NOVEMBER 2019 PCWorld 21USB-C port. None of
the new Surfaces,
including this one,
enable the USB-C port
with Thunderbolt I/O.
Nevertheless, there’s
enough bandwidth to
power a 4K display,
we’re told.
Though the
Surface Pen can be
used with the new
Surface Laptop 3,
that’s not really the
point. They can also
be used with the
Surface Dial, though
it’s a bit awkward to
use while in laptop mode.
The keyboard’s fairly comfortable, with
1.3mm of travel. After checking the specs, we
discovered why it didn’t feel quite as good:
The key travel decreased from 1.5mm on the
previous generation. In any case, the “feel” of
a keyboard is largely subjective. The size of
the trackpad is now 20 percent larger.
Internally, of course, what makes the
Surface Laptop 3 so very intriguing is the
new Ryzen chip inside of the 15-inch version,
with—wait for it—the Ryzen 5 3580U Radeon
Vega 9 Surface Edition. That’s a mouthful.
My colleague Gordon Mah Ung offers an
in-depth explanation of the new “Surface
Edition” AMD Ryzen processors (go.
pcworld.com/rzsf), but basically, it boils
down to this: The Surface Edition chips have
more on-die computational and graphics
cores than AMD will offer other PC partners,
making this technically a custom core.
We’d like to say that we noticed
differences in each laptop’s performance, but
the reality is that we didn’t have time to do
much with them. We’ll have more to say if
we’re able to test the units. So far, though,
we’re liking what we’ve seen—as long as it’s
not our credit cards footing the bill.VIDEO: HANDS-ON:
MS SURFACE LAPTOP 3
Watch now at go.pcworld.com/sl3The new 15-inch and the existing 13-inch form factors of the Surface Laptop
3, in metal and the traditional Alcantara fabric.