If you want the best performance and only occasionally use tablet features, the Surface Book with Performance Base is a better option. Why? Partly, I think it’s because the Surface Laptop now exists and for many of the people who wanted a Microsoft-branded, well-designed machine, the laptop is a better option. However, I’m less sure you should buy one than I’ve ever been with any prior Surface Pro. It has good performance and great battery life and, because it’s both a tablet and a laptop, it’s a very versatile machine.
Microsoft surface pro vs macbook pro 2017 pro#
I’ve used the Surface Pro series since the third generation, and there’s no doubt this Surface Pro is the best one yet. Thankfully, the Core i5 model is much more reasonable, starting at £979 (£1,227 including the Surface Pen and Type Cover, 128GB storage and 4GB RAM) making it cheaper without having to sacrifice too much on specifications. That’s without a touchscreen, pen support and so on, but if you’re looking for something that will primarily be a laptop, it’s a much better deal. You can get a cheaper model – running Intel Core m3, 128GB SSD and 4GB RAM – for a much cheaper £799 but the performance and battery life will be lower as a result. That’s the model I’d recommend most people buy.įor almost exactly £1,000 less than Microsoft’s top-end Surface Pro 2017, you could buy a very similarly specified Dell XPS 13. Yes, if you want this machine fully loaded, you’re going to pay £2,397, which is a lot of money. As you’ll probably want both, this added £248. The version we reviewed, with a dual-core 2.5GHz Intel Core i7-7660U, a 512GB SSD and 16GB of RAM (at the time we reviewed it) would have set you back a slightly eye-watering £2,149, and that doesn’t include either the Type Cover (£149) or Surface Pen (£99). Microsoft has made a real all-day machine here, which is great.
In our battery benchmark, the Surface Pro lasted 11hrs 33mins, which is one of the best scores we’ve seen for an Intel Kaby Lake Core i7-based machine and a vast improvement over the 5hrs 56mins we got in the same test for the Surface Pro 4. If you are thinking of doing CAD/CAM work on it, you’ll need to go for the top spec, but a Core i5 version will be okay for most users.Īnd, whichever version you’re using, you’ll be able to use it all day without plugging in power. What this means in practice is that the Surface Pro will be more than good enough for everyone except the most demanding of users. The Surface Pro 4, as a comparison, runs on a dual-core 2.4GHz Intel Core i5 (6th Gen) 6300U. It’s faster than the Surface Laptop, which achieved a score of 49. The dual-core 2.5GHz Intel Core i7-7660U model we looked at delivered an overall score of 60 in our in-house benchmarks, which puts it in the top echelon of machines around 13in. Microsoft pitches the Surface Pro’s performance as above the Surface Laptop and below the Surface Book with Performance Base and, although we’ve yet to benchmark the Performance Base, this sounds correct. Surface Pro 2017 performance and battery life At 5ft 8in and on the stumpy side, trying to put the Surface Pro on my lap at any angle other than almost vertical is impossible. The Surface Pro isn’t a device you’ll use on your lap unless you have unusually long thighs. The strengths and weaknesses of the Surface Pro form factor remain the same as always. As you would expect, this works with Microsoft’s applications, but it’s also available via an API for developers to build in support for their own software. By comparison, the Bamboo Sketch offers 2,048 levels of pressure sensitivity. Microsoft claims some particularly smart technology enables this: effectively, the Surface Pen communicates directly with the Surface Pro’s display hardware to draw. Pressure sensitivity is now up to 4,096 levels alongside a 12g activation force that means you can press harder on screen. It’s also had its response time improved – down to 21ms – which should mean most people will never spot any lag. This means you get a much more pencil-like experience when doing things such as shading. The Surface Pen has had a good upgrade, too, now supporting tilt in the same way Apple’s Pencil does.
I wouldn’t jump on it, or sit on it, but it’s robust. You might think this would make it easier to break as you lean on it more, but I had a decent go at pushing it down hard (sorry Microsoft), and it took the weight happily.
It’s now like the hinge on the Surface Studio and can be pushed down to an almost-flat 165 degrees, which is a comfortable angle for drawing.
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