Bo Moore
The Microsoft Surface line has been one of the go-to options for students, workers, and anyone who needs the versatility of a tablet with the app support of Microsoft Windows. The Surface Pro 11 is the latest generation and brings with it new Snapdragon X processors, display capabilities, all-around better specs, and higher performance than any generation before it. Starting at $799 and extending all the way to $1,999 fully kitted out, it presents compelling options for a wide range of budgets, and is definitely worth considering for productivity and if you don’t mind streaming your entertainment.
Microsoft Surface Pro 11 – Design and Features
Like the generations that came before it, the Surface Pro 11 is, at its core, a Windows tablet. You can purchase an optional keyboard case and stylus with it, but the base pricing is for the tablet experience. Both the keyboard and stylus accessories cost extra – $280 and $100 respectively – but whether you choose the official accessories or opt for aftermarket alternatives, picking up a set allows the Surface to offer a full laptop experience.
If it’s been a while since you’ve used a Windows 2-in-1, you’ll be reassured to know that all of the touch controls are integrated into the standard Windows 11 operating system and it works intuitively. If you’re familiar with Windows – and who isn’t? – along with the basic gestures from smartphones, you should feel right at home. This is especially true if you opt for the official Surface Pro Keyboard case, as it uses a mechanical clasp and is automatically recognized so you don’t need to go through any extra menus to start using it like a laptop.
One aspect of the Surface line-up that has existed in the past, at least in my opinion, is that the display and hardware were always pretty modest compared to the competition. That officially falls by the wayside with this release, as Microsoft has prepared options for anything from an $800 to $2,000 budget, with every version offering quality screens and tiers of hardware that are very competitive for the form factor and pricing.
There are two performance tiers, largely classed based on their display and processor. At the $800 level, you’ll be getting a 13-inch LCD screen with a 2,880 x 1,920 (2.8K) resolution and 3:2 aspect ratio. Bumping up to the $1,200 price point upgrades that to an OLED panel. Both have the same 120Hz refresh rate and peak brightness of 600-nits, but the OLED offers much better contrast for deeper blacks and wider dynamic range.
Both versions come with new Qualcomm Snapdragon X processors. The company has been making the highest performance mobile CPUs for years but this is its first-ever release for consumer PCs, bringing much-needed competition to Intel and AMD. The technology (ARM) is fundamentally different from what either of those companies offer (x86), and is more power-efficient, though we don’t see that pushed to its fullest here, as I’ll demonstrate later.
The entry-level Surface Pro 11 comes with the Snapdragon X Plus while the OLED version comes with the Snapdragon X Elite. Both are very capable CPUs, but the Plus version offers 10 cores while the Elite offers 12 and a higher processing speed. For day-to-day productivity, you won’t notice a big difference, but for more demanding tasks, like video rendering, the Elite will be faster. Each offers a built-in Neural Processing Unit (NPU) with 45 TOPS of performance (making this a Co-Pilot+ PC) and Adreno graphics, though I wouldn’t get any grand ideas about gaming on this thing.
The display and processor are much more competitive than last-generation offerings, but depending on how much you’re willing to spend, you can outfit it with some pretty killer specs. Every version comes with 16GB of memory – and thank goodness for that because 8GB was too little five years ago – but that’s where the LCD version tops out. The OLED version, on the other hand, can be equipped with up to 64GB. For storage, the LCD offers either 256GB or 512GB, but the OLED model offers anything from 512GB to 1TB.
Microsoft also sent along the Surface Pro Keyboard and Surface Pen for my testing. I found both to be very good. Starting with the keyboard, it connects magnetically with a strong pull and snaps into place. The keyboard receives its power from the tablet, so you don’t need to worry about charging it separately if you don’t want to. There’s a built-in slot for the pen as well. You can move the keyboard around an inch closer to or further away from the screen to adjust the typing and viewing angles. It also comes with an integrated touchpad with haptic clicks that are quite nice.
It comes in different colors, black or sapphire blue, to match the different finishes available for the laptop itself (platinum, sapphire, dune, and black). In a particularly premium touch, Microsoft has trimmed the keyboard case in Alcantara. It’s soft and velvety, and even extends onto the keyboard deck itself. Typing on the deck has more flex than I like, but I didn’t find it distracting. And there is modest tactility beneath the keys without feeling mushy. Overall, I think it’s very well done, but whether it’s worth $280 is in the eye of the beholder.
The frame and body of the Surface Pro 11 is made out of aluminum and is smooth and feels robust. There isn’t any flex to the tablet in any kind of normal use, though I wouldn’t recommend trying to bend it to see. Like prior models, there’s a large built-in kickstand that can prop the screen up rather than rely on folding the case. It works well, and tucked behind it is a magnetic panel that hides the SSD. If you need more storage, you won’t need to worry about prying the back panel off and voiding your warranty. It’s the most easily-accessible upgrade I’ve encountered on a notebook.
Given that you’ll probably be using this for work or school, it’s important that it has reliable connectivity and high-quality microphones and cameras. For networking, it offers support for Wi-Fi 7, which is backwards compatible, and it should work with any Wi-Fi network accessible today. It also supports Bluetooth 5.4 for headphones and headsets.
For cameras, it offers a Quad HD (8.3MP 16:9, 12.2MP 4:3) front camera with full support for Windows Hello login and Windows Studio Effects. Around the rear, it offers a 4K (10MP camera). The front facing camera offers crisp image quality with a widescreen viewing angle. The front camera can capture video up to 1440p while the rear camera can do 4K, but frame rates are limited to 30 fps no matter what you choose.
Meeting performance is very good. I always opt to use an external microphone, but my colleagues were able to hear me clearly through the built-in mics (though, like nearly every laptop, you get a bit of room reverb depending on your setting).
In keeping with its ultrabook-like design, port selection is very limited. There are two USB4 ports, each capable of video, data, and PD fast charging. Microsoft includes a lightweight charger with the Surface Pro but it’s also compatible with other PD chargers as long as it offers 65W or greater.
Though Microsoft doesn’t quote milliamp hours for its battery, it does rate its uptime as 14 hours for video playback and around ten hours for active web use. I’ll break down real-world metrics in the following portion of this review, however, these figures seemed to be aspirational in my testing. Standby time, however, is definitely impressive.
The final thing to note about the laptop is that Snapdragon X isn’t 100% compatible with every Windows application. Snapdragon and Microsoft have done a good job of bridging the gap and many of the most common apps (MS Office, Adobe, etc.) work well. Windows on ARM has an ongoing list of compatible apps and it’s worth checking before pulling the trigger on a purchase of any laptop with the Snapdragon chips.
It’s also important to note that this is 100% not a laptop to choose for local gaming (for that, you’ll want a dedicated gaming laptop). Performance and compatibility just aren’t there yet. Cloud gaming, on the other hand, is another story.
Microsoft Surface Pro 11 – Performance
The Surface Pro 11 is an excellent laptop for productivity. Its design really caters to portability and offers versatility to use in different ways. When you’re done with work for the day, it’s a great little streaming device with a beautiful screen and decent speakers to fuel your Netflix binge.
This is where the device excels. I’ve been carrying it with me as a daily companion for more than a month, and it’s one of my favorite laptops for day-to-day productivity use. It’s thin and light, and when I want to use it as a digital note-taker or tablet, it’s ready immediately. Performance in these applications is also very good. It doesn’t slow down in Photoshop, even when I have multiple projects open at once. Likewise, when I’m working in Google Docs or Google Sheets or within the Microsoft Office suite, it is snappy and responsive.
It’s also here where the upgraded screen really gets a chance to shine. The OLED panel I tested was outstanding. It gets bright enough to use in direct sunlight if necessary. Indoors under fluorescent lighting, however, I rarely needed to run it at max brightness. The resolution is exceptionally crisp thanks to its high 266 pixels-per-inch. It’s somewhat unusual 3:2 aspect ratio concerned me at first, but it works very well for productivity applications thanks to its extra vertical space for documents and spreadsheets.
Because it’s running standard Windows 11, it runs virtually every application you might need for work or school. There’s no middle ground with running a mobile version of an app. Instead, you can run the full program without sacrifices. This quality also makes it more versatile for use with docking stations. I routinely used mine at work with a full-size monitor to take the place of my employer-provided laptop.
There are a couple areas where you might find it falling a bit short, however. The first and most notable is battery life. Despite the claims of higher efficiency with the Snapdragon X processors, something that we’ve seen demonstrated in competing notebooks much more effectively, the Surface Pro 11 only delivers acceptable battery life. If you are using it throughout the day for actual work, it will only last around eight hours.
Depending on what you’re doing, it could be even less. I found that when I was using apps that needed to be emulated rather than offer native ARM support, the battery drained more quickly. Eight hours also presumes that you’re running at around 50% brightness and are taking advantage of Energy Saver mode and other efficiency settings built into Windows. You’ll also want to let the system dynamically set its refresh rate. Run it at 100% brightness at 120Hz while using demanding apps and its battery life might only be five or six hours.
The other challenge is connectivity. It only features two USB-C ports, and if you do happen to need more than its rated battery life, you’ll lose one of those to a power adapter. This means it essentially demands a docking station if you need more than those two ports. I was also disappointed to see that it didn’t include any kind of card reader for creative professionals that might contemplate adding it to their workflow. With that being said, limited connectivity goes with the territory here and the Surface Pro 11 is hardly an outlier in this regard.
What it’s not, however, is a gaming laptop. As I alluded to in the previous section, local gaming performance is not good. While there are certainly games that are stable on ARM, the graphics portion of the Snapdragon Elite was underwhelming and, frankly, not very playable even after dropping the resolution to 1200p. Cyberpunk 2077 on low settings, with FSR 2.1 set to highest performance still struggled to average 30 fps.
The Surface Pro 11 doesn’t claim to be good for local gaming, though. Instead, it claims great compatibility for cloud gaming and there it delivers – if you have a strong internet connection. I played Baldur’s Gate 3 on GeForce Now and Still Wakes the Deep on Xbox Cloud Gaming and each worked well – GeForce Now especially so. For the most part, I was able to forget I was playing over the cloud at all, though high-intensity shooters like Call of Duty make every millisecond of latency more apparent.
As you can tell in the benchmark results above, Snapdragon still has a way to go before it’s competitive in benchmarks. If you want an apples to apples comparison, something like the Minisforum V3 is going to offer better overall compatibility and performance in synthetic tests. The fit and finish of the Surface Pro is significantly better, however, and real world performance remains very good for the extra investment required.
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