Surface extravaganza: a review of Windows 11 and Microsoft’s new Surface lineup

Dieter Bohn hosts a discussion on reviews for the newest Microsoft products launched this fall — Windows 11, Surface Pro 8, Surface Laptop Studio, and Surface Go 3 — with The Verge's Monica Chin, Dan Seifert, and Tom Warren. Further reading: Windows 11 review: a familiar home that’s still being renovated Surface Pro 8 review: the best of both worlds Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio review: back to the drawing board Microsoft Surface Go 3 review: left behind Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by On Investing, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Each week, hosts Lizanne Saunders, Schwab's Chief Investment Strategist, and Colin Martin, Head of Fixed Income Research and Strategy for the Schwab Center for Financial Research, bring you fresh insights on what's happening in the markets and why, and what the implications might be for your portfolio. Join Colin and Lizanne as they explore questions like, how do you evaluate corporate bonds that look interesting? And what sectors are on the move right now? Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com/oninvesting, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:45Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by On Investing, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Each week, hosts Lizanne Saunders, Schwab's Chief Investment Strategist, and Colin Martin, Head of Fixed Income Research and Strategy for the Schwab Center for Financial Research, bring you fresh insights on what's happening in the markets and why, and what the implications might be for your portfolio. Join Colin and Lizanne as they explore questions like, how do you evaluate corporate bonds that look interesting? And what sectors are on the move right now? Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com/oninvesting, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:31Speaker 01

  Hello and welcome to The Vergecast. My name is Dieter Bone, and it is Tuesday, which means that we are doing a run of special episodes. You may have heard a bunch of the episodes that Ashley Carman did about AI. They are amazing. For basically the rest of the year, we're going to do some focused episodes on a bunch of different topics, some of which I'm very excited about. I'm also excited about today's topic, which is, I'm just going to call it the Surface Stravaganza. Because Surface Spectacular is too obvious. We have an amazing group of guests here. We have Dan Seifert. Hi, I'm here. Monica Shin.

• 2:03Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  And Tom Warren.

• 2:04Speaker 03

  Hello.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  And we are going to talk about all of the Surface devices that just came out. All of us have reviewed one of them. And we also have Windows 11 to discuss. So it's going to be a fun conversation, especially because we're just going to jump right into Windows 11. And what's more fun than Windows 11, Tom, honestly? Anything?

• 2:23Speaker 03

  Windows 11 Ice Cream? Or Windows 11 6D Animated Music Festival with an NFT free? I think those are kind of fun.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is worth talking about. So Microsoft famously had like the Rolling Stones launch Windows 95. Massive, huge launch, the Friends cast doing infomercials for it. And nothing has ever lived up to that. But this year, the launch was weird because, one, we were promised that Windows 10 was the last version of Windows, and that turned out to not be true.

• 2:53Speaker 03

  Uh oh.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  But two, it's been in like a big public beta for a long time, and we all sort of knew it was coming. And we thought there was going to be like a different version of it for foldables. And it just sort of like rolled out over time, and then it landed with custom ice cream and an NFT. Is that about the size of this launch, would you say, Tom?

• 3:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, the launch is like, I appreciate that Microsoft's not doing in-person events at the moment and stuff, obviously, for the pandemic. But that launch event was super weird. They could have just not done anything, which I didn't think they were doing anything until like hours before, when they suddenly sent all this ice cream out to people and directed people to this website. I watched it and I was like 1:00 a.m. my time last night, and I was just like, the hell is going on here? I was trying to mint these NFTs, which were basically just promo links to Amazon and Walmart entries for laptops, like $100 off.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  There's such a missed opportunity here for them to do a Spinal Tap collaboration joke because they were turning it up to 11.

• 3:52Speaker 04

  And they just, they didn't do it.

• 3:54Speaker 03

  I think they probably had a marketing budget and they were probably at one point thinking they were gonna have an in-person event and then they were like, let's give away ice cream and NFTs, that sounds cool.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  So the Windows 11 review and the fact that you can maybe get it right now is fascinating because we have been living with it for so long. You in particular have been living with it for so long. And so

• 4:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  It's a big release, but it's also, I don't know, it feels like a weird one because again, like we were expecting them to stick with Windows 10 for a long time. And it also feels like it's not so much a giant splashy release where everything changes now as it is, like, it's a moment in time as they're developing it and they just picked this particular moment to say it's official.

• 4:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's essentially like, like I said in the review, really, it's unfinished. Personally, I also feel like they've, they've kind of rushed it

• 4:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:40Speaker 03

  to that date and I'm not, I'm not entirely sure why. Like, I think we spoke about this in the Vergecast the other week. It's driven by like a refresh cycle for PCs and stuff, I think, that day.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:48Speaker 03

  But yeah, it's, it's very unfinished. Doesn't mean that it's bad. It's just not a kind of, I think what people were expecting, the consistency, the UI changes aren't, aren't quite there. There's some missing features and like, the rest of it's like great. Like it's, it feels modern, I think, in, in most parts until you'd sort of like scratch under the surface and you're like, oh, I need to change some of my mouse. And it's like, ah, Windows 95 and like, you know, the Rolling Stones.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:15Speaker 03

  And all that sort of stuff. That is very much Windows 11. Like they, they've done a bunch of blog posts and videos of like how they've, you know, how like designers sit around in these really fancy rooms, like

• 5:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:25Speaker 03

  the perfect lighting and they're all like, this is, you know, this is how we've designed this, this amazing blue wallpaper.

• 5:32Speaker 05

  It's why every single detail matters. From the tiniest hinge to every pixel you will see on the display, to every piece of the experience that flows across Windows 11.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  Are designers not allowed to yell? Do they have to whisper?

• 5:51Speaker 03

  No, they have to like re-radio voice. They've done loads of all that sort of stuff. And then it's like, you know, you can imagine a TikTok video of it, right? It'd be like that video and then it'd be like a really horrible noise going when you open like the mouse settings or something. Like I haven't upgraded on my main PC, which I said in the review and I did like a really angry rant. I hate the Windows 11 taskbar the other week. And to be honest, everyone's kind of saying the same thing.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:19Speaker 03

  Like a lot of people are missing this taskbar.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  There's a million of these things that we need to get into, but we should just, for those who are unfamiliar or who are holding off on updating, what's like the top line, three or four things that Windows 11 is supposed to do compared to Windows 10?

• 6:33Speaker 03

  Yeah. So like, there is a bunch of good stuff in there. So like Snap Assist and Snap Layouts and Snap Groups. They keep sort of interchanging the Snap Assist and Snap Layouts thing. But let's just call it Snap.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:44Speaker 03

  That feature, you've obviously been able to snap Windows side by side in Windows for years. But now it's like, it makes it a lot easier and it surfaces stuff that perhaps you need to know gestures for or keyboard shortcuts. And you know, like power user features right to the, to the front. You hover over the maximize button and it's all quite there. And you know, I think that genuinely will improve your Windows usability for a bunch of people who use it daily and that perhaps never knew that stuff existed. So I think that's good. The new Windows Store, although it's still a little bit clunky here and there. It looks a lot better. It's a little bit easier to navigate around. It feels like it responds a bit quicker, but most importantly, it's a little bit more open. So there's more apps in it. So it's like actually a place that you can go to and go, okay, I need Zoom.

• 7:27Speaker 03

  Click install. Don't have to worry like what XE I'm downloading or whatever.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:31Speaker 03

  You're trusting like Microsoft, you know, verified them all. Discord and just a bunch of stuff like Opera, I think Mozilla announced today or the other day that Firefox is going to be in there.

• 7:40Speaker 02

  Not Chrome, of course.

• 7:41Speaker 03

  No Chrome yet. No. I wouldn't be surprised if that happens though. Like I feel like it will.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  They might as well.

• 7:46Speaker 03

  Yeah. Like it's just another point for Google to be in. Although you know, the Mozilla Firefox thing is kind of interesting because Firefox has obviously worked around the browser restrictions thing.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:58Speaker 03

  So they can one click and set defaults. So I'm curious if that's, if Microsoft's going to allow it in the store.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. I mean, it would be hilarious to have Chrome in the store and then you can't change the default browser.

• 8:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, very easily.

• 8:11Speaker 02

  I was having trouble doing it like when, because I always, whenever I set up a new PC, I always make Chrome the default. But it's a lot harder to do in settings now. You have to scroll through like several more things to do it.

• 8:20Speaker 03

  Yeah. So basically, when you, when you install a new browser now, like you'll click on a link, like say from the mail app or something. It'll be like, oh, you've got a new browser. Do you want to open it in this browser or keep using Edge? And if you don't tick, always open it in this browser, which is a really kind of, you know, small option at the bottom. If you don't do that.

• 8:38Speaker 02

  I miss it every time.

• 8:38Speaker 03

  You'll never get that option again.

• 8:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:40Speaker 03

  You have to go and dig into these crazy settings and.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  But Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says that Windows 11 is the most operating, most open operating system ever. So.

• 8:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  There's that.

• 8:49Speaker 03

  I mean.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  There's also that.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, it does run a bunch of Linux stuff and in theory, someday it's going to run Android apps, right?

• 8:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's one update per year for Windows 11. So I think in a year, probably.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:01Speaker 03

  Realistically on that. But yeah, like, so the Windows Store is there. That's, that's a good one. The new UI is good, I think.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:06Speaker 03

  Like overall, like I like the rounded corners and the sort of like depth and color that they've put on all the apps and the operating system in general. I think that's all great, but to be honest, there's not much there to actually say, oh, you should get Windows 11 because of this. I think there would be if they had some of the features that they actually promised for their.

• 9:24Speaker 02

  Dynamic refresh rate.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  Oh, we are going to get to that. We've, we have got three hours planned to talk about refresh rates on the Surface Stravaganza. It's going to be very exciting. I want to get into the, so it's got this new look. It's not a reason to upgrade, but it's nice, even though it gets rid of some taskbar functionality. But every year with a Windows redesign, every time there's a Windows redesign, going back to at least Vista, it's been, well, the new stuff looks nice. But as soon as you dig two levels deep into settings, you're looking at the old stuff.

• 9:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:54Speaker 01

  And I feel like that's like, it's gone from a complaint to just like, I don't know, it's an accepted part of Windows. Is it a thing that we should still complain about? Is it a thing that still bothers you? Is it a thing that they need to fix? Or is it just, yep, that's, that's just how Windows is. There's always, there's always a weird, you know, box that was designed in 1995 sitting in there somewhere.

• 10:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's like the whole thing about Windows is so weird because it's like, there's always like three or four ways to do things. Like, you know, you can pull up the File Explorer by clicking on the button, or you can press Windows key and E, for example, like that's, that's, that's a shortcut. And there's just a variety of ways to navigate around to the point where you sometimes stumble across stuff that's like so old.

• 10:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:32Speaker 03

  And it's so easy to stumble across it if you are a power user especially. But I feel like they're, they're getting so close to like being where a point where they don't surface that stuff as much. So it kind of does go into the background and it can just sort of sit there. Like, I don't mind that it's there. I think it's, it's cool that they have this backwards compatibility and stuff. But I just don't want to see it when I'm like trying to figure out my mouse settings. Like, here's the most insane thing about Windows, right? So I switch between, well, I used to switch between Windows and Mac a lot.

• 10:58Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 10:59Speaker 03

  So I, in Windows, I would change my scroll direction, on my, on my scroll on my mouse.

• 11:04Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 11:04Speaker 03

  Just to match the Mac, because I kind of got used to the Mac way of doing it.

• 11:07Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 11:08Speaker 03

  Now, in, in Windows, I can't do that unless I dig into the registry and, and set it.

• 11:12Speaker 04

  Really?

• 11:13Speaker 03

  Yeah. Unless your mouse manufacturer has enabled it in their custom app settings or whatever, there's no way to do it through Windows. And now if I store a monthly update in Windows 11, so I've been trying out all the dev betas, it resets that, those registry keys that I've switched every time there's a monthly update. So I'm like, ah.

• 11:33Speaker 04

  This was point in your review, Tom, is that there's like, that is an example. There's another, other like what we're kind of used to on other platforms, other modern OSes, things that, you know, Windows still doesn't have, like it doesn't automatically switch between light and dark mode based on time of day. Like, you can't do that. You have to manually change your settings on that. And it's like, every mobile OS does that, Mac OS does that. Like, everyone is accustomed to that feature by now. The, something like, you know, we talked about seeing the Windows 95 UI. Well, now we've got Windows 95 UI, Windows 98 UI, Windows XP UI, Windows 7 UI, Windows 8 UI, Windows 10 UI, and Windows 11 UI. And so when you change volume in Windows 11, you get the Windows 8 volume box,

• 12:16Speaker 04

  which looks so out of place in the Windows 11 UI. It's just like, these are little things that you might not notice right away.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  And really, does it ruin your experience? Probably not, but it's just like, why? Well, why didn't they finish that? Like, it's, it's, it's not like they don't have a lot of people working on this stuff. And so like, why, why aren't these things kind of addressed? And it's just kind of weird. And every time there's a new version of Windows, they just pile on more and more. And then it's just like.

• 12:40Speaker 03

  And the dark mode is a good point that likes. So I put the dark mode on like the whole time. If I do start and run, it's like light mode. And then if I go into task manager, it's like light mode. It's just light mode, like basically half the operating system and half is dark mode. It's just, it's really inconsistent and I kind of hate that because I've been trying to dark mode everything on my computer. Because if I'm working late at night, it's like, it really is pretty jarring if you're, if you're not in dark mode. But yeah, that inconsistency is just, it's just disappointing. I think they could have given it a bit more time, I think. Um, I, I appreciate that with Windows 10, they went to like this whole, you know, cumulative updates and monthly updates. And every six months, there's a bigger update, but I don't think that's reason to ship this in, in quite the way that they have.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  Well, do you think that they are thinking about Windows 11 in the same way that they thought about Windows 10? Where they, they did have all these, you know, little updates or are they, you mentioned they're moving to like a more of a yearly big update cadence. So to me, part of me wants to be like, well, Windows is like Chrome OS. There's like, there's a new version all the time and sometimes they make a big deal out of it. And the fact that this was the launch is like, well, it's not finished, but like Windows is never finished. It's, it's, it's, it's in all of our hearts and that's, that's truly what it is. It's an ongoing project forever and ever. And so it's fine. Or is it more, no, no, they had a deadline and they missed it. And so they rushed to finish some stuff and they just super didn't finish other stuff.

• 14:06Speaker 03

  Yeah. So I, I feel like, so when they released the beta, it was basically the operating system was final then.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:11Speaker 03

  In like relative terms, because the way that they're actually servicing it is they're doing these things called cumulative updates on top. There's a lot of package of fixes and changes. So I feel like they're going to do that a lot more now. So it's going to be a monthly thing. The weirdest part about all of this, right, is that I never run a beta operating system on my main PC.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 14:29Speaker 03

  But if I was to upgrade to Windows 11 on my main PC, I think. I probably want the beta version.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 14:34Speaker 03

  Which is strange because it has all the fixes, it has all the latest changes and improvements and stuff. They've said they're doing one big sort of major update a year, but I feel like we'll still get like bigger changes, you know, in the, in the coming months and stuff.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:48Speaker 03

  I would imagine there's going to be some of that taskbar stuff. I feel like they're gonna, you know, I know that internally they have builds where dark mode is a lot better. They just obviously weren't quite ready to, to ship it in, um, the other day. So I feel like that stuff's all gonna come, but I don't, don't think we'll have to wait a year for it.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  Okay, we should talk about the taskbar. It's in the middle now, but they also stripped out a bunch of functionality.

• 15:10Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  I mean, poll, poll the room. Who is happy with the taskbar?

• 15:13Speaker 02

  I hate it.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  You hate it? Is it the designer? Is it the, the fact that you can't drag and drop icons or what?

• 15:18Speaker 02

  So what I hate is that I am a religious, um, user of the search bar. Like every time I need to find something, I search for it. I don't use file folders, stuff like that. I search for everything. And it used to be so large and now it's this tiny little thing in the middle of a sea of these other icons. And it's just slightly hard for me to find, but I use it so often that it like adds time to my day. I want that to be like half of my taskbar again.

• 15:41Speaker 04

  I, uh, don't mind it because one, I've, I never put the Windows taskbar on the side or the top, which you can't do anymore. But, uh, I've never done that. So it's always been at the bottom for me. I like having all the icons in the middle. I find that it's just like easier for me to click them, especially I'm using a, a big, ultra widescreen monitor a lot of times. And when the taskbar is like all the way in the lower left.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:03Speaker 04

  Corner, it's hard for me to find. So, uh, in the middle is a little bit easier for me. I think that the widgets are extremely stupid. And I think that like certain things, like you mentioned, drag and drop icons would be nice and stuff like that. But like, in general, the things that slow me down are on the lower right corner, the new action center options or whatever. It's harder to get to.

• 16:23Speaker 02

  I'm having so much trouble with those.

• 16:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's harder to get to the apps that are running and things like that. I can't like pin them as easily. I can't change things like my wifi network settings or my Bluetooth settings as easily and end up having to go into the settings menu. So there's a bunch of like little things that add up, but I think the most offensive thing of it is that the, uh, chat icon. Forces teams on me and I can't right click and remove that. I have to literally go into settings and turn off a toggle for the chat icon that I have no interest in ever using.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  It's the most open operating system ever with equal access to all apps.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  I do like that they changed the colors in the settings so that it's like a little easier to see what all the categories are on the left side. But I do, I still find settings like as difficult, if not more difficult to navigate as it was before, but now I am in it like all the time because so many of the things I used to access, not in settings I now have to dive in to find.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  One thing, Tom, you brought up, there seems to be an inspiration from mobile operating systems. And this is a, this is a theme across Mac and Windows and even Chrome OS, honestly, where a bunch of the interaction models and features seem like they're designed for people that are used to, I don't know, more phone or tablet stuff. So like the centered dock, the centered start menu. For me, the big one is the widgets. I don't like the new taskbar slash start menu because I'm the guy who likes live tiles still. I'm the one who thinks that they're useful. And they're more useful than the widgets in their current state. And that, that whole widget bar is just part and parcel, just, oh, people on phones have accepted that we can throw a bunch

• 17:57Speaker 01

  of news updates and vague ads on our own personal information left to the home screen. So we're just going to do that on Windows. And like, all of those widgets are useless to me in a way that, but live tiles, at least you could pretend that there was going to be some, some utility there.

• 18:10Speaker 02

  I don't use widgets on my phone either, to be fair. So I don't know.

• 18:14Speaker 03

  The only one that's actually useful is weather. And that used to be slightly useful because it was in the taskbar. But they were like, nope, let's go hide it away again. So you can go see the rain on the side. Yeah, like, you know, my thoughts about the taskbar. But I will say that the main thing about the taskbar for me is it's ruined my sleep. And I say that because if I'm playing a game at like midnight, before I know it, it's like 3 or 4 AM. And I haven't realized because my damn clock is not on my second monitor anymore because it's disappeared. So like, that's my main gripe with it. I can probably work around the other stuff.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  I can buy you a clock, Tom.

• 18:52Speaker 03

  But it's not, it's not natural for me. It's like, I just look to my other monitor for the time, like when I have a full screen app. So, but yeah, like the widgets, like there's no third-party widgets in there. I don't know whether they're ever going to extend it to allow that. And they force you into edge.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 19:07Speaker 03

  It's like, those things are troublesome. And then it's powered by like this whole AI engine MSN underneath for the news. Which, to be honest, like they surface a lot of junk in there. And, and they have like, they, they used to have human editors in there that would curate pretty okay content. I guess it was a lot better than it is now. And they have like fired them all. And I think I heard recently that I think they're all gone now.

• 19:31Speaker 01

  Where have I heard that story before?

• 19:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  I'll just tell you right now, one of the top widgets is, uh, big alligator eats small alligator.

• 19:41Speaker 02

  That one I might use.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  I would click.

• 19:43Speaker 02

  I would click that. That sounds more useful than weather.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  Last thing on Windows, I mean, there's so many things we could do, but where do you feel like the upgrade situation has netted out? Because there's a whole lot of, oh, you gotta have the modern processors, gotta support these security features. And everyone's real mad. And then maybe you can like fix it. And then Microsoft had fixed messaging and well, it's here now. What is the story with upgrades? Where is it actually landing? Is it landing in, eh, it's fine? Or is it landing, I don't know, this is a fiasco?

• 20:09Speaker 03

  I know, people, people are pissed. Like, people are really angry. And particularly, I think from what I hear from most people is that it's, it's seventh gen. Cause I think people have, I don't think people are really necessarily still on the fifth or sixth gen, really expecting a new Windows. But I think the seventh gen people particularly are annoyed. Cause I think that was when people like last did the big, you know, core and I'm refresh on their, on their machine. So those people are annoyed that they can't get the upgrade. But like, the way it's netted out is essentially it's eighth gen and newer. With the exception of the Surface Studio chip that for some reason is seventh gen and supported.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  Wasn't it like sixth gen? Geez, that thing was ancient.

• 20:50Speaker 03

  Yeah. Like, I wonder why that's supported. Perhaps because it's still being sold and it'd be weird.

• 20:56Speaker 03

  Weirdly embarrassing.

• 20:57Speaker 04

  But like the Surface Go, the old, the original Surface Go, which is only three years old, and you could have paid $700 for it with a keyboard, is not eligible to upgrade for Windows 11. And there's no like easy bypass there. It is just like the processor's too old and too slow, tough noogies, which is like kind of weird because all of our experience testing Windows 11 across a wide variety of machines, obviously, Tom, you tested a bunch, but we also pulled the staff and we had at least a dozen people using Windows 11 on a wide variety of machines. Nobody had any performance issues compared to Windows 10. Like, it performs just fine. So it's very odd that there's like this, you know, I understand there's a security level part of it, but there also seems to be like a performance ceiling that Microsoft wants your processor to be above in order

• 21:41Speaker 04

  to install Windows 11, which doesn't really make a ton of sense for considering, based on our experience so far at least.

• 21:47Speaker 03

  The security related stuff and their big security push, like I totally see where they're coming from. They do need to push like the Windows hardware along. And I think what we'll see is in time, they will enable some of these security options where it will probably make sense like, ah, okay, if I did have that enabled on my older, you know, seventh gen processor, then it would actually have performance impacts. There's been like a story floating around over the past week that if you enable VBS, which is their, their virtualization based security, if you enable that, then you get like performance drops of like 20 or 30% in games. So that's like problematic. So they've gotten this massive like white dock that they released yesterday of like all this security things and like reading through it's like, it's really well put together. And I could see their point

• 22:32Speaker 03

  and why they've done it. I just think they didn't very, they didn't communicate it very well. And it was all that confusion around TPM 2.0 and all that sort of stuff. And I think in time we'll look back at this and go, that was controversial, but it kind of made sense.

• 22:46Speaker 04

  Right.

• 22:46Speaker 03

  Like, I think when, when we're in 10 years and Windows machines are all getting hacked to pieces or some aren't because of these security things, we'll be like, okay, that was the point in time where like they tried to shift things and okay, it kind of made sense. That's what I predict anyway.

• 23:00Speaker 01

  I mean, the thing with Windows is actually, in some ways, to me, it's like Android. It's just, it's part of the furniture. It's like, it's like the base state that a majority of people use. So we're going to get into how it's instantiated on Surface devices. Now, that's very interesting this year. But Monica, you have reviewed more Windows computers in the last year and a half than I will in my lifetime. Do you anticipate that Windows 11 is going to, looking at all the different kinds of laptops and tablets and convertibles and desktops and everything that you touch, going to make an appreciable difference? Or is it like, yep, it's a new version of Windows, it looks nicer, it has a few new things, but fundamentally, this is like, still the same furniture?

• 23:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it has definitely changed my experience in that, as a laptop reviewer, the biggest difference is made for me, and I recognize this is a me, very specific me thing, is that Cortana no longer screams at you every time you set up a new computer. It's no longer like, hi there, I'm Cortana, and I'm here, which I hear in my nightmares. Hi there, I'm Cortana, and I'm here to help. A little sign in here, a touch of Wi-Fi there. It's a little sign in here, a touch of Wi-Fi there. I can recite the whole thing. I hate her, she's gone, and I'm very, very happy about that.

• 24:09Speaker 03

  Do you remember that video on Twitter with like, 20 or 30 machines all doing it?

• 24:13Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 24:14Speaker 03

  Like, a few seconds.

• 24:19Speaker 02

  This is the absolute...

• 24:20Speaker 01

  Nightmare.

• 24:21Speaker 02

  That it's, I hear it in my dreams every night. But I'm very, very happy that's gone. There is still someone who talks to you, but she's like, quiet. It's not the kind of thing where like, people walking by you like, jumping or like, what's that? Which is like, what used to happen every time I turned on a new computer. So I'm very glad they removed that. Again, that's a, that's a kind of a niche thing. But otherwise, I mean, I think it has been a little bit more annoying to set some things up. I still haven't figured out like, the easy way to make Chrome the default, which is annoying. I think getting the machines up to where I need them to be... Is just a little bit more difficult. Now, it's hard to know, honestly, and hard to predict how much of that is like muscle memory that I'm just going to get accustomed to after being Windows 10 for so long and

• 25:04Speaker 02

  how much of that is actually like they made this harder to put on the settings that I need.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:08Speaker 02

  It's a little harder to change the battery profiles, like those kinds of things. But I mean, I think I like Snap layouts a lot. I'm with Tom. I think once you sort of figure out how to use it and get adept with that, will probably make a difference in the way my workflow is.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that's the other main thing. I like having the taskbar in the center. I think it makes it look more like Chrome OS, which also for me as a reviewer is just helpful in having consistency of experience.

• 25:32Speaker 01

  I gotta say Snap layouts, Snap, all the auto Snap stuff is the best window management thing I've used in maybe years. It's the first time that I have sort of had an OS arrange stuff for me where I was like, "Oh, I get how that works. Oh, I'm going to use this all the time now." There was a moment where I had like the bigger window on the left and then a smaller window on the right and it just like remembered that I didn't want to have it be split 50/50, that it wanted it that way and that I could come back to that.

• 26:04Speaker 02

  Right.

• 26:04Speaker 01

  And it did it in a way that was automatic in like an opposite of Clippy way, you know, where it wasn't like, "I'm going to be helpful." And I'm like, "I hate you so much, stop trying to help." It just did it in a way that was like, "Oh, I get this. This works." And it's my favorite part.

• 26:16Speaker 02

  It's interesting because there were some OEMs that sort of had third-party things that were doing that. So Asus, on its dual-screen machines, for example, there was a whole thing called Tab Groups where you can like have one group for when you're working and one group for when you're playing games and it remembered where all of them were. And that kind of thing was very cool. And I don't know, like, that's the kind of thing that should just everyone should have. So I'm glad it's finally on Windows now.

• 26:40Speaker 01

  All right, we are going to take a break and we're going to come back and it is time to genuinely get into the heart of this episode, the Stravaganza of Surfaces. We'll be right back.

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• 28:00Speaker 01

  All right, we are back, and it is time to talk the device that I'm most excited about, the Surface Pro 8. What do we think?

• 28:08Speaker 02

  It's good.

• 28:09Speaker 01

  Yeah?

• 28:09Speaker 02

  I think that Microsoft, the Surface Pro 7, for a while, has been a powerful device that has had the same design, has had a four-year-old design. I mean, it looks just like something that was made in 2015 because it basically is, they didn't change very much about the design since the four and the kind of five. The Surface Pro X was sort of the opposite of that. It had an ARM chip that was pretty slow, and there was a lot of stuff you couldn't run, but it was in a really nice-looking chassis. So I talked to a lot of people, like, who would ask me, like, should I get the seven or should I get the X? I want something powerful, I want something that looks nice, and neither of these quite fill that, which is correct. So finally, I think Microsoft combined those two things and made sort of what all these

• 28:53Speaker 02

  people really wanted, which is a device that looks like the Surface Pro X and, but actually has a processor in it that can, you know, do powerful loads and games and all the stuff that people actually want. So this is the Surface Pro we've been waiting for, for at least a couple of years. We've been, I know Tom, in his review of the Surface Pro 7, begged Microsoft to make it look like a Surface Pro X. We've been asking for that for a while, and they finally did.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  Was it primarily the larger screen for you? A bunch of the other redesigns, like there's internal stuff. There's Thunderbolt, hooray. There's some screen like tech stuff that we definitely need to get into. But the basic shape and functionality of the thing is like it's a Surface. They didn't fundamentally change that. They they made the screen bigger and they they fixed the keyboard, which I'm very excited about. Is that the is that the main thing? Or is there some other sense of like the Surface's four through seven felt tired in some other way that really needed to be addressed?

• 29:49Speaker 02

  The main thing is the bezels. It had very chunky side bezels before. The top one and the bottom one are still kind of big, which I mean, you need something to hold it when you're using it as tablets. That makes sense, but the side ones are significantly thinner. The keyboard still covers the bottom bezel without covering some of the taskbar, which was the problem on the Surface Pro X. So really, from the front, it looks like you're looking at like a Dell XPS 13 or, you know, something that was made in 2021.

• 30:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:14Speaker 02

  There's also the material is not as bad with the fingerprints. That was a big issue with the the previous material the chassis was made of. And the keyboard is now a carbon fiber core, so it's a lot stiffer. It's not sliding around. It's not it's much sturdier, I think, as a whole.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, there are Surface Keyboard decks where you if you like set it on one leg and like rest your hands on it, you can click the mouse.

• 30:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  It still happens with the Go3.

• 30:38Speaker 02

  That happened to me as well.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's completely gone with this new deck from what I could tell, which is very exciting.

• 30:43Speaker 02

  And the port selection, it's two USB-C Thunderbolt four ports now, which is more they there used to be an USB-A on there and that they've modernized that.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, but there is still the Surface Fin if you want it, which isn't Thunderbolt, but has very similar capabilities, I guess. The thing that's interesting about Surface is, I don't know, with the Pixel and with Google and the Nexus phones and the Pixel, it's like, well, OK, there's a new version of Android and this is the the thing that we're going to use to showcase a new version. And Microsoft doesn't have a new version of Windows often enough, as often as they cycle through Surfaces. But this year, it feels like they were trying to have a moment where like Windows 11 is here and so is a Surface Pro 8, which is awesome for Windows 11. Did those two things feel like they cohered together into like a moment? Or did they just happen to be a coincidence around the same time?

• 31:29Speaker 02

  You know, I think it would have more if the dynamic refresh rate feature actually worked.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  Okay, we got, let's just get into it. We've been teasing it for like 15 minutes. What is the story with dynamic refresh on the Surface Pro? Because they say it has 120 Hz display, but when they announced it, I was like, "Oh, 120 Hz display. That's great." Wait, it says default in parentheses after that every time they mention it. What does that mean? So what, what does that mean?

• 31:51Speaker 02

  So they've been telling us, we've been hearing that Windows 11 is going to have this dynamic refresh rate feature that will automatically switch, if your screen is, supports 120 Hz refresh rate, it will automatically switch your screen between 120 Hz and 60 Hz based on what you're doing. So if you're playing a game, for example, it will put you in 120. If you're like doing something where the refresh rate wouldn't matter, it'll put you at 60. The Surface Pro 8 was released with a 120 Hz refresh rate screen. It has 120 Hz refresh rate. Seems like that would be a great, you know, device to take advantage of the dynamic refresh rate feature. Seems perhaps the best device to take advantage of that feature. Unfortunately, it's not there. So you can't, you can't use it. We don't know if it's going

• 32:34Speaker 02

  to be on there. We don't know when it's going to be on there. If it is, they've not told us that. So what we have is essentially any other 120 Hz laptop. You know, it is a screen that supports 120 Hz. If you want to switch it down to 60, you can switch it down to 60. That's also true if you're using like a razor blade or like any other, you know, all laptops have the capability. So it's less unique in that respect without that special Windows 11 feature. And, you know, changing refresh rate is like kind of a pain. You have to go into settings, you have to go to display settings, you have to go to advanced display settings, you have to scroll down, and then it's like, you have to confirm your changes. Like it's this whole thing. You're probably not going to want to do it a lot. I, I think that this would have been a great opportunity to showcase that big feature of Windows 11, but it does not seem to be there. For default, so it is 60 Hz out of the box. If you want

• 33:19Speaker 02

  to make it 120, you have to go, go through, you have to jump through all the settings hoops and change it to 120. But I think it's, it's probably 60, I guess, so that it doesn't kill the battery life of people who don't really know what 120 Hz means or care about it, I guess.

• 33:32Speaker 01

  Right. So, okay, does, does it, does it kill the battery life if you go through the hoops?

• 33:36Speaker 02

  So no, it did, honestly didn't kill it. I mean, I was seeing around eight and a half hours at 60 and about seven at 120.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 33:42Speaker 02

  So if I were using this as my personal device, I would probably leave it at 120 and I would eat the hour and a half of battery life. But, you know, I wish that I didn't have to make that choice.

• 33:53Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm a high refresh rate person. I haven't had it on a laptop really yet. And so getting it there, I, once I get it, once I get a higher refresh rate, I don't want to go back.

• 34:02Speaker 02

  Exactly. Yeah.

• 34:03Speaker 01

  It's like with the iPhones this year. I've been, I've been telling people for years that higher refresh rate was better. And they're like, eh, it doesn't matter. With iPhones, fine. And then everyone very quietly this year is like, oh, wait, no, it matters, but not really, because it does.

• 34:15Speaker 02

  I was curious because I've mostly have encountered 120 hertz refresh rates in the context of gaming laptops. I was like, oh, is this really going to matter if I'm like scrolling through Google Docs? But it totally does. I mean, once I used it one time, I was like, and then I went back to 60. I was like, oh, this sucks. I'm going back to 120.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  So is this just another matter of Windows 11 isn't finished? Or is it a, another thing that Microsoft also tends to do, which is they've got a hardware device and they get it out the door. But there's like software patches, you know, that they like need to get out right after it's released or right before it's released. Is it a, is it a Surface thing or a Windows thing?

• 34:49Speaker 02

  As far as I know, it's a Windows thing. I mean, like they have not, they have not given us any information. Maybe Tom knows more, but in my conversations with, with OEMs, asking like, hey, are you guys gonna, are you guys gonna be making stuff that supports this? They have no timeline either. From like everyone that I've heard from has told me like, we have no idea when we're gonna have this feature, when we're gonna be making stuff that has this feature. They might, it seems to me like they are just as in the dark as we are.

• 35:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's definitely a Windows thing. Like they just, they just don't have it ready in time. So like the universal mute button as well. I mentioned that earlier. I'm just gonna sprinkle throughout this podcast, like missing Windows 11 features.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  Random thing that they said they do.

• 35:29Speaker 03

  It's gonna pop up and be like, did you know?

• 35:33Speaker 02

  But hey, the sounds are a little quieter now.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, there you go.

• 35:35Speaker 03

  The sounds are really nice, actually. The sound scheme in Windows 11 is, yeah, is really nice.

• 35:40Speaker 02

  So at least they did that.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  One of the big things with the Pro 8 that you mentioned is that it is that X chassis with modern performance in it. So how has the performance been? It's got an 11th gen processor in it, right? Like, is it, can we game on this thing now? Is it like smoking other computers that are in this like kind of thin and light class? Like, what was your experience there?

• 36:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, so this thing is fast. There are two processors you can choose. You can use the Core i5 or the Core i7. The Core i7 that this thing has is the, it's essentially the top processor that Intel makes for thin and light laptops. There's like technically one that's a little more powerful. I think it's literally only in one MSI laptop. Like, nobody uses it. This is like, this is what's in the Dell XPS 13. This is what's in the Lenovo Yoga 9i. This is what's in like the best 13-inch laptops that you can buy.

• 36:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 36:31Speaker 02

  Like, this is as good as you're gonna get. And it was, it was fast. I mean, I, I was putting it through Zoom calls on top of Chrome tabs, on top of Spotify streams. Like, I was doing stuff that like, all kinds of other machines, you would see some slowdown or you would see some crackling. This, it did not break a sweat. It wasn't super hot. Like, it was sometimes a little toasty, but I wasn't getting bombarded by fan noise. I wasn't, it wasn't like heating up the table. It did a good job.

• 36:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, I haven't heard the fan once on it, have you?

• 36:56Speaker 02

  I really haven't. I think sometimes I'll like put my ear to the device and I'll be like, oh yeah, there's something going on. But yeah, it's, it's very quiet.

• 37:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, it is super, it is super quiet. It's strangely quiet. I'm like, is it in six months, it's gonna be like, you know, like at an airport or somewhere?

• 37:11Speaker 01

  I mean, this gets to like, the perennial question with the Surface, which is, what is it? Who is it for? What do they mean to do with it? You know, Dan asked if it was a gaming machine. I noticed he didn't talk a whole lot about gaming. And it's not traditionally been meant for gaming. It's like, it's the computer that is just really good and put together really well and also has a kickstand. It's kind of my sense of it. Is that, is that how you think about it?

• 37:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I mean, you could, you could absolutely game on this. Like, you could run a game if you wanted. Obviously, this isn't what we would recommend you buy if you're gonna be playing lots of games.

• 37:45Speaker 04

  Right.

• 37:45Speaker 02

  So I would hesitate to say like, "Oh, it's a gaming machine." But yeah, I mean, this is a processor that can absolutely run, like Overwatch, stuff like that. You know, it's not gonna be running Red Dead Redemption 2 at its highest settings, but it can run a fair number of games, especially esports stuff, without having to bump anything down, especially if you're not running it at native resolution.

• 38:03Speaker 04

  Right.

• 38:04Speaker 02

  The mains are a thing that you need to be aware of is the price. So it's pretty expensive, and it's not great value for the specs that it has. Especially, you know, Microsoft conveniently doesn't put the price of the keyboard in the price that it gives you. My test model, which has that top processor and 16GB of RAM, combining that with the keyboard and the stylus will net you $1879.

• 38:26Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 38:26Speaker 02

  Which is pretty expensive, and that, like, you can get a Dell XPS 13 with that same processor and 16GB of RAM for like, a few hundred dollars cheaper. Not to mention, like, a MacBook Pro with those, with an M1, is also gonna be a few hundred dollars cheaper. You know, that's sort of my hesitation with saying, like, you know, you can play lots of games on this. Is really, the reason to buy this is if you want the Surface Pro form factor, and you're willing to pay extra for that. Like, it's for people who want, like, the Dell XPS 13 is too heavy. They want something really thin and light, but they still want it to have that kind of power. That's really who it's for. You know, I think it's a somewhat specific audience, which doesn't mean it's a small audience. But it is not all the best value device for this kind of power. It's really all about the thin and light design.

• 39:09Speaker 04

  It seems to me that, you know, based on your review, what you were saying there is that, like, as far from price, though, this is the least compromised Surface Pro that we've seen yet, right?

• 39:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 39:20Speaker 04

  Like, in prior years, like, even going to the Pro 7, you were compromising on design. If you went to the Pro X, you compromised on power. The Pro 6, the Pro 5, the Pro 4, you compromised on battery life and, like, other things, but like... You you got pretty usable battery life. You got a great screen. You got a great power. You've got, you know, the thin and light chassis that's morally modern design. You just have to be willing to pay for it.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, this is this is the first Surface Pro that I think I would actually buy for myself as a personal computer. Like, it's something that I feel very comfortable saying, like, you could use this as your primary driver. This is also with the bigger screen than the Surface Pro 7 helps with that as well. It's 13 inch rather than 12.3, which, you know, that's a noticeable difference. Like, it feels much more laptop sized than it does tablet sized. This is like a laptop that I would buy as a laptop, which I, you know, haven't necessarily said about Surface Pros in the past. But, you know, it's interesting, you know, normally you don't, you see people necessarily upgrading from like, people aren't who have last years at Dell XPS 13, like, aren't going to be upgrading to this year's Dell XPS 13. But I, you know, I know people who use the Surface Pro 7 as their driver, who I would feel comfortable saying,

• 40:24Speaker 02

  you could upgrade to the Surface Pro 8 if you have unlimited money and you and you feel like you want to do that. Because it is, it is legitimately, the bigger screen, it's a, it's a nicer body. Like, it is a, I think it's a significantly different, different experience. And I think it's more of what Surface users want.

• 40:40Speaker 03

  The Pro 8 is like a fascinating thing because it is, as someone who likes to pick holes in every single thing, like, you can sit there and look at it and it's pretty hard to, like, find negatives about it now. Because they've kind of answered all the things that we've been moaning about for years. And I think for me, it's like, it is obviously Microsoft's, you know, MacBook Air. But it's like the MacBook Air from a few years ago when it was like super expensive.

• 41:04Speaker 02

  Well, it's pro-priced, but yeah.

• 41:06Speaker 03

  It's pro-priced, yeah. It's, but like the MacBook Air when it first came out was super expensive. And it's taken Microsoft a while to, like, even get the pricing right there. But it's also like, when I look at like people using laptops in coffee shops in London and in, you know, all the little startup places we have, you can, you can spot the Surface Pro a mile off. It's, it's one of those like iconic designs, you know, like, like the MacBook Air, you can spot a mile off. Like, you know what that person's using. And it's definitely, I think they got to the point with the design now where it feels like, okay, this design and this Pro 8 sort of form factor, I think that will last years now, just like the MacBook Air did.

• 41:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, there are some, there are some lines of laptop where it just gets to a point where people want to pay more like just for the branding. Like, I think the MacBook, the ThinkPad is one. I think the Surface Pro is in that category. Like, there are people who, they will empty their pockets to get that logo and to get that form and that build.

• 41:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  Well, we're going to go from a Surface that we love, aren't willing maybe to pay a lot of money for, that we understand that is stable and clear and obvious and makes sense to a couple of surfaces that maybe aren't those things. We'll be right back.

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• 43:31Speaker 01

  All right, Dan, I reviewed the Surface Go 3. I have like three things to say and they're not that important. You reviewed the Surface Laptop Studio, and boy, oh, boy, do I need to hear everything that you think about this thing, and especially its pedestal, its plinth, its MacBook on a stand design.

• 43:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, MacBook on a stand design is is pretty accurate. You know, it's I've been using the thing, use it for a good week or so before, you know, publishing this review. The first thing I noticed was how much this reminded me of a MacBook Pro in terms of its look, its presentation, its feel, and a lot of that is a good thing, right? Like, the the build quality is top notch. It feels like, you know, the same as as a MacBook. The display is really nice. The keyboard is really nice. The trackpad is tremendous. Like, these are some of the best input devices I've ever used on a Windows laptop.

• 44:19Speaker 01

  You said the keyboard is nice, so that doesn't seem like early MacBook Pros.

• 44:22Speaker 04

  Well, no, yeah, OK, fair enough. But it is, you know, comparable to what you're going to get from a current MacBook Pro, an M1 MacBook Pro or whatever. And then, like, there's other design details that are just really reminiscent of it. The the corner radius of the the edges are the same as like a 2015 MacBook Pro. It has that same kind of sharp edge on its keyboard deck that digs into your palms, just like a MacBook Pro does. You know, the the screens corners are the same. So it's very, you know, it's going for this look, it feels like. And it's and it's most of the time it's nailing it. But like, I think the average person looking at the front of this, if they weren't, if the screen wasn't on, would think it's a MacBook. They would not recognize as a Windows computer. But there's a plinth, right? That like, bottom part, that is your favorite word ever. And it like, is a stand.

• 45:04Speaker 04

  And I and I and I thought, when this thing was announced, that it was going to present all these problems with ergonomics. Like, it's going to feel like I'm raising my hands up to type on this thing and stuff. And to be honest with you, you never notice it. You can't see it when it's sitting on a desk in front of you. You can't see it when it's on your lap. It is not so thick that it raises the computer up obnoxiously. So like, you just don't notice it. And like, I haven't thought about the plinth at all, unless I picked it up.

• 45:31Speaker 01

  So they got away with it?

• 45:32Speaker 04

  They they got away with it.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  That's amazing.

• 45:34Speaker 04

  There's like, some weird things in the plinth.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  Do you think it's going to be like, an iconic design that we're gonna be like, wow, they were geniuses. I wish that anybody else had had the courage to make a plinth on their laptop. Like, it's a genuine question. That's genuinely possible.

• 45:45Speaker 04

  Maybe. There's some weird things with it. Like, like, one of the things that's really weird is the the model that I've got has the top specs. So it's got the discrete GPU, it's an Nvidia graphics card in there and stuff. So it's got, you know, a pretty beefy cooling system inside of it. Inside that plinth is where all of that like cooling system exists and like all the fans are towards the front. So which I think Monica could attest that like most gaming laptops, most laptops with heavy duty cooling systems, those fans are in the back and they blow away from you.

• 46:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:14Speaker 04

  Which is like a normal experience. These are all the way at the front and they blow out the sides. So if you are like doing something heavy on this, running a game, video exporter, whatever, and your, your hands are like on top of it, you can just like feel jets of air like shooting out the side of the laptop, which is kind of hilarious and I've never, never seen before. Is that going to be a thing that like other manufacturers will like adopt and, and, and how could it handle more powerful graphics cards and cooling systems? I don't know. It might get a little weird. There might be a limit to like how far that can be pushed.

• 46:45Speaker 01

  I mean, does it feel like it's like a, like a cool muscle car with side exhaust?

• 46:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, you know, it kind of could. Like it's got that shaker hood, right? Like it's, you know, it's maybe it's, it's, it's jetting them out the sides or something. What you're saying is it needs RGB. Yeah.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 46:59Speaker 04

  There's no RGB.

• 47:00Speaker 02

  Everything needs RGB.

• 47:01Speaker 04

  There's no RGB. Has a back of the keyboard, but there's no RGB.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  So we, we've, we've talked about all the design elements, except the thing that the Surface Laptop Studio supposedly exists for.

• 47:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  Which is its screen that can lay flat on the top and sort of rotate out in those three positions. So can you talk about that a little bit?

• 47:16Speaker 04

  Yeah. So you've got your normal clamshell laptop mode. Uh, you open the lid, looks like a normal laptop, but you can pull the screen forward. So compared to the Surface Book, which this effectively replaces, that had a detachable top part that you could make into a tablet or you could click, flip it around, flip it over, stuff like that.

• 47:35Speaker 01

  I just want to point out that I stand live tiles and Monica stands a detachable screen on the old Surface Book. And we're the only two people that love those things.

• 47:42Speaker 04

  You really are.

• 47:43Speaker 02

  We suffer in silence, dear.

• 47:47Speaker 04

  The other way to do that's common that we see with laptops is a 360 hinge that like folds the screen back to turn into a tablet.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:53Speaker 04

  This uses a two hinge system. There's a hinge in like halfway up the screen and you pull the screen forward and you can pull it partway and park it above the keyboard so that you just have the, you just see the trackpad in front of you and the screen is closer to you and you can. Interact with touch and watch a movie or whatever. And it's at like a, I don't know, 55 degree angle or something like that. And then you can pull it all the way down and flatten it out to an effective tablet mode, which is meant for kind of that drawing position or, or writing position because uh, using this as a handheld tablet is pretty clumsy. It's four pounds and 14 and a half inch screen. Like you're, you're not like laying back in bed, holding this thing up, watching a movie.

• 48:34Speaker 04

  So it's got like those two extra modes, uh, which if you are an artist, might be very interesting to you. That I'm not an artist by any stretch of the imagination, but what I do do a lot on touchscreens and especially touchscreens with pens is I take handwritten notes when I'm in meetings. And so I, I, I've been, I use an iPad Pro with a pencil, uh, you know, a fold three with its stylus or whatever. And I take digital notes so that I can access them later. And that's really what I've used the flat down position for. Because you know, you mentioned the Surface Pro eight has Thunderbolt. This has Thunderbolt ports. I can plug this into my Thunderbolt dock, use my made monitor, keyboard and mouse as my input devices. Then I've got the laptop studio flat down next to me and I can just write on it with the Surface

• 49:18Speaker 04

  pen, uh, and take notes. And that's been like a really actual useful experience, uh, and like a thing that I would do if I owned this device. It's a little big. It's a little clumsy, but it lets me do it.

• 49:28Speaker 02

  This is something I've been curious about because the three positions you mentioned are also the three positions that like any two in one can do. Like if I have the Dell XPS two in one, I can use it a clamshell. I could fold it to tablet. I can have it as a tent. Like, does the studio like make those better in any way? Like, does it improve?

• 49:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's a great point. I don't think it really does. What it, what it does do is it requires less compromise to have those positions available. And what I mean by that is really comparing it to the book. So if we go back to the book, it had that detachable tablet that only Monica loved. All of the processor stuff. Was in the tablet side of things. It had a battery. And so there was a limit to how powerful that computer could be because it had to fit into a tablet form factor. And that allowed them to have these various positions. With this, all of the processing power, the processor, the GPU, the SSD, the RAM, everything is in the bottom half of the computer like you would expect from a normal laptop. It's in that plinth. So this has a more powerful processor.

• 50:26Speaker 04

  It has a more powerful GPU. It has the ability to change the SSD, things like that that you couldn't do with the book. And Microsoft was really running into a performance ceiling with the book's design. And it allows you to have those extra positions should you want them. Do I think most people will want those positions? No, I think most people are going to use this like a normal laptop. And they just want a powerful fancy Microsoft made Surface Laptop that has more power than the standard Surface Laptop. And, and I think that's how this would exist in most people's lives. But they're allowed to do those extra modes if they want.

• 50:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I suppose your, your standard 360 hinge, like you got the keyboard in the back of tablet mode. That's annoying, whatever. But it's also, they are typically thin and light. And so if you want to have a beefy, powerful, thick laptop, having a screen that folds down in the way that this one folds down is like a different, easier, demand of change than one that needs to go around a really the thick part of the laptop, right?

• 51:18Speaker 04

  It's quicker to move in between modes with this than with like a 360 that you are like lifting and flipping and, you know, doing a whole dance with it.

• 51:25Speaker 03

  I was going to ask, like, how do you move between the modes? And like, is the screen wobbly and like, is it easy to move between those modes?

• 51:32Speaker 04

  You know, as for like the screen wobbly, that was another book problem. They had that like really high tech fancy hinge, but because.

• 51:39Speaker 02

  It's kind of a problem.

• 51:41Speaker 04

  But, but I mean, because there was a battery, there was processor, there was fans.

• 51:45Speaker 03

  It was top heavy, right?

• 51:46Speaker 04

  It was top heavy, right? And so if you start poking the screen in normal laptop mode, it's going to be wobbly. This is way more solid. This feels like a normal laptop. And then when you want to get into those other modes, it's a little awkward. Cause like you kind of have to like. Flick the thing back and then pull it forward.

• 52:03Speaker 01

  And it doesn't sit in any position. It only fits in those three positions. Right?

• 52:06Speaker 04

  Right. You're supposed to put it above the keyboard, but you could put it halfway above the trackpad if you want it, or you could put it, I don't know, right above your home row.

• 52:14Speaker 02

  But it doesn't float like above the keyboard.

• 52:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, it doesn't like stay unless you put it all the way down.

• 52:19Speaker 03

  And what's the angles like on the screen? Like if I sat with my knees up in the air and wanted to bend the screen all the way back, how how far does it go back?

• 52:28Speaker 04

  It goes back. I don't have a protractor to measure it, but I would estimate like 135 degrees or so.

• 52:35Speaker 01

  What kind of laptop reviewer are you? You don't have a protractor.

• 52:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, I know. Right. What a hack I am. It feels about the same as like what you get with a MacBook.

• 52:41Speaker 02

  That's what I hate about the Pro.

• 52:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's going to hit a hit a point where it won't let you push it back any further. But then when you have it closed, it's like a normal laptop.

• 52:50Speaker 01

  One question I want to ask all of you is, I haven't had a chance, other than my brief hands on, to use the new haptic stylus, the Surface Pen Haptic Duo 2, whatever they're calling the thing.

• 53:01Speaker 02

  Surface Slim Pen 2.

• 53:02Speaker 01

  Surface Slim Pen 2. Thank you. How is it? How are the haptics? I thought they felt gimmicky, but I only had like five minutes. But from reading your reviews, it seems like I'm wrong, and it's actually pretty good.

• 53:12Speaker 02

  So I liked it. But I will say, so the intent is like, like you can feel the vibration in the stylus when you're using it in like a support app. I was using it to write in the journal app. I didn't feel it at the default. At the default, the intensity was set at 50. I didn't feel that at all. I cranked it up to 100 and then I could feel it. But I will say that if the intent is to like mirror you writing on paper, like it didn't do that. Like, I definitely didn't actually feel like I was writing on paper. Like, there are some styluses that actually like do, like Lenovo's Active Pen, like really does make it feel like you're writing on paper. This basically felt like I was writing on a stylus and it was vibrating.

• 53:46Speaker 01

  Is that good?

• 53:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, I agree. I liked it. I mean, it doesn't feel like paper to me. Like I said, I use a pencil on an iPad Pro a lot. But in order to make that feel right to me, I put a screen protector on the iPad Pro that get it's like a matte screen protector that adds drag. So this doesn't have that. And so it is like, you know, a hard plastic tip hitting glass. It does slide around a bit. It feels like you're writing on glass. But the haptics. Are responsive enough to that, like when I'm jotting down quick notes and I'm handwriting things like I appreciate that they are there and I it feels nicer than prior Surface devices. Now, it also probably feels nicer because these are 120 Hz screens and they're more responsive with the pen than the older Surface devices, which I can never really get to feel normal to me. But I'm not an artist either. Like I'm just using it for

• 54:32Speaker 04

  handwritten notes and and I like it for that feature. I would I would like to have that in other styluses that I use, Stylle.

• 54:39Speaker 03

  You know what it feels like to me using the Slim Pen 2? So I had the Slim Pen 2 and the original Slim Pen, so I could sort of compare them side by side. And it's like, you know, when you use like 120 Hz display, you use it for like, I don't know, a couple of days or something like that, then you go back to a 60 Hz display, then you notice that you suddenly notice what you what you were using is better. I think that is kind of like the Slim Pen 2. It's not always noticeable. The haptics, they're very subtle sometimes. But then when you go back to using the other, like the regular Surface Slim Pen, it just feels dead. Like it doesn't, it feels really weird. It's like really jarring going back to the old way. That's what it definitely felt like to me. Like, I think it's very subtle, but like you can crank up the intensity of the tactile feedback

• 55:23Speaker 03

  as well, as they call it. But out of the box, yeah, it's, I think it's about the level it should be.

• 55:29Speaker 04

  All right, I'm sold.

• 55:30Speaker 02

  And you have to dig into settings, as you often do on Windows 11.

• 55:33Speaker 04

  New or old settings? I want to talk about some of the drawbacks with this. Yeah, well, I wanted to ask you about performance as well. So let's do performance and bummers. Okay, yeah. So performance, like I said, I've got pretty much a top spec model. It's $2,700 for the version that I have, which is 32 gigs of RAM, an 11 gen Core i7. It's a four core chip. It's not a six core chip. And it's got the Nvidia 3050 Ti graphics card in it. So like, if you're familiar with other gaming laptops, this is like kind of a budget mid-range level spec for a gaming laptop. It is not the fastest GPU. It is not the fastest processor. So your your performance expectations should be aligned with that. And that's basically what we're seeing. You can game on this, absolutely.

• 56:16Speaker 04

  Microsoft was pointedly calling it for the weekend gamers, because they know that it's not like, you know, if gaming is your only thing you want to do with this, this ain't the right machine. And I would fully agree with that. Throttle it Monday through Friday. But on the weekends, they open it up.

• 56:31Speaker 03

  Sneak a cheeky Halo game in there after you've done your PowerPoint.

• 56:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, you know, you if you if you play older games, you'll be able to, you know, enjoy them pretty well. Newer games, triple A titles, you're not going to make it take advantage of that 120 hertz screen because it just can't do it like the the GPU is just not strong enough. If you're doing creative tasks like photo editing, video editing, graphics work and things like that, it's about middle of the pack. Like it's what you would expect from a 3050 TI. It performed our video export test pretty well, but not the best. It performed our we run a Puget benchmark in Adobe Premiere Pro. It ran middle of the pack, exactly what we'd expect from a 3050 TI. So like the the short end of this is you're paying a lot of money for this performance

• 57:14Speaker 04

  and you're paid because like you can buy a Razer Blade 15 Advance for like 400 or 500 dollars less and smoke this thing all day in performance. You could get the Blade 14 that has an AMD processor, an AMD GPU and all day long, smoke this thing in performance. But you're not going to have the flexibility. You're not going to quite have as nice the build quality. The design isn't quite as nice. You don't have the pen if you're interested in that, things like that. So it's You don't have the square Windows logo on the back of it. You don't have the square Windows logo. You don't have the corners cutting off your Windows. The whole other Windows weirdness. But it's like if you're buying machine for gaming on it, buy something else. If you're buying a computer that you like occasionally want to run the occasional game on and you only want to have one device, this can do it. It can fill in for

• 57:58Speaker 04

  that. But you really just should temper your expectations. What what's what's the downside that you you hinted at? Yeah. So aside from the cost, the battery life is really not good.

• 58:09Speaker 02

  No.

• 58:10Speaker 04

  No, it's bad. Like I just there's no other way to cut this.

• 58:12Speaker 02

  See, the Surface Book's battery life was so good.

• 58:15Speaker 04

  Yeah. And there's there's a couple of reasons for that, right? Right? Like there was a battery.

• 58:18Speaker 02

  It had two batteries.

• 58:19Speaker 04

  In the display and there was a battery in the base. And frankly, the battery in the Laptop Studio is like 40 to 50 or 40% smaller. I think it's like 58 watt hours versus 80 watt hours or whatever that percentage is. Someone better at math can do it. But but it's a noticeable size difference. And that, you know, as we've learned with our, you know, Dieter, your iPhone reviews, the thing that matters the most with battery life is how big the battery is in the thing. And this is just has a smaller battery. And so when you pair that with a relatively powerful processor, a discrete GPU, a 120 hertz screen without dynamic refresh, as we mentioned, you know, I get like five hours of battery life.

• 58:57Speaker 02

  High resolution screen too, right?

• 58:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's it's high resolution. It's three by two. It's very nice to look at. It's bright. But you know, off the plug, I'm getting five hours on average. If I turn the the display down to 60 hertz through the manual settings, I might get six. But like, that's pretty bad. And especially bad compared to the book three, which could, Monica, you know, that thing could last like 10, 11, 12 hours if you needed it to. So really, to me, the way that it means for this is that this is not a great travel portable laptop. This is like, it mostly lives at your desk. Maybe it's docked into another display, and you're using the screen in one of its other modes. Maybe you're using different keyboard and mouse with it. And then like, oh, you want to go to the couch to write an email. You can do that with this. You can,

• 59:39Speaker 04

  you know, on the train commute or whatever, you can write a few emails, but you shouldn't expect it to last through a cross country flight.

• 59:45Speaker 01

  I mean, my dream is to have this thing be the trackpad and secondary display next to my main monitor. And then, you know, just a keyboard. That would be great. Like, that's, that's like, That is an expensive trackpad.

• 59:56Speaker 04

  I mean, it's a $2,700 trackpad. But like, you know, it's your whole computer. But like, it could absolutely do that. But the way that you should look at this is like, you know, with gaming laptops, we don't expect them to usually last very long with battery life. And that's kind of how the expectations you should set with this as well.

• 1:00:11Speaker 02

  Intel gaming laptops specifically.

• 1:00:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, Intel gaming laptops specifically. Yeah, it's really interesting that, you know, there's no AMD options with this because the what we've seen and Monica knows through all of her testing is that, you know, the AMD processors and AMD GPUs are doing really well on laptops. And this has got an Intel one that's not even the top tier Intel and things like that. So the performance is good, but the battery life is not. And so that's kind of the compromise now.

• 1:00:35Speaker 01

  Speaking of going with an Intel processor, when maybe you necessarily shouldn't, I have a very brief thing to say about the Surface Go 3. Which is disappointed. They designed exactly the same. It's like they didn't get the cool refreshes that, you know, the Pro got. They updated the processors. There's a new Y series. There's a new Core i3. Battery life is worse than it was last year. It's like notably worse. I'm lucky to get five hours. It's averaging four to four and a half at best. If I go outside and have to crank the screen brightness way up, like it can be three. I get why low end computers don't get refreshed every year. This thing got a refresh last year with a slightly bigger screen. You know, the iPad hasn't, the base iPad hasn't been changed in eternity.

• 1:01:18Speaker 01

  But yeah, I don't understand why they don't put an ARM processor in this thing. Because if you're going to make the trade off of spending a lot of money for a tiny computer, because that's fundamentally what you're doing with the Surface Go, you're spending quite a lot of money to get a tiny computer, you should get something out of it beyond the fact that it's small. And that thing, it's either speed, which, you know, they can't really do, or it should be battery life. And this just doesn't provide either of those things.

• 1:01:42Speaker 02

  That's embarrassing.

• 1:01:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, what's, what's interesting is that like you mentioned the speed performance, you can get it with a Core i3 or whatever. But realistically, would the performance be that different if it had an ARM chip? It's not like that is a fast processor. You're not getting either of what you want out of a small computer here.

• 1:01:57Speaker 01

  My assumption is like they want this for kids. Sure. But they, this is for like IT workers that go to server farms. Right? They need, they need a thing that they can like carry in and like hook in and do stuff with. And ARM chips presumably like are a problem in that for software compatibility. But yeah, an ultra portable computer should have really, really good battery life, or at least like respectable battery life. And this doesn't hit it.

• 1:02:17Speaker 03

  I think the problem with going ARM though is they would just be expensive. Like all the Windows and ARM stuff is just so expensive.

• 1:02:23Speaker 01

  Well, they did introduce a slightly cheaper version of the Surface Pro X. I think you can get it down to like 900 bucks now.

• 1:02:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, but it's still, it's still up there. Like, I don't feel like they would have the chip and all the licensing and stuff that they have for it available.

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  I guess this is the place to end the extravaganza, which is to talk about the elephant in the room, which is Apple's about to have new MacBook Pros, we assume, with M1X chips. The M1 chips on the MacBook Air and the base MacBook Pro and the iMac are all very good, incredible consumer chips. Do you think that Microsoft is right to continue to focus mostly on Intel instead of leaning a little bit more on AMD or trying harder with ARM and dealing with all of the hassles that exist there with Qualcomm and et cetera, et cetera? What do you think of their overall chip strategy?

• 1:03:11Speaker 02

  So OEMs will always, because I always ask OEMs this about creative laptops that have Intel in them and gaming laptops, and what they will say, and obviously how true this is a question, is that Intel just gives a few more features that are what these creative power users want. So Thunderbolt is a big one and Quick Sync is a big one. You get a little bit more raw power from some of these chips than you will from a cheaper AMD chip, which I think there is some merit to that, but I think for most people it is probably a worse purchase.

• 1:03:41Speaker 01

  Why do we think this is that you're Microsoft got religion on Thunderbolt?

• 1:03:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think they're explaining it a way that they can finally do the security aspects of it, because that was obviously the thing before. And to be fair, on their Surface devices, they do enable every single security thing that you can possibly enable on Windows that a lot of OEMs just don't. So I think that's probably why. But it's also like they did refresh the Surface Pro 7 with the Surface Pro 7 Plus, which everyone kind of forgot about because it was just business only.

• 1:04:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:14Speaker 03

  But they refreshed that so it's like, you guys can go and use that if you want the old sort of design and stuff and you don't need Thunderbolt. So they had that.

• 1:04:22Speaker 02

  I think it's kind of a thing, like if you look at gaming laptops, if you look at what Asus did this year when they put out the Zephyrus G15, which is an AMD system, and the Zephyrus M16, which is an Intel system. And the Zephyrus M16 is much more expensive, but it also has more display options for creators and it's sort of very clearly being pitched at a more specific, more like power user, more like professional audience, whereas the G15, which is AMD powered, is much more of a big mainstream consumer purchase for people who just want to play a lot of games. I think that's kind of, the studio is, I think, clearly more of an M16 than it is a G15.

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  Well, the one surface we did not get to extravaganzize, I don't know, is the Surface Duo 2, the Surface Duo over, as we did it last year when we were expecting this to come. That will come when it arrives, and when it does, you can be sure that we'll talk about it on The Vergecast. The Vergecast will also be back this Friday with the regular chat show, and then we'll have more of these Tuesday episodes going forward. Really hope you're able to listen. I want to thank you all for coming on. If you want to follow us on Twitter, you should. I am Backlon, Tom is Tom Warren, Dan is DCCFert, Monica is MC squared 96. And get a shot. Thanks for listening.

• 1:05:48Speaker 08

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