PC World - USA (2020-01)

JANUARY 2020 PCWorld 73

with the Ryzen 7 model.
With Intel’s Ice Lake, I
noticed a faint fan hiss of
quietly blowing air in the
background. It blew
noticeably louder under
certain testing scenarios,
but there were no great
spikes in noise.
When the Surface
Laptop 3’s fan was called
to action, it turned off
nearly instantly after the
benchmark completed.
Moreover, while the
bottom of the chassis got
warm, it never came close to being hot, let
alone uncomfortable, even with the more
powerful Core i7 in play.
Laptop displays have improved over the
years, but the Surface displays, including the
one on the Surface Laptop 3, remain among
the very best. Microsoft’s bold PixelSense
display on the Surface Laptop 3 for Business
puts out a blazing 377 lumens, more than
most of its competition does. The 201 pixels-
per-inch (ppi) density of the Laptop 3’s
15-inch model remains the same as the prior
generation’s 13-inch model. (Microsoft didn’t
offer a 15-inch Surface Laptop 2).
At the top of the display, a tiny 720p
camera sits alongside depth sensors for
logging in almost instantaneously with
Windows Hello. The camera doesn’t offer a

built-in physical shutter, so paranoid types will

have to satisfy themselves with some good

old-fashioned black tape. The image quality is

certainly good enough for

videoconferencing, and I was logged in

routinely using my face.

The camera also plays a role in the Surface

Laptop 3’s new “instant-on” capability, which

brightens the screen and turns on the camera

in just a whisker after opening the Laptop from

standby. It’s darn convenient.

ADDING USB-C IS A PLUS

The other noteworthy addition to the Surface

Laptop 3 is the new, long overdue USB-C

port, which replaces the miniDisplayPort

found on most previous Surface devices. (As

we were writing this, Microsoft’s Surface

The Surface Laptop 3 15-inch (Ice Lake) has a more prevalent fan than the

AMD Ryzen-based models, though it’s not ubiquitous. Underneath these

bumpers lie a pair of Torx screws to access the SSD—though Microsoft

restricts this feature to professional repair staff.