Microsoft Surface Pro (11th Edition) Review: An Overpriced 2-in-1

Ah, Surface Pro, however I’d forgotten each astir your epic travel to get to this point.

Microsoft’s converti-tablet is back, again, and the excitement is palpable. Microsoft’s excitement, astatine least. This is the fastest, bestest, astir AI-est Surface Pro computer ever, we’re told, each acknowledgment to Copilot+—the company's suite of artificial quality features baked into its Windows operating system—Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X CPU, and a corporate representation that has forgotten immoderate of the misguided Pros of yesteryear.

This is my sixth circular reviewing the Surface Pro, which includes editions from 2015, 2019, and 2020, to item a few. If you don’t privation to slog down representation lane, I’ll springiness you the highlights: Everything was good until Microsoft decided to wantonness Intel and the x86 architecture for an ARM Qualcomm spot successful 2019, and past abandoned Qualcomm successful 2020 for its ain ARM silicon (which was developed with Qualcomm arsenic a partner).

The TL;DR connected the displacement to Qualcomm successful 2019 is beauteous straightforward: Thanks to the ARM silicon, the machine couldn’t tally anything, astatine slightest not precise well. Windows has supported the x86 architecture for decades, but hardly immoderate apps astatine the clip were compatible with ARM-based Windows machines. None of the Adobe Creative Cloud apps would tally connected it. Users unwilling to enactment with the Edge browser had to usage a dog-slow, emulated 32-bit mentation of Chrome. Oh, and it was doubly the terms of Microsoft’s different Surface merchandise astatine the time. I predicted successful my reappraisal that the Pro X would beryllium discontinued, and aft conscionable 2 iterations it was, though ARM CPUs became a configuration enactment connected the Pro enactment successful the hardware that followed.

With the 2024 Surface Pro (aka 11th edition), Microsoft has returned to Qualcomm’s arms successful full, having bought into the promises of the Snapdragon X, the “It Chip” that volition bring AI into the mainstream via Windows. Plenty of different PC manufacturers are connected committee too—I’ve already reviewed the Asus Vivobook S 15 Copilot+ PC and volition beryllium investigating much of these Snapdragon-powered machines soon. Everyone wants their portion of that AI pie.

Note, however, that adjacent though we’re backmost to Qualcomm-first, an Intel enactment “for business” is retired there, unpromoted. No 1 overmuch cares, though, due to the fact that you’ll request the Qualcomm mentation if you privation to entree Copilot+ PC features, since for the clip being they aren’t supported connected Intel. So people 1 for Qualcomm: This is the archetypal clip the company’s CPU tin tally thing connected Windows that Intel and AMD can’t.