England It's not a tablet first option, I agree on that. But it CAN definitely be used as a tablet for taking notes, drawing something simple, signing documents, news and ebook reading, watching videos, and so on. The bottom line is that if you need a laptop AND a tablet on the go, it's almost perfect.
My primary device is a desktop PC and I need a secondary device for work/multimedia when I travel or for the bed/couch use.
I had a Macbook Air, I used it during travel but at home it was collecting dust 99% of the time because its inconvenient to use in bed. Now I swapped it for the Surface Pro 11 and I use it all the time as a tablet at home + as a work laptop when I travel. I got a tablet "hand" stand on Amazon that I put near my bed that holds the Surface right infront of my face when I'm lying in bed, its SO convenient. I also got a small foldable table stand for 20$ on Amazon to lift surface closer to my eyes when I'm working since Bluetooth keyboard allows it. For my use case Surface is way better so I sold my Macbook Air.
I have an iPad and MacBook and really considering selling both to get surface pro but I would still need to shell out money because it’s so expensive, m1 iPad Pro and m1 mbp
Can you tellhow much the battery lasts for you on daily basis?
@@baldeeptiwana battery is better than intel laptops but still behind macbooks. I get about 8 hours on full charge on 75% brightness, doing mostly light use like browsing, watching videos and streams, some coding. Heavier tasks consume battery faster.
Good review, but there are some things you say that I can't really understand the logic behind:
1. You say that because it's 13", and not 13.8", it's too small. Well, in my view even my 16" laptop is not as large as I'd like it to be, so for me even 13.8" is way to small. But that's the point: some people do prefer the 13.8" over my 16" laptop, and I am pretty sure some people would prefer the 13" super-compact tabelt-laptop here than a heavier, larger 13.8" normal laptop. I don't really understand these people - but I know they exist...
2. You give the battery life figure under normal use, which I really appreciate. I think these tests that other RUclipsrs use, where they, for instance, dim the screen to 50% of its brightness, are stupid. Why would I buy a laptop with a bright screen and then dim it so much so that it becomes hard to use? However, you say "5 hours of normal use", without comparing it to other laptops. That makes it meaningless, because it's not as if your point is: "laptops suck, don't buy them", but rather that you hint that other laptops achieve better results than those 5 hours. Which other laptops? How much better? What are their drawbacks?
No android emulator is a major letdown for me. and no signs of update anytime soon. everything else is the best thing money can buy
Wow, for someone who prides themselves on being accurate, you are being EXTREMELY disingenuous here when you said you can get the SL7 and an iPad (+ Apple Pencil + Magic Keyboard) for less than the corresponding SP11. You are talking about an entirely different screen size for the iPad. For individuals who do a lot of PDF annotations and handwriting, a large pen-compatible canvas is paramount. So you SHOULD be comparing the SP11 to the 13" iPad Pro, not the 13" Air (lacks ProMotion, lacks OLED), and CERTAINLY NOT the 10.9" model.
Hence, you have failed to acknowledge that for people who need to lug around a tablet and laptop for all their use cases in a day, the SP11 fits in that workflow perfectly while not only costing less, but also weighing less and occupying less space than the combination of SL7 + 13" iPad. This is the exact reason why anyone should get the Surface Pro family of devices, and it baffles me that an 'expert' such as yourself has such difficulty deciphering that.
Not to mention you can dock it and use it with a bigger display when needed. It is the perfect device and now with the new chips it has even more promise. I want one but I already have a MacBook Pro and iPad that work fine and if I sold them I’d still have to make up the difference in cash for surface pro so I’m waiting to get it used next year lol
I'm a researcher and my daily activities can be summarized as: reading papers, writing papers, coding, thinking and teaching.
For this set of activities the surface form factor is just unmatched. It's very light so traveling is easy (and I travel a lot) but you can snap it with a monitor and keyboard and you have a great system when you need more screen space.
Not the beefiest of the machines but if you need something really powerful then servers/cloud is the way.
I really like tiny incremental light adjustments. It helps dial in the brightness just right
And he didn't mention you can hold the key down if you want to change it faster.
@@davidneale530 Not to mention you can also use the touchscreen to control the brightness slider and adjust it instantly to whatever you want.
I love it when reviewers "don't know who these devices are for"...... like there's only 2 types of people in the world
Agreed or what they like has to be what everyone likes
You have to factor in the dock. People who use it as a Desktop but also want a laptop or tablet for on the go are the target buyers. Yes you can do the same with most laptops, but none of them are also a tablet and in the end, small and light is still small and light. This then becomes the "one" device. No copying, no worrying if you uploaded to the cloud. It's all there on your one device. Great for business travellers who live in constant fear of forgetting something on the office computer.
If Apple was smart, they could do that with their iPhones but that would require making IOS useful - and open. Microsoft was moving in this direction with the Windows phone. Like many Microsoft ideas, a little too early to the game. Imagine a world where every hotel, every office desk every bedroom, had a USB-C dock with keyboard and screen and you just plugged your phone into it. There is no technical reason we couldn't have this today.
Thanks for the review. I‘ve had mine for 1-2 weeks by now and think its the perfect replacement for my iPad (100%) and my Macbook (60%) for most cases. It does what i used my ipad for but much better in almost every way, like proper file handling, offline sync of dropbox and real applications. Aside from the drawbacks you pointed out (lap usage) it does it so well, i dont need to bring both my iPad and my Macbook everywhere. Macbook only for heavy video editing now
TL;DR: The surface is a much more useful tablet than the iPad and an okay replacement for a laptop in a pinch.
Can you use it for video editing on capcut, photoshop etc…? Does it lag the programs?
Whats the battery like?.
battery is amazing. only macbook comes close
@@IVANTRADESGOLD not really in my opinion. even the apps that are native arm, do quickly push it to its limits. maybe with more optimization it will get better
As an IT professional, I can see myself grabbing the IPS/16GB version next year on sale (preferably under 900) to, use as a secondary device.
As an IT professional, and a photographer i can agree. OLED for me for the latter job. Big step up over my aging 2014 Surface Pro 4.
for digital artist who use a windows drawing and painting apps. This thing will be perfect! Comapre to Ipad that being limited with it's own OS. With Surface you can combine it with some 3d apps to help you creating a background in case you are a webtoonist or comic artist. And since it's using Windows operating systems, you can access all the feature from that digital art apps like Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator Etc
wrong title. I hate people misleading. It is the 11th gen 13" inch screen surface. All surface pros have 13" screens.
The only reviewer to find the Snapdragon X elite laptops to have subpar battery life. I really have no idea what they're smoking but all the X elite laptops I've tested have waaaay better battery life than any Intel or AMD laptop I've ever owned. I'm averaging 13 hours 45 minutes per 100% charge on my slim 7x, and that's over 40 days of use (very large sample size). It's literally never lasted less than 10 hours based on powercfg.
Do you use the laptop's full capabilities? For instance, do you use 100% brightness and avoid using "battery saver mode"?
Thank you, Ziggy. For thr other connebter. I have always stated they have better battery than Intel and AMD's older processors. Also, I know you compared us to all other reviewers. Many of the majors are being paid by Qualcomm. So it doesn't surprise me we are saying different things.
@@ZiggyMercury yes. 100% at all times but you have to use dark mode wherever possible. That’s the advantage of OLED, no backlight so you can keep the power consumption low by not using white backgrounds but still leave the brightness at 100%
@@JustJoshTech no offense Josh but not every reviewer gets paid. I’m not a tech reviewer and I know Qualcomm has delivered a chip that is great for general use. Your battery life tests (30 minutes of cinebench) are out of touch with what people care about.
@SpanishCandle I have said in every video that they are great for general use. Even my first video Warning buyers about the over promises. Please go back and watch it. My issue is that they are being presented as M series equivalents. They absolutely are not
I have spent the last 3 months trying to find the best laptop that is good for my work, light weighted, can connect to multiple screens easily, do not have annoying fan noise, and have a charming display. I have read tons of research and gone through all the videos I can possibly find, and purchased a few different ones and finally decided on the surface pro because (1) With the keyboard, it is still 100 grams lighter than the macbook air M3 13 inch (2) It can connect to multiple external screens easily while the macbook air M3 is lacking in this perspective (3) I contacted my work's tech support, apparently they get more complaints of using Mac OS to connect to Citrix than using Windows OS (4) The device's display is great, compared to the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (5) I also tried the Lenovo X1 Carbon Gen 12, but its fan noise was unbearable, so had to return it. Overall, this Surface Pro 11 is a much better option than all of those I tried: Macbook Air M3 13 inch, ASUS zenbook 14 OLED, and Lenovo X1 Carbon Gen 12.
I think this device is pretty good for travellers who only travel with hand baggage. The surface pro is small and lightweight (smaller and lighter than a real laptop), yet powerful. So you can take it with you on vacation and you can perform tasks you wouldn’t enjoy doing on a small screen like on your phone. What do you think?
I’m sorry, I straight up don’t believe you about the battery life here. There’s plenty of people who haven’t been sponsored by Qualcomm who have said the battery can at least get around 10 hours doing normal everyday stuff. You’re the only person I’ve heard that says it has bad battery life in recommended mode
Also the only one who needed to run the screen at 100% the whole time. If we're going to measure battery life that way then it must be at 100% for ALL laptops and devices from now on.
@@davidneale530 I use a Lenovo Slim 7x snapdragon, and my battery lasts about 20 hours. By the way, I work in IT. This isn't the first time this person has been spreading nonsense, so I recommend finding a more reliable source than the 'Apple boy.'
@@VL_RUclips@VL_RUclips He is just quoting his usage and results, which match mine. I am sure you will get higher if you use low-power mode at 5% brightness at 60Hz and only one app.
That is a good result for the Slim 7X, as despite having a larger battery, it didn't get great battery runtimes in most reviews. The Surface Pro averaged about 20 hours and was 4-5 hours ahead of the next best.
Is it though? It's inline with notebookcheck claim of 6 hours of battery life on wifi surfing at maximum screen brightness. Even the much touted MBA only lasted 7 hours using the same parameter, and they have bigger battery.
I definitely get 30-40% more battery with the SP11 than my SP8. The gap is huge.
For students it could be GREAT. There are a lot of classes where we need a tablet esque for notetaking and for research windows is a much better operating system than ipadOS. If you do lots of high intensity tasks, need specific applications, type for long periods of time, or need a larger screen don't get this but otherwise I think this is a great option for students.
Its the surface pro 11. Its the 11th gen of the product. Last years version was surface pro x (10). Its not that hard to understand.
Also dont believe your battery life claim.
I do a bit of video and image editing, lots of writing, and lots more research with my current laptop. It's big, powerful and heavy. But considering a Surface Pro for these reasons:
Travel light to my workspace, leave the charger at home and connect it to my external monitor at the office. Touch display makes the research work more accessible on the couch or the desk and lightweight.
Got a Bluetooth MX keys mini, so the keyboard and mouse thing is not an issue. I don't do serious typing without a proper keyboard.
The X Elite feels robust enough to handle what I need for my work and will last for a day.
It runs full-blown Windows 11; most apps I use support natively for ARM.
Surface Pro supposedly solves all the complaints I have with my current laptop. It's bulky, the battery is a shame, it takes up too much space, and it is less portable, and I have to switch between my tablet and laptop for work and entertainment.
Do you take notes on the phone talking to clients or while listening in class or meetings? Do you want a full desktop computer with access to the normal programs students and professionals use daily? Well, if you are weird enough to fall into this group (as most of us do), then nothing beats the Surface Pro. And, performance and future-proof adaptability for the ARM-program future are tops with the Surface Pro 11. I wish its battery lasted longer, but it is fantastic and Josh’s struggles to find a use case for the SP11 are hard to understand.
I'm trying to rationalize it over something like the Spectre 14, which you can also do what you said on. For alot less. Thank you for the comment though. It's good for people to see different use cases.
@@JustJoshTech Excellent point. Spectre14 is a fabulous counterexample. I have one. For me, though, I take a lot of notes. I am an attorney and part-time judge in a local municipal court. The tablet is easier to use for taking notes than flipping the whole gizmo around. That said, the Spectre 14 is wonderful and I think is a better option than the Surface Laptop 7 precisely because the Spectre lets you take notes but the SL7 does not. Truly weirdly, if the Surface Laptop Studio was lighter, it would be my favorite. It has all the advantages of the laptop and the ability to take notes just by pulling the screen over the keyboard without having to turn the machine upside down. That probably speaks to my strange tastes, but I love that arrangement best of all -- except the damn thing is too heavy. In the task management/efficiency world, they talk about having a "single source of truth," a single repository where you look to see what you must do and the information related to that obligation or task. In the computer world, an iPad with a Zugu cover is light and easy to use and take notes on. (The iPad keyboard makes it f-ing heavy.) But, I use the cross-platform program OneNote and it has lots of add-ons (OneTastic, for example) and features (synchronized recording and transcripts for notes) on its Windows edition that are not available on the other platforms. So, the Surface Pro gives me the single machine with the best options. Perfect. Not close. But I am far more of the limiting force than that amazing machine in my work. Love your channel. take care and get some rest.
I am a SharePoint Consultant. I travel to various clients offices and attend a ton of meetings. I use the Surface Pro 8 around 8-10 hours every day. And it just works. I do some coding, and it can run a vast amount of applications. My only concern is the Citrix client is not ready for ARM and the emulator will be too slow. Except for meetings, I always connect it to external screens and I never work outside anyways. :)
I would love the detachable keyboard. That thing is a little on the high pricing for a bluetooth keyboard imho. But I would love to see a keyboard option without the pencil. That thing, I have never seen any use for.
As a first gen surface rt user, this looks amazing!
Bro roasts Linus for unclear data, puts surface pro 13 on the title with no indication of inch or a inch sign.
Also the battery part is interesting while you state you last 5 hours. As a PhD student I can mine for 2 days during work hours, reading articles, processing experimental data, and just normal browsing. I use it at 50 brightness and the dark mode recommended settings.
In a similar case a Lenovo Legion 5 used to barely last half a day.
It is the Surface Pro 11, as in 11th generation. All surface pros have a 13" display size, so calling it the 13 is not sufficient for distinguishing it from other generations. Secondly, that large of a battery life disparity between your claim and Josh's makes me believe there's more going on. Your 2 day battery life was for intermittent usage, while Josh likely means continuous usage at high brightness.
Yeah, super weird results on battery life.
The screen has always been the most power-hungry component in these machines, even on my Surface Pro 5. Not sure how you can complain about battery life when you're running the screen at full brightness and probably pulling about 15 Watts with it.
I am missing from the review what features the pen has. How can I use it? How good is it compared to the Apple pencil?
Also a deeper comparison to the iPad would be appreciated.
Hi, this one isn't a regular review. It's a personal experience review. I tried to make that clear at the beginning. Did you not like that style? Or you felt more could be brought in?
@@JustJoshTech then it was not clear to me what's the difference between personal experience and a normal review.
Now you know better than a trust a whole battery thing and you know for sure they use at least half brightness. They did not use full brightness, bro. You are a reviewer and you should know better.
5 hours you gotta put it in the middle to at least give it a fair chance. There is no reviews where the battery is exactly like they said, and most reviewers will test the battery with half the brightness. I’m just saying in that aspect be fair.
First quick impression of your video: your voice is so perfect, almost AI-created. Perfect pauses, highs and lows are consistent, and you don't go beyond a certain length in a sentence.. The cameras are so synced up to the point I could see it automated. Just AI-perfect.
Thank you! it takes alot of practice and love of the material/process. No AI though :)
Use case: 99.9% of users are NOT content creators but content consumers.
They don't give a damm wjeter any adobe software works.or not. They need browsing, office and long battery life with versatility. There is no device that accomplishes that better
The form.factor is brilliant for being light on the go and the keyboard actually causes less tiredness then a laptop as it has a much better inclination.
I like your videos, just disgaree strongly here.
Also never had an issue using it on a couch. Just use it as a tablet...
To be crystal clear. Most of us here are programmers and content consumers. We never view a laptop from just that angle. My point is that many people will be better served consuming content on an iPad, which is lighter with better battery life. Or consuming it off a Surface Laptop 7
@@JustJoshTech well the ipad us an extremely limiting device with an outdated operating system. Doing any work on it is quite miserable.
For example the surface allows you to do remote vpn access to a corporate virtual machine with a seamless like in the office experience. The surface laptop is way too bulky for on the road or in a meeting.
My point is that the surface pro requires close to no compromises / limitations for the vast majority of users.
Main issue is pricing, which is why the ips model is probably the way to go.
Battery life was always an issue, but now this is irrelevant for 99% of users. The ipad lasts longer but this has very few practical uses
@pm3390 I strongly disagree re your comment of 99%. I will assume you dont own a MaBook to compare it too. Also most VPNs I know don't currently run on Qualcomm hardware. But the most important thing is that you love your device. If you love it. That's what matters. Everyone's use case is different. If it's great for you I am happy
I've also never had an issue using a surface on my lap or on the couch. Even if you detach the keyboard cover you still have the kickstand so unlike the iPad you don't have to continuously hold it up to have the screen facing you. As for the guy pretending to have balance issues in the video while we could see it was perfectly balanced and stable! 🤦♀️
We will eventually get sales figures, but from what I have heard, there is a very high return rate. I have seen these not being bought for £500 off on eBay, so I assume many people disagree with the sponsored ads we saw on launch. But as you say, if you do not need specific programs like Google Drive or my VPN, you could maximise battery life with light apps. But when I paid nearly $2000 for a laptop, I expected these apps to work and to get better battery life than I did.
I hope so much that Microsoft releases an affordable version of the Surface Go tablet with that chip (or the new Intel if they are any good) and 16Gig RAM. I have the Surface Go 2 i3 and absolutely love it as a travel device (fast enough but battery is not so good).
10" with a detachable, slim keyboard is just perfect for a travel device and Windows as a tablet works perfectly for more intensive usecases (e.g. photo editing on vacations at the beach, coding, light Blender, light CAD, light graphics design, etc.)
I love the Surface. I was waiting for the Snapdragon ones. But I also started to game a lot, and the New x86 releases on the laptop side look promising. And playing on X Elite isn't really a thing for me. The overall package is spot on, but it's so hard to find THE device that can do it all
This review seems to miss the mark. The more I watch your reviews, the more I understand the wisdom in the advice: Don't base your opinion on just one review from a single reviewer; explore different perspectives.
Exactly why I'm getting a bit sus of major reviewers. Josh is unfortunately falling into that category. The last two "reviews" he did just sounds like he's ranting over things that don't matter to every single person.
I do own a tablet, albeit, it's not an iPad or Surface.
I think they're fudding the Qualcomm laptops to get more clicks
Many engineering and stem students (not the bloody software kind) ik swear by their surface pro's. Most of us still do our assignments by hand because its just inefficient to type out equations also amazing for annotating slide decks with 100s of slides. Also need to run matlab and other analysis packages. As a tool they are worth their weight in gold.
Thanks for the addition here. Btw we tested Mattlab recently, and it didn't work well on Qualcomm hardware. Hopefully this resolved soon
We’ve been doing software engineering exclusively on Surface Pros for years. It’s also fine on our lap.
Does anyone actually run the screen brightness at 100%, my MacBook Pro m1 is currently at 40%
Wait! Thiis is the Surface Pro 11 - it's 13 inches, but it says it's the 11th edition on the Best Buy page from the link. Just letting you know
I'm sure the display is outstanding, but i am a little surprised it only covers 75 percent of P3. Many or even most oleds are covering 100 percent, and I would sort of expect that in a device like this especially.
It is Microsoft's first OLED, and it appears they went for a cheaper version.
This tablet when first time launched in 2012, was such a unique device. Even for today. Well, the lack of bundled Keyboard even Stylus make it just felt expensive
The rival like Asus and Lenovo, apparently they bundled that (may vary, btw), and it cost less I guess
Thinking of buying one as a developer. The battery life is worrying. Josh states very different results on battery life compared to other reviews I’ve read. The main benefit of arm for me is battery life. I’m now on the fence.
Isn’t it the Surface Pro 11?
Someone once said that a reviewer's value is in their consistency. Every other laptop review of yours includes a standardized battery life test, usually consisting of a video playback loop, with 60hz and at 200 nits of brightness. And yet, for some inexplicable reason, you chose to basically eyeball the battery life for this review. No standard test, just "I couldn't get more than 5 hours on MAX brightness doing unspecified tasks". I don't know if you got too caught up in some attempt to be different from other reviewers, if you just got lazy, or if you were intentionally trying to mislead your audience by using a completely nonstandard battery life test, but in any case, you should consider issuing some kind of clarification or completely redoing this review.
My first sentence was "This is a really weird review from me" signaling it would be different. I spent a lot of time using the device and felt there were key points that overshadowed those others. My aim is not to do a repeat copy and paste review each time. It's to clearly articulate who should buy the device and at what price (the price one has been added in more recent reviews). I hope this helps
I have always thought this reviewer was a bit SUS. It started when i watched his anti-Linus video. That guy is annoying, but the way this reviewer tries to promote himself as “independent” by pushing down another content creator just was a big RED FLAG for me.
And yes, the way he highlighted Surface Pro being heavier than an iPad without taking into account their own keyboards was also 🤨.
No, he nailed it. If you buy the SP11 as a tablet, then an iPad Pro in tablet form is lighter. You assume everyone is buying the iPad Pro to be a pseudo-laptop, but the vast majority are not. For the SP11, you have to buy it as a laptop as it is so wrong as a tablet.
@@andyH_Englandi have had an iPad Pro and it was hard to use without a keyboard
Now he's trying to push down the little guys like Framework. Don't get me wrong, Linus has been a bit sus, but not like Josh has been recently.
Don't get me wrong, very few reviewers are good anymore (Jarrod from Jarrod's Tech is one of the few remaining), but Josh is really coming out to be a disappointment.
I completely agree. I watched his live video where he tested Snapdragon laptops. He only pretends to understand IT, but in a live session, you can’t fake it (average windows knowledge, maybe even bellow the average). So, I’d recommend avoiding this reviewer! P.S. I bought a Lenovo Snapdragon laptop and I'm very satisfied with it, so it seems like his reviews are just driven by hate. Without the hate, no one would watch.
He quoted 5 hours of battery life but other reviewers painstakingly took videos of devices’ battery running time. And he’s “independent”. I say thats lazy.
“Snapdragon campaign” - i say thats a bold claim. What is his proof that there is indeed a coordinated campaign for Snapdragon? That could truly be a scandal in the tech community if proven true.
Best to get this on sale, maybe 6 months in with hopeful softwarew updates to stretch the battery life some more too
one of the biases of youtube content creators - looking for so much flaw to present so they can have enough things to say for a 10-minute video. creators earn more if their videos are a minimum 10minutes. cringe. i hate creators like like you but youtube is the one to blame
I am surprised about Ableton 12, because Ableton 11 Intro installed and run OK on my Windows Dev Kit 2023 and that has a weaker Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 arm processor.
I can't explain it... But it's been my goldilocks... Since surface 9... Now without having to rwach out for charge every 4-5 hours... And better screen... Only grip with the new one, is battery life of the flex keyboard... It's downright annoying that it doesn't even last as long as Surface pro 9 (intel) does...seems more like a firmware infancy problem than the hardware, but if you pay £450 just for a key it shouldn't just work, it better fly.
RIP your eyes. 100% brightness for every laptop for all the time?
You are crazy. Nobody does that. Just Josh I guess
And me. And probably most people.
Plus, "100% brightness" doesn't mean anything in terms of your eyes, because you don't mention what's the maximal brightness. If the maximal brightness is 2 nits, would it still be "RIP your eyes"?
@@ZiggyMercuryI'll mention the brightness then. It's about 600nits. I have the IPS version and it spends more time below 50% than above.
I do 100% brightness and my name is Josh, so I guess that tracks 😂
I have a Surface Pro X, is this a worthy upgrade at all? If the new Qualcomm chips aren't supplying substantially better battery life, then what's the point of these new ones?
You daily use 600nits for regular viewing? Even like 300 is eyeball cooking and in a darker room 100nits is fine.
Why do they never mention this isn't the base model. Base model is for 999 with an LCD display 😭
after me and my mom cleaned the fan of the realmebook slim, its considerably cooler and definitely more lapable.
Any plans to review the Thinkbook Plus Hybrid Gen 5? It's always on a mega sale here in Germany (€ 920). I am playing with one now. It's...interesting.
The surface pro 11th edition with 5g is coming.
I heard it will be $150 more, pushing the price even higher for the OLED model.
Need Microsoft to release a Surface Pro 11". Similar form factor as the fanless Surface Go-series but with better performance (obviously wouldn't match larger devices, but if it can be quietly cooled with fans with 80-90% performance that's a compromise I would be okay with), and premium screen (higher brightness, higher refresh rate). The big 'if' is whether such a device could be made with acceptable battery life due to even smaller battery.
The use case would be for people that really value portability and one-handed tablet use.
Just to add to the target audiences mentioned already in the comment section, construction professionals that would like the ability to view construction plans via a tablet then be able to send emails like a laptop when in the vehicle or a site shed.
Good comment
I just think the form factor needs to be looked at again to make improvements. I had surface pro for about a week before I gave up and returned it, it's just sooooooo clunky compared to a laptop even if it's well built. At least this looks to be the best surface made to date, fixing a lot of the issues like heat and fan noise, so that's good for those that do love the form factor.
Love it, will buy it used next year because it’s so expensive lol
Please review Asus Rog zeprus g16 With amd rygen 9 which was launched 1 week ago
as a Student I can see it as a replacement for my iPad in classes, but I would prefer an Ipad.
The camera is wide, but did you try walking around a bit a see how it manages tracking? The pen being seamless from keyboard to screen is about four generations old... And don't most people dock these things? Out and about, yeah it's convenient, but at home I would have thought most people dock it to a 'real' screen. Plus the old 'win+k' project to TV makes the couch work pretty good. Is Apple better at these things? Honest question from someone who uses a surface pro for work but Linux at home and usually uses Android around the house.
“When I detach the keyboard and the screen is too far, I can’t see it.”
Are you serious bro?
Fantastic review
so let's get this straight - only 5 hrs of battery life with the OLED-Display?!? That can only be a bad joke....
At full brightness though
I can tell you it's not the experience I have with my base model pro 11 with IPS display. The OLED model has a larger battery but using it at 100% sounds very uncomfortable. It's about 600nits.
Just stumbled on another review of this device (actually comparing both CPU options) by a very small youtuber, and he mentioned being at 84% battery after 2 hours of testing (he did plug in under the heavier loads but still that gives you a much better idea of what this battery will last). Perhaps setting the monitor to a brightness that will only be used in extremely bright conditions is exactly what you shouldn't do to get a meaningful battery life figure?!?!?
Most laptops don't even reach 600nits, so why would you purposedly hurt a device for having a good screen is beyond me. Not only that, but Josh is literally making sure that the CPU becomes a less important factor is battery drain and still uses this figure to diss Qualcomm once again. I appreaciate he is at least transparent in what he is doing, but this is an absolute joke.
I've tested the SP11 OLED and the battery life was really good, easily over 10 hours of light use (youtube, emails, note taking on obsidian, discord, browsing the web, video calls, etc)
Relax, guys. It's the 2026 model. Josh can look into the future! 😄
I find it so crazy that you can just return things because you don’t like them. You can’t do that in the UK when you buy them from a physical store.
We are lucky. I am from Australia, we also couldn't do that.
@@JustJoshTech Unfortunately these policies will change because of widespread abuse. Retailers and even Amazon are gradually trying to wean consumers off these unstainable return policies. According to the National Retail Federation, "the number of returns in U.S. retailers accounted for about $816 billion in lost sales in 2022. ". And this cost is passed onto the consumer.
I find it disingenuous for reviewers to say they bought it with their own money when all they intended to do was return it after finishing their review. Not much different than getting a review model from the mfg.
You were able to rent it?
I called Microsoft’ store support to return the 11 ordered for software incompatibility at our company and was told many companies are returning them for 10’s (i7/5) that are compatible. The wireless keyboard isn’t available for the 10.
The wireless keyboard works with the 8, 9, 10 and 11 but not the pro X afaik, due to the Bluetooth version required.
I thought i was the only one that notice the subpar battery life, i don't have the elite model, i have the X plus, but i do have LTE with 5G and the Flex keyboard.
I notice that the keyboard and pen keeps constantly charging and discharging, so i think this might have something to do with the bad battery life... I was going to go pickup the normal keyboard (non flex) to see if it increases the battery life of the unit. I hardly need to use the keyboard separately from the laptop.
But yes, i was sold on the battery life, but my old surface go 3 is only marginally worse... Albeit it also having terrible performance to verses the Pro 11.
Quite happy with my base model snapdragon x plus. Actually I seem to get good battery life too. Survived day of normal work for me (excel / outlook / PowerPoint).
I have Macs and iPads and for this workflow (corporate) I prefer a surface pro and find the snapdragon ones a good upgrade due to the better battery efficiency and less fan noise.
I do have an m1 iPad Pro however that I still use for learning and the odd bit of photo editing / videos.
That's good to hear. Yes, we found the X Plus chip does give more battery life than X Elite
@@JustJoshTecha late thank you for the comment! I missed it. Great channel and love the deep dive detail in all your reviews. Top quality 👍🏾
Any idea if they are going to release a surface pro with a Ryzen AI 9 or new Intel Core Ultra chips?
Interesting review.
Oled screendoor effect and pwm headaches are dealbreakers.
I am a teacher.
I just need a surface!
It covers all my needs
Is there any reason to get the 32Gb RAM model ?
No, this is the first gen with the snapdragon chip, probably in four or five years you will want to upgrade as software demands increase for a battery chip and 16gb of ram is good to last 5 years. Unless you’re doing monster workloads of work i guess then sure.
I would buy the 32 gb version if you're a multi tasker.
I am only 15 seconds into the video, but let me say, I am so so so happy that you titled this video, Surface Pro 11 Review, instead of 'Why I am returning the SP11' or 'not' returning the device. Those titles are an immediate turn off. I expect nothing like that from this channel, thankfully. Okay, I'll be quiet now and watch the review :)
2:16 : Reminds me Lenovo Duet 2 in 1
Im just searching for a decive in can use in my times at the university. I have no clue what I should buy...
nice review josh!
Thanks!
lol I’m rich and I refuse to buy a laptop that isn’t a surface pro. That’s the use case haha. In all seriousness though the thin keyboard in Alcantara is a delight to touch and the touchscreen is literally a non negotiable for me to look at the markets. Fact it’s so portable and premium is the differentiator
Hi, this SP13 can running native Photoshop and Lightroom? Thank you.🙏
His presentation style is so animated and forced forensics style that it’s hard to take him seriously sometimes.
Thanks for this review!! I love the little quality of life stuff you mention bc it's helped me decide if I want it or not 🙂↕️ I'm thinking I prefer a laptop rather than this 2-in-1. Good battery life is a must for me and I prefer the ports a laptop has. 10/10 for this review and it's not too long 🤍
I was an early adopter when the first Surface Pros hit the market, and was impressed with the build quality and versatility. I thought it would be great for travel when I flew but found that the footprint was too big for the trays in coach (due to the kickstand). Once the novelty wore off I went back to traditional laptops, and these days I'm using the M3 Pro MBP 14 and an M1 iPad Air 5 as a companion device.
Excellent add. Re foot print too big for plane tray tables
"Can't work out what use case this computer is actually ideal for"
That's your mistake. You're looking for *a* use *case* and not multiple use cases.
My struggle so far has been finding out what this thing ISN'T good for. It basically takes all the functionality that you'd need two $1k+ apple devices for (I mention Apple specifically because up until this point they were the only company that had a full desktop experience with >12h battery life), and mashes them into one tablet. And thanks to WSL I can still have my *nix environment to work in.
Hopefully it won't be long before the surface linux project catches up so I can do away with the one singular downside I've found so far.
나는 배터리 리뷰 부분에 다른 의견을 가지고 있습니다. 맥북과의 비교는 비슷한 폼팩터인 서피스랩탑7과 이루어져야 합니다. M4 아이패드프로 11인치의 경우를 보면 최대밝기에서 SDR 콘텐츠 재생 시 사용시간이 5시간을 조금 넘습니다. 비슷한 폼팩터인 서피스프로에서 최대밝기로 5시간 가량 사용 가능하다는 건 큰 단점은 아닌 것 같습니다.
배터리가 하판에 있는 폼팩터와 배터리가 디스플레이에 일체형으로 있는 폼팩터는 동일하게 비교하면 안 된다고 생각합니다. 오히려 아이패드와 같은 폼팩터에서 윈도우를 사용할 수 있다는 점은 차별점이라고 생각합니다. 만약 5시간보다 더 긴 배터리 작업 시간을 확보해야 한다면, 보조배터리 옵션과 서피스랩탑 옵션을 생각해볼 수 있습니다.
Windows OS is its biggest strength and weakness. It needs more tablet optimized apps. I wish Windows would improve things like the windows store, or better yet they should support proper dual OS sharing with Android OS to add more touch friendly support without much effort. I have Surface 9. My short take is I don't regret buying the device, but the weak tablet UI and proper "tablet app" support means I won't upgrade, which is a shame. The surface lineup has all of the potential in the world, but Microsoft seems too bloated to make it truly shine.