Microsoft kicked off the detachable tablet segment of the modern 2-in-1 market with its original Surface device. At first glance, the new 2017 Surface Pro looks like just an incremental update to the Surface Pro 4. Does it earn its own place at the top of the 2-in-1 heap?
The 2017 Surface Pro is in some ways an incremental update to the Surface Pro 4 and doesn’t bring the pizzazz of recent innovations like the Surface Book 2 and Surface Studio. Incrementing on the best product in its class isn’t anything to sneeze at, however — and neither is the hardware in our review unit. It came with a Core i7-7660U CPU, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB solid state drive, which brought the price tag to $2,200.
In 2018, a new configuration was added that included an option for LTE, and now there are rumors of a smaller, more affordable Surface tablet in the works.
Does the Surface Pro maintain Microsoft’s place at the top? Or have the 2-in-1s it has inspired caught up?
The Surface Pro enjoys the same outstanding attention to detail as every other modern Surface machine and Microsoft’s ability to produce extremely well-built machines is as apparent as always. Simply put, the Surface Pro is solid as a rock, and it exudes a certain futuristic quality.
It’s also well-designed, with a look and feel that, while minimally changed from the Surface Pro 4, is still an improvement. The corners are more rounded, and the exhaust vents along the edges are less pronounced.
There aren’t many moving parts in the Surface Pro itself. The power and volume buttons along the top are easy to find by feel, and have a crisp action, while the kickstand is smooth and reliably holds the tablet at your chosen angle. It now opens up to 165 degrees, an increase from the Surface Pro 4, which opened 150 degrees. Fully flexed, the kickstand can turn Surface Pro into a nearly-flat slate.
The Surface Pro is no longer marketed as “the tablet that can replace your notebook.” Microsoft is simply calling it a laptop, which makes it unfortunate that the $160 Signature Type Cover keyboard (received with our review unit) isn’t included. It’s essential. In fact, we can’t imagine why you’d buy a Surface Pro without it. You can save some money with the standard Type Cover, but it’s still $130 and isn’t covered in Alcantara.
Fortunately, this vital accessory shares the high-quality aspects of the Surface Pro, and adds a splash of color as well. Our review unit came with the Cobalt Blue version, but Burgundy, Platinum, and Black versions are also available. The Alcantara fabric feels great and remains a unique feature not found on competing 2-in-1s.
The Signature Type Cover’s key travel is more than sufficient at 1.5mm, with just the right amount of pressure required to register key presses. The action is crisp with just a hint of bottoming out, and it’s quite a bit quieter than the previous Type Cover that shipped alongside the Surface Pro 4. It’s backlit with three levels of brightness, and suffers from minimal light bleed.
If you decide to flip into tablet mode for a moment and fold back the Type Cover, the keyboard will turn off when the cover is tucked back. It can even switch Windows 10 into tablet mode, if desired. It attaches to the tablet with strong magnets and connects via a physical port, meaning there’s zero lag when typing. That’s a nice improvement over the Bluetooth keyboard covers used by the Samsung Galaxy Book and original Apple iPad.
The touchpad is a little small, but it works extremely well. It’s a Microsoft Precision touchpad that supports all the Windows 10 gestures you would expect, and it offers up a smooth surface with just enough resistance to provide feedback for accurate mouse control.
Unlike the Surface Pro 4, the new Surface Pro doesn’t include the Surface Pen — an unfortunate decision on Microsoft’s part. The company cited a few reasons for making the pen an option, including the new multi-color scheme, customer feedback that shows that not everyone uses the pen, and the fact that many people who buy the Surface Pro will be upgrading from previous models. The pens – and the Type Covers, for that matter – are compatible across the Surface 3, Surface Pro 3, Surface Pro 4, and Surface Pro.
Microsoft made up for the decision to make the pen optional by significantly improving its specifications, while pricing the new version at $100. Pressure sensitivity has been quadrupled from 1,024 levels to 4,096, a new tilt feature has been added, and latency has been reduced dramatically to 21ms on the Surface Pro (thanks to the new Surface Pen design and a hardware accelerator).
The new Surface Pen features work on the previous models as well, although latency will only be marginally improved. You’ll want to make sure you pick the right color, given that it will be available in the same colors as the Signature Type Cover.
The improvements are noticeable, with no discernible delay between when the pen tip is placed on the screen to when Windows 10 Ink starts to flow. And the pen keeps up better with fast motions, never falling behind, as sometimes happens with the Surface Pro 4. The combination makes the Surface Pro one of the best inking experiences on the market, and a great tool for digital drawing and handwriting.
Of course, the Surface Pro also offers a capacitive touchscreen with 10-point multitouch capabilities. It’s as responsive as ever, offering yet another way to interact with the very touch-friendly Windows 10. And the Surface Pro supports the innovative Surface Dial input accessory directly on the screen.
Finally, Windows 10 Hello support is provided by an infrared camera that’s mounted next to the HD webcam. It offers password-less login via facial recognition, and we found it to be very fast in our testing.
Microsoft is late to the party when it comes to adopting the increasingly ubiquitous USB-C connection. It only recently added its first USB-C port to the Surface Book 2. Unfortunately older systems, including the Surface Pro, lack this new and increasingly common port.
Instead, the Surface Pro comes equipped with a single USB-A 3.0 connection and a mini-DisplayPort. There’s also a microSD card reader located under the kickstand and the same Surface Connect port that Microsoft has been using since the Surface Pro 3. That port provides power to the machine or can connect to the optional Surface Dock.
Interestingly, Microsoft will be providing a Surface Connect to USB-C adapter at some point in the future. We’re not sure what USB-C features will be supported by the dongle, so we’re left disappointed with the Surface Pro’s connectivity overall.
The Surface Pro (2017) offers essentially the same display as the Surface Pro 4, meaning it’s a 12.3-inch PixelSense display with 2,736 × 1,824 resolution (267 PPI) panel in a 3:2 aspect ratio. More and more machines are adopting the 3:2 format, as it offers a display that’s a little taller, for fitting more of a document or web page on the screen at once. The aspect ratio does cause some letter-boxing when watching video, however.
Microsoft uses excellent displays in its Surface line, and the Surface Pro is no exception. According to our colorimeter, our Surface Pro review unit’s display offered up some serious contrast at 1180:1, bested only by Microsoft’s own Surface Book 2. That promises excellent blacks for a non-OLED display. Color gamut support was average at 71-percent AdobeRGB, but much stronger at 96-percent sRGB. Colors were also fairly accurate with a Delta-E of 1.88 (1.00 or lower is considered excellent).
In addition, the display was incredibly bright at 427 nits, promising to help overcome the display’s general glossiness in bright environments. The only real area of weakness was its gamma, which at 2.6 (the ideal is 2.2), likely means some scenes will be brighter than they should.
While the numbers are great, there’s a potential issue with color accuracy — an “Enhanced” color profile found in Display Settings. When enabled, this color mode adjusts the screen to look bolder and more vibrant, but the colors are actually less accurate than in sRGB mode. Everyday users may like the Enhanced profile better, but anyone doing color-critical work should make sure sRGB mode is on.
In use, the Surface Pro’s display is as excellent as it sounds, and getting better all the time as Microsoft improves Windows 10’s support for high resolutions. Text and images are razor sharp, colors are excellent, blacks are deep, and the display is generally a joy to use.
The Surface Pro sports two front-firing speakers on each side of the display. There are small cutouts in the glass to let the sound through, and the design provides impressive sound for a tablet. Music is great, with surprising range, and there’s even a hint of bass. The speakers also get surprisingly loud, and can fill a decent sized room without distorting.
We can see why Microsoft is moving away from referring to the Surface Pro as a tablet, given that it’s packed with very laptop-like components. Our review model was equipped with a fast dual-core Intel i7-7660U CPU and 16GB of RAM. The Core i7-7660U is no longer at the cutting edge, as Intel’s 8th-gen Core processors are now available, but it managed respectable performance.
Its GeekBench 4 single-core and multi-core results were solid. More impressively, the Surface Pro churned through our Handbrake test, which encodes a 420MB video to H.265, in just 822 seconds. That’s significantly faster than each of our comparison systems, and in fact is the fastest result we’ve seen from a dual-core notebook processor.
We have to note, though, that competitors like the Lenovo Yoga 920 and HP Spectre x360 13 have recently updated to 8th-gen, quad-core processors. They do outperform the Surface Pro in multi-core tests when so equipped, and that takes away the edge Microsoft enjoyed when the Surface Pro was first released.
