Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 review
Our Verdict
Microsoft'due south Surface Laptop 4 offers potent functioning, impressive audio, a comfy keyboard and practiced bombardment life in a sleek (if slightly dated) design
For
- Calorie-free, slim blueprint
- Very comfy keyboard
- Great speakers
- Good battery life
Against
- Needs more ports
- Thick bezels are an eyesore
- Needs a better webcam
Tom's Guide Verdict
Microsoft's Surface Laptop 4 offers stiff functioning, impressive audio, a comfy keyboard and expert battery life in a sleek (if slightly dated) blueprint
Pros
- +
Calorie-free, slim design
- +
Very comfy keyboard
- +
Cracking speakers
- +
Good battery life
Cons
- -
Needs more than ports
- -
Thick bezels are an eyesore
- -
Needs a improve 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 information technology as anything else, instead promising that this latest Surface Laptop lasts longer and packs more ability under the hood than its predecessors.
After spending many hours with this laptop, it'southward clear those promises are truthful, though our test results leave plenty of room to quibble with Microsoft's marketing. But it's been nearly two years since the 2019 launch of the Surface Laptop three, and in that time, competing manufacturers like Dell and Apple have pushed the limits of how slim, beautiful and powerful an ultraportable can be.
Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 (xiii.5-inch, Intel): Specs
CPU: 11th-Gen Intel Cadre i7-1185G7 (Core i5 also bachelor)
RAM: 16GB (8GB, 32GB also available)
Display: 13.5-inch touch-screen, 2256 x 1504 (201 PPI)
Storage: 512GB SSD (256GB, 1TB also bachelor)
Ports: 1x USB-C, 1x USB-A, Surface Connect port, headphone jack
Battery life: x:46 (tested, web surfing) | Up to 17 hours (Microsoft's claim)
Wireless: Wi-Fi 6/Bluetooth v.0
Dimensions: 12.1 x 8.8 x 0.57 inches
Weight: 2.79 pounds
Cost: $1,699 as configured, $999 (xiii.5-inch) | $one,299 (xv-inch) starting
So while the Microsoft Surface Laptop iv is unquestionably the best Surface Laptop yet, the question of whether it's the all-time laptop for you is a piffling trickier to respond. Read on for our full Surface Laptop iv review, which should (hopefully) help you solve that question.
Microsoft Surface Laptop four review: Price and release date
- Starts at $999 for xiii-inch, $one,299 for fifteen-inch
- Our unit with Core i7/16GB/512GB is $one,699
Available as of April 15 2021 in the Us and April 27 in the Britain, a new Surface Laptop 4 ordered from Microsoft will cost yous at least $899 for the 13.5-inch model and $ane,299 for the 15-inch. Those entry-level models ship with AMD Ryzen five/7 4000-series chips, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD.
If you need more ability y'all tin configure the Surface Laptop 4 with beefier innards, potentially paying as much every bit $two,299 and $2,399 (respectively) for the two models if you kit them out with the meridian-tier components. Unlike its predecessors, both sizes of the Surface Laptop four can be configured with your pick of an Intel 11th Gen Cadre i5/i7 CPU or an AMD Ryzen five/7 4000-series processor, though the 15-inch model is limited to the higher-end Core i7/Ryzen 7 fries.
Our 13.5-inch Surface Laptop 4 review unit of measurement arrived decked in Microsoft'south new (to the Surface Laptop) Water ice Bluish 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: Design
- New Ice Blue colour is a nice touch without being also bold
- Bezels are nevertheless on the thick side
- Alcantara deck is comfy for the wrists
The latest Surface Laptop hews close to the minimalist design of its predecessors, which is both welcome and a niggling underwhelming; I would accept liked to see Microsoft attempt a more radical change with the Surface Laptop'south design, simply for now, you'll have to expect within to run across what's new.
That said, I've e'er loved the slick, make clean lines of the Surface devices, and the new Surface Laptop 4 offers more of the aforementioned. In terms of dimensions, it'south identical to the Surface Laptop 3, weighing in at 2.viii pounds and measuring just 12.1 x viii.viii x 0.half dozen inches. That makes the Surface Laptop 4 not quite as small equally the M1 MacBook Air (12 x eight.4 ten 0.6 inches, two.8 pounds) or the Dell XPS 13 (11.vii x viii.2 10 0.5 inches, ii.nine pounds), simply it's plenty slim enough to slide into a backpack or briefcase and promptly forget about.
It'south a niggling harder to forget nearly the thick bezels surrounding the Surface Laptop 4'south iii:2 display. They merely aren't very attractive, and when I wasn't focusing on specific tasks I caught myself staring at the blackness bars around the screen, wishing they were smaller then I could have a fleck more than 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 have a chip more screen space to play with.
The Dell XPS 13'southward incredibly slim bezels brand information technology easy to see how much of a divergence this kind of engineering science piece of work makes, and information technology would be nice to run across Microsoft do the same for its flagship laptop. That said, information technology is nice how sturdy the screen feels nether your fingers, and I felt nil qualms nearly briskly tapping and swiping my way through Windows without worrying I'd accidentally knock the screen back.
This is the first time Microsoft has offered a Surface Laptop in the Water ice Blueish color scheme previously seen on Microsoft Surface Pro tablets, and in person, it'south a very nice, understated shade of pale metallic blueish. It'southward so subtle that I would have been hard-pressed to tell y'all information technology was blueish unless we set it down alongside a bunch of other gray and silvery laptops, at which point the Surface Laptop iv conspicuously stands out from the oversupply. I also appreciate the relative subtlety of the reflective Microsoft logo on the hat; it's middle-catching but less garish than a lot of the manufacturer logos emblazoned on gimmicky laptops.
The Alcantara lining the keyboard of the Ice Blue and Platinum 13.5-inch models is a nice touch on that makes resting your wrists on the deck of the laptop experience a flake more than comfortable. Information technology's a small divergence, but one that I noticed every time I switched dorsum to typing on an all-metal laptop. The feel of material below my wrists was simply nicer, though the thought of trying to get a stain out of it heightened my already significant fear of eating or drinking while working.
Microsoft Surface Laptop four review: Ports
- USB-A, USB-C and headphone jack
- Sorry, no Thunderbolt four
The port pick on Microsoft's Surface Laptop iv is pretty simple, for better and for worse. The correct side sports a Surface Connector for charging purposes, while on the left you'll find a USB-A port, a USB-C port, and a headphone jack.
It's overnice to see a classic USB-A on a modern machine like this, and combining it with a USB-C gives this laptop a prissy chip of flexibility when it comes to external devices. But this USB-C port doesn't support Thunderbolt 4, which is a bummer for anyone investing in heavy-duty external accessories like GPUs or high-capacity drives. And while a role of me likes a slim, simple chassis without a lot of funky holes in it, I also really dear it when a laptop manufacturer works a little SD menu reader or a stylus cubby into the sides of their device.
Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 review: Display
- iii:ii aspect ratio good for productivity
- Could be brighter and more than cogitating than we'd like
The 13.5-inch, 2256 x 1504-pixel screen of the Surface Laptop four has its charms, specially if you're doing a lot of reading, editing, or annihilation that benefits from having the extra vertical space afforded by its three:2 brandish ratio.
Only when I switched out of productivity way and started streaming some Television set and movies on the laptop, I was a petty disappointed past how slow and washed-out some scenes looked. Sometimes brilliant colors were vibrant enough to popular off the screen, every bit was the example with the vivid orange explosions of Bad Boys ii or Stormfront'southward bright purple lightning discharges in The Boys. Just in dark scenes or settings with lots of muted blues and greens the colors seemed to fade and blend into each other, making it difficult to pick out particular.
I also noticed my reflection a lot more oft than I'yard used to when working on a laptop, even with the screen's effulgence cranked all the style up. In the absence of difficult testing data, I'k leery of telling you that the Surface Laptop iv'southward screen is definitely more than cogitating than well-nigh, but it sure seems that way. This didn't cause any issues for me (other than stoking that unique form of self-loathing invoked past catching sight of yourself staring slack-jawed at a screen) but it'due south worth noting if you plan to regularly use the device under bright lights or directly sunlight.
Under testing with our colorimeter, the Surface Laptop iv's screen produced 108.3% of the sRGB spectrum, which is a bit better than the 104.five% its 15-inch predecessor produced in the same test. That's right in line with the cheaper Thinkpad 14s Yoga (at 108%) and meliorate than competition like the Dell XPS 13 (97.nine%), though information technology still can't friction match the screens on the M1 MacBook Air (114.three%) and MacBook Pro (110.vi%).
The screen gets reasonably brilliant, hit an boilerplate of 348.half-dozen nits of effulgence when tested with our light gun. That's decent, ahead of the Lenovo Thinkpad 14s Yoga (313 nits) just just a scrap behind both the Intel and AMD variants of the 15-inch Surface Laptop 3 (which achieved 366 and 380 nits, respectively), and way behind the Dell XPS 13 (469 nits).
Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 review: Keyboard and touchpad
- Plenty of travel for comfy typing
- Shine and accurate touchpad, and there's a touchscreen, too
Typing on the Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 feels more comfortable than most laptops I've worked on, thank you in large part to the nicely-sized keys and the Alcantara fabric around the keyboard. The keys feel satisfying to blazon on, with 1.3mm of travel and a nice click to them which helped me avoid bottoming out while typing quickly.
The 4.v 10 3-inch glass touchpad below the keys is too quite dainty to apply, feeling comfortably close to the keyboard while notwithstanding affording my large dumb sausage fingers plenty of room to movement. Both information technology and the laptop's touchscreen felt very responsive to the touch, and I had no problem using gesture commands on either surface.
Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 review: Audio
- Loud and clean audio from a meaty laptop
- Dolby Atmos support adds depth
The big talking point around the Surface Laptop 4's speakers is the addition of Dolby Atmos technology, which Microsoft claims helps the laptop deliver richer, more spatially accurate audio by pumping it out from below the keyboard and bouncing it off the screen.
I'chiliad no audiophile, just even I can tell you that the speakers on the Surface Laptop four make music and movies sound very nice. Bass-heavy tracks like Massive Attack's "Angel" still accept a boot to them, and while watching the trailer for Godzilla vs. Kong I defenseless myself glancing down to make sure the laptop wasn't really vibrating in time with the bass drops.
Merely the Surface Laptop 4's speakers really shine with more well-balanced tracks, and when I threw on Muddy Waters' "Folk Vocalist" I was delighted by how clearly the vocals rang out across the room without losing whatsoever of their warmth. When I walked downward the hall or into an adjoining room I could still hear Waters' beautiful voice perfectly, and if I didn't already know I'd never have guessed the music was existence piped out of someone's laptop.
Microsoft Surface Laptop iv review: Performance
- 11th-gen Intel Core i7 and 16GB of RAM combine for solid performance
- Benchmarks scores trail behind Dell XPS 13 and MacBook Air and Pro
- Graphics skilful plenty for 30 fps on less demanding games
Unless your task involves playing Cyberpunk 2077 with the settings cranked up, Microsoft's Surface Laptop 4 can handle pretty much anything y'all'd throw at it in the course of an average workday. Our review unit's 16GB of RAM and 11th Gen Intel i7 CPU gave information technology enough pep to handily tackle equally many basic tasks as I could subject information technology to, including 20+ tabs spread beyond 4 Chrome windows arrayed in such a style that I could watch two 4K YouTube videos, a Twitch stream, and go along an centre on my Spotify playlist while writing this review.
The Surface Laptop iv we reviewed put up a decent score of 4,829 in our Geekbench v performance test, which is adept merely not nifty when stacked up against similarly-priced competitors like the Dell XPS 13 (which earned 5,254 in the same test) or even cheaper Windows notebooks similar Lenovo'southward convertible ThinkBook 14s Yoga (4,885).
The Surface Laptop 4 has enough pep that I could have 2 20+ Chrome tabs open, scout ii 4K YouTube videos, a Twitch stream and go on an eye on my Spotify playlist while writing this review.
Our review unit'southward 512GB SSD performed well enough when nosotros tasked information technology with duplicating 25GB of multimedia files, transferring them at a decent clip of 562.73 MBps. That's faster than the 508.9 MBps that the 15-inch Intel-powered Surface Laptop 3 delivered in our testing last year, but notwithstanding slower than contemporary competitors like the Dell XPS xiii (806 MBps) or the Thinkbook 14s Yoga (886.35 MBps).
If you're looking to do some video editing, the Surface Laptop 4 is upward to the task (particularly when kitted out with 16GB of RAM) but far from the fastest laptop on the block. In our Handbrake video editing test our review unit took most 17 minutes to convert a 4K video to 1080p, which is faster than the 17 minutes xviii seconds it took the 15-inch Intel-equipped Surface Laptop three to do the same test last year. It'south also a bit meliorate than the Dell XPS 13 (which took about 18 minutes), though of course, information technology falls far short of the sub-10-infinitesimal marks delivered by Apple's M1-equipped MacBook Air (which took ix minutes and 15 seconds) and MacBook Pro (vii minutes 44 seconds) models.
Every bit far equally games become, our testing suggests you lot should calibrate your expectations to the level of a squeamish work laptop: yous should be able to play many games at acceptable frame rates, peculiarly if they're older or less graphically demanding, but don't expect to relish running any game with minimum required specs that include a detached GPU.
In our performance tests our Surface Laptop 4 review unit of measurement delivered an average of xxx.46 frames per second playing Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm at 1080p, though that dropped down to a 27.nine fps average when we boosted the resolution upwards to the native 1504p.
Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 review: Webcam
- Decent images for 720p webcam merely 1080p would exist better
- Fast Windows Hullo face logins
In that location'due south non much to say about the 720p webcam built into the top of the Surface Laptop 4's screen, save that I wish it was a little more exciting. A bump up to 1080p would have been a welcome change (especially amidst our electric current pandemic-provoked preponderance of Zoom meetings) that really helped set this latest Surface Laptop apart from its predecessors, all of which accept sported 720p webcams to a higher place the display.
That said, the Surface Laptop 4'due south webcam is completely acceptable for all your video chatting needs, and the image quality is decent if you're looking to accept some laptop selfies.
As far every bit the much-touted Windows Hello biometric authentication goes, logging in via your face seems speedier than e'er. I had some trouble getting the camera assortment to recognize me while setting the laptop up for facial recognition (perhaps information technology'due south my fault for leaving my glasses on) but once I got it squared away, the Windows Howdy login proved and so speedy that if I was allowed to blink during the procedure, I'd have missed it.
Microsoft Surface Laptop iv review: Battery life
- The Surface Laptop 4 lasted nearly 11 hours on our web surfing test
- That'south very adept, just we didn't get anywhere almost Microsoft's 17-hour claim
Battery life is ane of the large selling points for this latest Surface Laptop, and with good reason; its predecessors have impressed united states with their elegant designs and beautiful screens, only they've oft fallen short of the contest when it comes to how long they last on a single charge.
This time around Microsoft claims the AMD-equipped 13.five Surface Laptop iv can terminal upwardly to nineteen hours on a accuse, 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 final quite a while on a unmarried accuse; I was able to unplug and get through a 9-hour workday of intermittent writing and editing while listening to music, watching videos, and never in one case worrying that the battery would give out on me.
Only equally good as information technology is, the Surface Laptop 4's bombardment life doesn't quite live up to the hype. In our lab tests -- which are based on active, continuous web browsing -- the Intel-based 13.5-inch Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 lasted a footling less than eleven hours (10:46:23, to exist specific).
That's a nice improvement over the ix hours 32 minutes the Intel-based Surface Laptop 3 lasted in our tests, but information technology still falls short of the competition. The latest Dell XPS 13 was able to last longer (eleven:07) in our tests than the Surface Laptop 4 with a similar hardware configuration, for example, and of grade, if you're willing to walk on the macOS side the MacBook Air M1 delivered an unbeatable 14 hours and 41 minutes in our battery tests.
Microsoft Surface Laptop iv review: Rut
- Expect absurd temperatures unless y'all're gaming
- The Surface Laptop iv was serenity for the most office
In the class of this review, our Surface Laptop 4 review unit of measurement rarely got noticeably warm, no matter how many tabs I had open or how many videos I tried to stream. The but time information technology got hot enough to cause discomfort was when I tried to play graphically demanding games like IO Interactive's Hitman 2; on medium to low settings the 2018 game pushed the laptop difficult, and as it stuttered between 15 to 40 frames per 2d the fans kicked in and I felt the bottom of the laptop get noticeably warm in my lap.
In our estrus tests (which involve streaming 15 minutes of HD video) our heat gun found the underside hit an average temperature of 90 degrees, topping out at 92.five virtually the center (roughly directly down from where the F5 cardinal sits). The deck of the laptop proved much cooler, measuring just 80 degrees on the touchpad.
Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 review: Verdict
The Surface Laptop 4 improves on the Surface Laptop 3 in many ways, offering Windows fans a bloatware-free ultraportable with premium components packed inside a cute, lightweight chassis.
While I'd have liked to see Microsoft endeavour some more significant changes to the Surface Laptop formula, the excellent speakers, improved bombardment life, and nether-the-hood upgrades brand the Surface Laptop iv ane of the best Windows laptops you can purchase — and a serious contender for a spot amongst the all-time laptops on the market.
We already take a laundry list of changes we'd similar to see in a sequel (thinner bezels, a meliorate webcam, Thunderbolt 4 support and more ports in general), simply the Surface Laptop 4's tall screen, comfy keyboard and svelte, sturdy design make it a nifty choice for anyone looking to get work done around the house or out at the coffee shop.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/microsoft-surface-laptop-4
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