Computer Shopper - UK (2020-03)

24 MARCH2020|COMPUTER SHOPPER|ISSUE385

BETWEENTHEREDESIGNEEEDSurface

Laptop 3and the new ARM-based Surface

Pro X, the latest standard Suuurface

Pro tablet isn’t exactly the

most exciting member of

Microsoft’s 2019 hardware

line-up.Major changes

amount to Intel’s 10th-gen IccceLake chips and

the addition of aUSB Type-CCCport; otherwise,

the Surface Pro 7islargelyuuunchanged from

the Surface Pro 6(Shopper 333 72).

That’s not entirely abadttthing, however.

The Surface Pro series has looong represented

the best implementation of 222 -in-1 design

around, with a3:2 aspect ratttio,a12.3in

screen providing plenty of spppace,and the

fully adjustable kickstand maaaking it easy to

find acomfortable angle.TheeeSurface Pro 7

remains light –775gfor the tablet on its own

and 1.1kg with the keyboard attachment –

and still has the Windows Hello-compatible

camera on the front, foreffortlessly signing

in via facial recognition.

COVER UP

It’s ashame that the keyboard is still sold

separately.This is less of abother forthe

Surface Penstylus, butthe Type Cover

keyboard is essential forfulfilling the

Surface Pro 7’s potential. Luckily,it’s as

great akeyboard as it ever was, with

positive tactile feedback and aresponsive

touchpad. The Surface Pro 7isalso

compatible with older and third-party Type

Covers, which can be had for£40 –less than

half the retail price of the latest version.

Microsofthas also relented by replacing

theMiniDisplayPortwithamultifunctional

MICROSOFT SurfacePro7

★★★★★

£1, (^449) • Fromwww.microsoooft.com

WINDOWS10 2-IN- 1

video and charge the tablet all at once,so

it’s asignificant upgrade and helps make

up forthe relatively small number oftotal

connections: aUSB3.1port, headphone jack

and microSD card slot are the only others,

so you won’t be able to attach aload of

peripherals and external storage drives at

the same time.

The displayiscompletely unchanged from

the Surface Pro 6, so it’s still a12.3inpanel

with asuper-sharp resolution of 2,736x1,824.

It’s touch-sensitive and compatible with the

MicrosoftSurface Penfor sketching and

taking notes, as it always has been.

Tested in its sRGB mode,the SurfacePro 7

proved incredibly colour-accurate, managing

adelta-E of just 0.84, which is low enough

forprofessional image editing. Its gamut

coverage of 92.8% isn’t quiteasexceptional,

but it’s still enough forpunchy,vibrant

colours, and with apeak brightness of

400cd/m^2 and ahigh contrast ratio of 1,317:1,

this displayperforms brilliantly overall.

Moving on to the other big change,our

review model included aquad-core,1.3GHz

Intel Core i7-1065G7 with Iris Plus graphics.

Along with 16GB of RAM and a256GB SSD,

this spec is the third-highest of apossible

seven, with the cheapest Core i3-1005G1

modelcosting £799,and the topCorei7

TB SSD model acool£2,249.

SLIPPING BEAUTY

We were excited to get more time

with Ice Lake,but performance

proved to be disappointing. It feels

perfectly responsive to use,but cooling

ems to be an issue,because in our

manding 4K media benchmarks,

htest the CPU, storage and cooling

msofalaptop,the SurfacePro 7

med no faster than the Core i5-based

ace Pro 6. If anything, it’s slower: its

erall score of 68 is actually asingle

ointbelow that of the Core i5-8250U

model of the Surface Pro 6wetested.

This suggests you’re probably

better off saving some money

and opting forthe lower-power

VERDICT

Improved in some ways and weakened in others, the

Surface Pro 7isatablet in innncreasing need of arethink

processor,asit’s probably aslightly better fit

forthe cooling properties of the Surface Pro

7’s chassis. Either that, or just go foralaptop

such as the Dell XPS 13 (Shopper376) or the

13in Apple MacBook Pro.Even aDellXPS 13

running previous-generation Intel silicon will

get you better performance than this.

Battery lifepresents more troubling news.

Although Intel’s 10nm Ice Lake chips are

supposed to be more efficient, the Surface

Pro 7lasted for7h20m in our video loop

benchmark, 42 minutes less than the Surface

Pro 6. That’s another big disappointment.

DIMINISHING RETURNS

Microsoftmight well argue that it hasn’t

neglected the Surface Pro 7. It’s added a

USB Type-C connection and upgraded the

internals, but all the evidence points to a

hybrid that’s badly in need of an update.

The design is still as nice as ever,but it’s

beginning to look dated. Meanwhile,the new

silicon inside seems to be limited by the

chassis, and then there’s downgraded battery

lifetocap it off.Microsoftcouldn’t even be

bothered to borrow the neat docking system

forthe Surface Penfrom the Surface Pro X:

it still mounts magnetically to the side of

the tablet, whereas the Pro Xhas ahandy

pen-sized slot at the topofthe keyboard.

At best, this is amarginal update.

JonathanBray

SPECIFICATIONS

Windowsoverall

Multitasking

Battery life

0% -50 Reference + 50 + 100

Seepage98for performancedetails

PROCESSORQuad-core1.3GHzIntel Core i7-1065G7•RAM

16GB•DIMENSIONS292x201x8.5mm•WEIGHT775g•

SCREEN SIZE12.3in•SCREEN RESOLUTION2,736x1,824•

GRAPHICSADAPTORIntelIrisPlus•TOTAL STORAGE

256GB SSD•OPERATING SYSTEMWindows 10 Home•

WARRANTYOneyearRTB•DETAILSwww.microsoft.com

• PART CODEVNX-00002

7h 20m

68

58

theMiniDisplayPortwithamultifunctional

USB Type-C port. This can carry data, output

model

16GB/1

p

see

dem

which

system

perfor

Surfa

ove

po