[my opinions are my own]

Devices:

• Surface Pro 9 5G w/ Flex Type cover

• Laptop Pro 7 15'' 512GB Graphite

Usage over the last two days:

• Coding (local and remote code editing)

• Teams (lots of meetings 😅)

• Productivity and lots of web apps

• Personal use: 0%

• Work use: 100%

Keyboard

Still getting used to it. It's a little mushier on the push/return than expected and the dip / saucer is less than on my Surface Po Plex Keyboard or my Surface natural keyboard. Feel like I might need to trim my nails a little more to make the most of it. It's marginally quieter than the MBP M1 14'' MacBook keyboard.

It seems to be increasing in tactility the more I use it / the more my hand oils cover them and the resulting friction. The responsiveness seems to be improving as well (not as mushy).

Size-wise, and particularly coming from the Surface Pro, I like palm-rest of the larger laptop.

Overall, it's okay but it is taking some time to get used it. MBP M1 14'' MacBook keyboard is superior, but it isn't a deal breaker.

If anything has been below my expectations, it's the keyboard but I need to give it time.

Touchpad

I have responsiveness settings set pretty high and it's pretty flawless with respect to scrolling, tapping, and clicking. It's about the same size as the touchpad on my 14'' MacBook so if I'm missing something from what the 16'' MacBook offers, I don't know what I don't know. 😅

Given that my Surface type cover was not haptic for many years, I've gotten use to light tapping for everything over the years so I don't have to aim to click.

I recently got the Surface Flex type cover, and I'm really liking the haptic touchpad and haptic settings that are available across both Surface and Laptop. I'm already back to physically clicking now. :)

Screen

Meeting my expectations for a large screen. I've mostly been in VS Code, Azure, and on the web and I don't feel like I'm missing anything. Big, bright, and responsive once I locked it to 120hz.

Windows shows a 10bit HDR display capable of Dolby vision @ 600nits.

Surface Pro 9 5G is 8bit SDR.

Not sure if OLED would offer more for me here as I am not doing visual creative work - just coding and productivity. I already have my ipad pro M4 OLED for movies ;).

I'm also getting older (😅) and the Surface Pro's 13'' isn't cutting it when I am away from my desk and in VS Code all day. Working with the 15'' has been great and I'm enjoying coding for work on it even more than using my 14'' MBP for home lab stuff.

in three words: bight and fast.

Form factor

Surface Pro has been great to me but I needed a laptop. I don't use the pen experience much and there were just so many scenarios where I was over dependent on my working area for the typing experience. Working on the couch was a no go or jsut weird. The flex type cover has improved the typing experience a lot (the bounciness was giving me carpel tunnel lol ) and opened up disconnected scenarios at the cost of reduced, integrated palm rest space. Still, working on the couch or in my lap in general, was not a great experience when I had a lot of writing / coding to do.

Great lap ability, great big screen, lots of space to rest my palms when I type.

Performance - Surface Pro 9 5G (Profile: high-performance)

Surface Pro 9 5G got a huge bump from 24H2 which made it a lot snappier once stuff has loaded. It has its limits and doing a lot of things with various edge profiles / tabs / web apps open will push the cpu. When resuming from sleep will peg the cpu if you have a lot of stuff for it to catch up on. Teams is fine once it loads. VS code once you load everything. Basically, when you start something, you tax the cpu and things might be slow-ish depending on what it is, but once you've started, it's mostly fast and the cpu is idling.

A good example is the Surface App. It loads very slowly but is responsive once it fully loads.

A Prism example is Apple Music. Installed via winget without issue but loading was slow and the initial sync was long. It runs okay but there are a few slowdowns here and there - music took a few seconds to start.

Overall, it has a mix of 'almost there' feel to it where if it was mildly faster, it would be great.

Performance - Surface Laptop 7 (Profile: recommended)

Snappy AF. Everything has been super snappy, and I haven't been waiting for anything. Teams is very responsive. Multitasking works great - I was syncing some large repos (10GB is large for me anyways), the cpu wasn't breaking a sweat, and other experiences were not affected. Office apps load instantly and Code editing (not running anything yet) has been great.

WSL2 is working fine (not that it didn't work well on my Surface Pro 9 5G).

Apple music works great.

App switching is great.

Basically, I just got it and haven't put it through all its paces yet to provide more feedback here.

Battery

omg finally. I've been using Surface's since Surface 2 and only the Surface 2 and the Pro 9 5G had good battery life. Surface Pro X had potential, but it was always pushing itself so hard that I would only get like 4hrs. Surface Pro 9 5G was better but battery life was heavily dependent on the task at hand. 5-6hrs was usually the limit with outliers here and there.

From the OOB setup though full machine setup, I think I went 5hrs and it was at 50% when I stopped?

Today as well, I think I used it about 4-5hrs and it was at 50% when done.

This is with refresh rate locked at 120hz and brightness at 75-100%.

My MBP 14'' usually gets about 4-5hrs because I have the M1 Max chip that can't clock all the way down, and this is beating that by a lot already.

I don't know what it's limits are - like I said I just started - but I'm already VERY happy.

Fans

I heard them once during the OOBE setup - and I had to put my ear to the hinge to check as I couldn't tell form a normal distance. Haven't heard them since. I know they're there and the pitch I heard during the OOBE might be annoying at volume but for my current workload fan noise is inaudible in my home.

Connectivity

Getting 1-1.2Gbps Up/down via Wi-Fi 6E using a local network speed test.

I was holding out for 5G Surface Pro 11 but the fact that it comes in platinum only and my need for a larger screen made me bite the bullet.

I'll just tether to my phone like a plebe again. 😅

Speakers (updated 08/04)

Urgh. No bass and muffled compared to the Surface Pro 9. Surface Pro 9 speakers are front and center and at least portions of the treble are enjoyable.

This is the worst of both worlds - muffled treble and no bass. Of course, my MBP M1 14'' blows them away but I expected more.

This is a work laptop, but I don't ever see myself playing music on it without headphones since I don't like the sound performance at all. :(

Update 08/04

Update on speakers: somehow I had them on mono?! LOL

So I disabled mono, configured the "Dynamic" setting in the Dolby app. It sounds a LOT better. Comparing it to MBP 14":

Both:

• Pretty good treble and soundstage

Surface Laptop:

• mids and lows roll off immediately (no

MBP:

• It has limits but it has mids and bass.

Peripherals

• Logitech vertical mouse has been flawless, but I can't get logi options to install

• jabra usb speakerphone. flawless.

External monitors / docks - Surface Pro 9 5G

• desk 1: 2x 4K 60fps dell monitors, 8bit, non-hdr. laptop open or closed. flawless but requires the surface dock. When using Sonnet TB4 dock, I could only get one monitor to work. Some monitor MST limitation since Surface Po 9 5G isn't full TB4 or something and requires special monitor support if you want to do dual 4k60.

• desk 2: 1x 4K 60fps lg OLED, 12bit, hdr. laptop open or closed. Sonnet TB4 dock with usb-c. flawless.

External monitors / docks - Surface laptop 7

• desk 1*: 2x 4K 60fps, 8bit, non-hdr. laptop open or closed. Sonnet TB4 dock with usb-c. flawless.

• desk 2: 1x 4K 60fps lg OLED, 12bit, hdr. laptop open or closed. Sonnet TB4 dock with usb-c. flawless.

*2x 4K 60fps worked with my Laptop 7 and Surface Dock 2 but since I don't need it, it's out 😛

Purchase

Purchased from BB without much fanfare since I didn't want to wait for other purchase options open to me. External box was a little beat up and the surface box was dusty + one of the side flaps was slightly torn but the tamper strip was in great shape and the laptop was immaculate.

Fit and finish

Great but not up to the exacting Apple levels. When closed, there is a small gap between screen and base and there is a slight curve towards the bottom of the display casing.

Screen itself is immaculate.

No light bleed from any keys except down arrow and that's if you tilt the laptop up towards you.

Overall, it's fine for the $1500 I paid for it and much better aesthetically than most Windows laptops out there, minus let's say an HP dragon fly or something.

My history with WOA

I have owned:

• Surface 2 😛

• HP Envy x2 (SD 835)

• Samsung Book 2 (SD 845)

• Surface Pro X (SQ1 / 8CX)

• Surface Pro 9 5G (SQ3 / 8CX3)

Overall

With the exception of the lack of 5G, subpar speakers, and the keyboard that I am still getting used to, this is the best Surface device I have had to date and the best Windows laptop that I have ever used. It is super responsive, has a great display, exceeds my battery life needs, and is effectively silent.

And this is only the second day! 😅