Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 review
Our Verdict
Microsoft's Surface Laptop four offers strong performance, impressive audio, a comfy keyboard and skillful battery life in a sleek (if slightly dated) design
For
- Light, slim design
- Very comfy keyboard
- Peachy speakers
- Good battery life
Against
- Needs more ports
- Thick bezels are an eyesore
- Needs a better webcam
Tom'south Guide Verdict
Microsoft's Surface Laptop 4 offers strong performance, impressive audio, a comfy keyboard and good battery life in a sleek (if slightly dated) design
Pros
- +
Low-cal, slim blueprint
- +
Very comfortable keyboard
- +
Great speakers
- +
Skillful battery life
Cons
- -
Needs more ports
- -
Thick bezels are an eyesore
- -
Needs a better webcam
Microsoft's new Surface Laptop 4 is more evolution than revolution, packing improved components into the same slim, lightweight chassis the Surface Laptop product line is known for. Microsoft hasn't tried to sell it as anything else, instead promising that this latest Surface Laptop lasts longer and packs more power under the hood than its predecessors.
Afterwards spending many hours with this laptop, it'south clear those promises are true, though our test results leave plenty of room to quibble with Microsoft's marketing. But it's been near two years since the 2019 launch of the Surface Laptop 3, and in that fourth dimension, competing manufacturers like Dell and Apple accept pushed the limits of how slim, beautiful and powerful an ultraportable can be.
Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 (thirteen.v-inch, Intel): Specs
CPU: 11th-Gen Intel Cadre i7-1185G7 (Core i5 also bachelor)
RAM: 16GB (8GB, 32GB likewise available)
Display: xiii.5-inch affect-screen, 2256 ten 1504 (201 PPI)
Storage: 512GB SSD (256GB, 1TB also available)
Ports: 1x USB-C, 1x USB-A, Surface Connect port, headphone jack
Battery life: 10:46 (tested, web surfing) | Up to 17 hours (Microsoft'due south claim)
Wireless: Wi-Fi vi/Bluetooth 5.0
Dimensions: 12.1 x viii.8 10 0.57 inches
Weight: ii.79 pounds
Price: $1,699 as configured, $999 (thirteen.5-inch) | $1,299 (15-inch) starting
So while the Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 is unquestionably the best Surface Laptop yet, the question of whether it's the all-time laptop for you is a little trickier to answer. Read on for our full Surface Laptop four review, which should (hopefully) help yous solve that question.
Microsoft Surface Laptop iv review: Price and release appointment
- Starts at $999 for 13-inch, $1,299 for 15-inch
- Our unit with Cadre i7/16GB/512GB is $i,699
Available as of Apr xv 2021 in the US and April 27 in the Britain, a new Surface Laptop 4 ordered from Microsoft will toll you at least $899 for the 13.five-inch model and $i,299 for the 15-inch. Those entry-level models transport with AMD Ryzen five/7 4000-serial fries, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD.
If you need more power you can configure the Surface Laptop 4 with beefier innards, potentially paying as much as $2,299 and $2,399 (respectively) for the two models if you kit them out with the top-tier components. Unlike its predecessors, both sizes of the Surface Laptop iv can exist configured with your choice of an Intel 11th Gen Core i5/i7 CPU or an AMD Ryzen v/seven 4000-serial processor, though the xv-inch model is limited to the higher-end Cadre i7/Ryzen 7 chips.
Our xiii.5-inch Surface Laptop 4 review unit arrived decked in Microsoft's new (to the Surface Laptop) Ice Blue color scheme with a Core i7 CPU, 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD, a configuration which retails for $1,699.
Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 review: Pattern
- New Ice Blueish color is a nice touch without being too assuming
- Bezels are nevertheless on the thick side
- Alcantara deck is comfortable for the wrists
The latest Surface Laptop hews close to the minimalist design of its predecessors, which is both welcome and a little underwhelming; I would have liked to see Microsoft endeavour a more radical change with the Surface Laptop's design, simply for at present, you lot'll have to look inside to see what's new.
That said, I've always loved the slick, clean lines of the Surface devices, and the new Surface Laptop four offers more of the same. In terms of dimensions, it's identical to the Surface Laptop three, weighing in at 2.8 pounds and measuring simply 12.one x viii.8 x 0.6 inches. That makes the Surface Laptop four not quite as small equally the M1 MacBook Air (12 ten 8.4 x 0.6 inches, 2.eight pounds) or the Dell XPS thirteen (11.seven x 8.two x 0.five inches, 2.ix pounds), but it's enough slim plenty to slide into a haversack or briefcase and promptly forget most.
It'south a little harder to forget virtually the thick bezels surrounding the Surface Laptop 4'due south 3:2 display. They simply aren't very bonny, and when I wasn't focusing on specific tasks I caught myself staring at the black confined around the screen, wishing they were smaller so I could accept a flake more screen space to play with.
When I wasn't focusing on specific tasks I caught myself staring at the blackness bars around the screen, wishing they were smaller so I could take a chip more screen space to play with.
The Dell XPS thirteen's incredibly slim bezels make it like shooting fish in a barrel to run into how much of a divergence this kind of engineering work makes, and it would be nice to encounter Microsoft practice the same for its flagship laptop. That said, it is nice how sturdy the screen feels under your fingers, and I felt nada qualms about briskly tapping and swiping my way through Windows without worrying I'd accidentally knock the screen back.
This is the showtime time Microsoft has offered a Surface Laptop in the Water ice Blue color scheme previously seen on Microsoft Surface Pro tablets, and in person, it'south a very nice, understated shade of stake metallic blue. Information technology'south so subtle that I would have been hard-pressed to tell you it was blue unless we prepare it down aslope a bunch of other grey and silver laptops, at which point the Surface Laptop 4 clearly stands out from the oversupply. I also appreciate the relative subtlety of the reflective Microsoft logo on the chapeau; it'south eye-catching but less garish than a lot of the manufacturer logos emblazoned on contemporary laptops.
The Alcantara lining the keyboard of the Ice Blue and Platinum thirteen.5-inch models is a nice touch that makes resting your wrists on the deck of the laptop feel a flake more comfy. It's a pocket-sized difference, but 1 that I noticed every time I switched back to typing on an all-metal laptop. The feel of fabric beneath my wrists was just nicer, though the thought of trying to become a stain out of information technology heightened my already significant fear of eating or drinking while working.
Microsoft Surface Laptop four review: Ports
- USB-A, USB-C and headphone jack
- Lamentable, no Thunderbolt 4
The port selection on Microsoft's Surface Laptop iv is pretty simple, for amend and for worse. The correct side sports a Surface Connector for charging purposes, while on the left yous'll find a USB-A port, a USB-C port, and a headphone jack.
Information technology'south nice to see a archetype USB-A on a mod machine similar this, and combining it with a USB-C gives this laptop a nice bit of flexibility when it comes to external devices. But this USB-C port doesn't support Thunderbolt four, which is a bummer for anyone investing in heavy-duty external accessories like GPUs or high-chapters drives. And while a role of me likes a slim, elementary chassis without a lot of funky holes in it, I also really beloved information technology when a laptop manufacturer works a footling SD card reader or a stylus cubby into the sides of their device.
Microsoft Surface Laptop iv review: Display
- iii:ii aspect ratio expert for productivity
- Could be brighter and more than reflective than we'd like
The 13.5-inch, 2256 x 1504-pixel screen of the Surface Laptop 4 has its charms, especially if y'all're doing a lot of reading, editing, or anything that benefits from having the extra vertical infinite afforded by its 3:ii display ratio.
But when I switched out of productivity fashion and started streaming some Boob tube and movies on the laptop, I was a little disappointed by how wearisome and washed-out some scenes looked. Sometimes brilliant colors were vibrant enough to popular off the screen, as was the example with the bright orange explosions of Bad Boys 2 or Stormfront'south brilliant purple lightning discharges in The Boys. Only in night scenes or settings with lots of muted blues and greens the colors seemed to fade and blend into each other, making it hard to selection out detail.
I also noticed my reflection a lot more often than I'grand used to when working on a laptop, even with the screen's brightness cranked all the way up. In the absence of difficult testing data, I'g leery of telling you that the Surface Laptop 4'southward screen is definitely more reflective than almost, but it sure seems that way. This didn't crusade whatsoever problems for me (other than stoking that unique course of self-loathing invoked by communicable sight of yourself staring slack-jawed at a screen) but information technology'due south worth noting if you plan to regularly use the device under brilliant lights or directly sunlight.
Under testing with our colorimeter, the Surface Laptop 4's screen produced 108.3% of the sRGB spectrum, which is a bit better than the 104.5% its 15-inch predecessor produced in the same test. That's right in line with the cheaper Thinkpad 14s Yoga (at 108%) and better than competition like the Dell XPS 13 (97.ix%), though it withal tin't match the screens on the M1 MacBook Air (114.iii%) and MacBook Pro (110.half dozen%).
The screen gets reasonably brilliant, striking an average of 348.six nits of brightness when tested with our light gun. That'southward decent, alee of the Lenovo Thinkpad 14s Yoga (313 nits) simply simply a bit backside both the Intel and AMD variants of the 15-inch Surface Laptop 3 (which achieved 366 and 380 nits, respectively), and way backside the Dell XPS thirteen (469 nits).
Microsoft Surface Laptop iv review: Keyboard and touchpad
- Enough of travel for comfy typing
- Polish and accurate touchpad, and there's a touchscreen, also
Typing on the Microsoft Surface Laptop iv feels more comfortable than well-nigh laptops I've worked on, thanks in large part to the nicely-sized keys and the Alcantara textile effectually the keyboard. The keys experience satisfying to type on, with ane.3mm of travel and a nice click to them which helped me avoid bottoming out while typing quickly.
The 4.v ten 3-inch glass touchpad beneath the keys is likewise quite nice to use, feeling comfortably close to the keyboard while still affording my big impaired sausage fingers plenty of room to move. Both it and the laptop's touchscreen felt very responsive to the touch on, and I had no trouble using gesture commands on either surface.
Microsoft Surface Laptop four review: Audio
- Loud and make clean sound from a compact laptop
- Dolby Atmos support adds depth
The big talking point around the Surface Laptop 4'southward speakers is the improver of Dolby Atmos engineering science, which Microsoft claims helps the laptop deliver richer, more spatially accurate audio by pumping information technology out from beneath the keyboard and bouncing it off the screen.
I'm no audiophile, just even I can tell you that the speakers on the Surface Laptop 4 make music and movies sound very prissy. Bass-heavy tracks like Massive Assault'southward "Angel" still have a kicking to them, and while watching the trailer for Godzilla vs. Kong I caught myself glancing downwardly to make certain the laptop wasn't actually vibrating in fourth dimension with the bass drops.
Merely the Surface Laptop 4's speakers actually shine with more well-counterbalanced tracks, and when I threw on Dingy Waters' "Folk Singer" I was delighted past how clearly the vocals rang out across the room without losing whatever of their warmth. When I walked downwardly the hall or into an adjoining room I could notwithstanding hear Waters' beautiful phonation perfectly, and if I didn't already know I'd never have guessed the music was being piped out of someone's laptop.
Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 review: Performance
- 11th-gen Intel Core i7 and 16GB of RAM combine for solid performance
- Benchmarks scores trail behind Dell XPS xiii and MacBook Air and Pro
- Graphics skillful enough for 30 fps on less demanding games
Unless your job involves playing Cyberpunk 2077 with the settings cranked upwardly, Microsoft'due south Surface Laptop 4 tin can handle pretty much annihilation y'all'd throw at information technology in the course of an average workday. Our review unit'south 16GB of RAM and 11th Gen Intel i7 CPU gave it enough pep to handily tackle equally many bones tasks as I could discipline it to, including twenty+ tabs spread across four Chrome windows arrayed in such a fashion that I could watch two 4K YouTube videos, a Twitch stream, and keep an eye on my Spotify playlist while writing this review.
The Surface Laptop 4 we reviewed put up a decent score of four,829 in our Geekbench 5 performance exam, which is expert but not great when stacked upwards confronting similarly-priced competitors similar the Dell XPS 13 (which earned v,254 in the aforementioned test) or fifty-fifty cheaper Windows notebooks like Lenovo's convertible ThinkBook 14s Yoga (4,885).
The Surface Laptop 4 has enough pep that I could accept two twenty+ Chrome tabs open, sentry ii 4K YouTube videos, a Twitch stream and go on an eye on my Spotify playlist while writing this review.
Our review unit'south 512GB SSD performed well plenty when nosotros tasked it with duplicating 25GB of multimedia files, transferring them at a decent clip of 562.73 MBps. That'due south faster than the 508.ix MBps that the 15-inch Intel-powered Surface Laptop 3 delivered in our testing last yr, but withal slower than contemporary competitors like the Dell XPS 13 (806 MBps) or the Thinkbook 14s Yoga (886.35 MBps).
If y'all're looking to practice some video editing, the Surface Laptop 4 is up to the job (especially when kitted out with 16GB of RAM) but far from the fastest laptop on the block. In our Handbrake video editing exam our review unit of measurement took about 17 minutes to catechumen a 4K video to 1080p, which is faster than the 17 minutes 18 seconds information technology took the 15-inch Intel-equipped Surface Laptop three to do the same test concluding twelvemonth. It's likewise a chip amend than the Dell XPS xiii (which took near xviii minutes), though of grade, it falls far short of the sub-ten-minute marks delivered past Apple's M1-equipped MacBook Air (which took 9 minutes and xv seconds) and MacBook Pro (7 minutes 44 seconds) models.
As far as games get, our testing suggests you should calibrate your expectations to the level of a dainty work laptop: you should be able to play many games at acceptable frame rates, specially if they're older or less graphically demanding, but don't expect to enjoy running any game with minimum required specs that include a discrete GPU.
In our performance tests our Surface Laptop 4 review unit delivered an average of 30.46 frames per second playing Sid Meier'south Civilization VI: Gathering Storm at 1080p, though that dropped down to a 27.9 fps average when we boosted the resolution up to the native 1504p.
Microsoft Surface Laptop iv review: Webcam
- Decent images for 720p webcam but 1080p would exist amend
- Fast Windows Hullo face logins
There's not much to say about the 720p webcam congenital into the top of the Surface Laptop 4'south screen, salvage that I wish information technology was a little more than exciting. A bump upwardly to 1080p would have been a welcome change (peculiarly amidst our current pandemic-provoked preponderance of Zoom meetings) that really helped set up this latest Surface Laptop apart from its predecessors, all of which have sported 720p webcams in a higher place the display.
That said, the Surface Laptop 4's webcam is completely adequate for all your video chatting needs, and the image quality is decent if you're looking to have some laptop selfies.
Equally far as the much-touted Windows How-do-you-do biometric authentication goes, logging in via your face seems speedier than ever. I had some trouble getting the camera array to recognize me while setting the laptop up for facial recognition (maybe it's my fault for leaving my glasses on) simply once I got it squared away, the Windows Hello login proved and then speedy that if I was immune to blink during the procedure, I'd have missed it.
Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 review: Bombardment life
- The Surface Laptop four lasted nearly 11 hours on our web surfing examination
- That'due south very good, but we didn't get anywhere near Microsoft's 17-60 minutes claim
Battery life is one of the big selling points for this latest Surface Laptop, and with good reason; its predecessors have impressed united states of america with their elegant designs and cute screens, but they've ofttimes fallen brusk of the competition when information technology comes to how long they concluding on a single accuse.
This time around Microsoft claims the AMD-equipped thirteen.v Surface Laptop 4 tin last up to 19 hours on a charge, while the Intel variant we reviewed is advertised as lasting up to 17 hours.
Dear reader, we wanted to believe. The Surface Laptop 4 is a beautiful machine, and it truly does terminal quite a while on a single charge; I was able to unplug and get through a nine-60 minutes workday of intermittent writing and editing while listening to music, watching videos, and never once worrying that the battery would give out on me.
But as expert as it is, the Surface Laptop 4's bombardment life doesn't quite live up to the hype. In our lab tests -- which are based on agile, continuous web browsing -- the Intel-based thirteen.5-inch Microsoft Surface Laptop four lasted a little less than xi hours (10:46:23, to be specific).
That's a nice improvement over the 9 hours 32 minutes the Intel-based Surface Laptop 3 lasted in our tests, but it still falls brusk of the contest. The latest Dell XPS thirteen was able to last longer (eleven:07) in our tests than the Surface Laptop four with a similar hardware configuration, for example, and of course, if yous're willing to walk on the macOS side the MacBook Air M1 delivered an unbeatable fourteen hours and 41 minutes in our bombardment tests.
Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 review: Heat
- Expect absurd temperatures unless you're gaming
- The Surface Laptop 4 was placidity for the most part
In the course of this review, our Surface Laptop 4 review unit rarely got noticeably warm, no matter how many tabs I had open up or how many videos I tried to stream. The only time information technology got hot plenty to crusade discomfort was when I tried to play graphically enervating games like IO Interactive's Hitman ii; on medium to low settings the 2018 game pushed the laptop hard, and as it stuttered between 15 to 40 frames per 2d the fans kicked in and I felt the lesser of the laptop get noticeably warm in my lap.
In our heat tests (which involve streaming 15 minutes of Hard disk video) our oestrus gun establish the underside hit an average temperature of 90 degrees, topping out at 92.5 nigh the center (roughly direct down from where the F5 key sits). The deck of the laptop proved much libation, measuring only eighty degrees on the touchpad.
Microsoft Surface Laptop four review: Verdict
The Surface Laptop 4 improves on the Surface Laptop 3 in many ways, offering Windows fans a bloatware-gratis ultraportable with premium components packed inside a beautiful, lightweight chassis.
While I'd accept liked to see Microsoft attempt some more significant changes to the Surface Laptop formula, the splendid speakers, improved battery life, and under-the-hood upgrades brand the Surface Laptop 4 one of the best Windows laptops you can purchase — and a serious contender for a spot among the best laptops on the market.
We already accept a laundry list of changes we'd like to run into in a sequel (thinner bezels, a better webcam, Thunderbolt iv support and more ports in general), but the Surface Laptop 4'south tall screen, comfortable keyboard and svelte, sturdy design get in a great selection for anyone looking to get piece of work done effectually the house or out at the coffee shop.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/microsoft-surface-laptop-4
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