PC World - USA (2020-03)

MARCH 2020 PCWorld 53

benchmark, used in part because we could

pull results from a couple years’ worth of

tablets. It measures light gaming, photo and

video editing, and web browsing. Not

surprisingly, the Surface Pro 7 excels.

Note that the default behavior for the

Surface Pro 7, like the Surface Laptop 3, is to

prolong battery life, sometimes at the

expense of performance. That’s a perfectly

acceptable choice, but we also tested while

maximizing the performance (noted with

“Max” in the tables). In some tests, that made

a difference. In others, it didn’t.

In terms of pure CPU workloads, we use

the Cinebench benchmark, which renders a

CGI scene using the

full power of the

CPU. The Core

i7-1065G7 is a

4-core, 8-thread

processor, just like

the older chips that

power the Lenovo

IdeaPad Miix and

ThinkPad X1 Tablets.

But it’s fabricated at

10nm, giving it a

performance

advantage over the

older 14nm chips.

Our other CPU

benchmark is a

stress test, a

prolonged

Especially when you dial up the performance, Microsoft’s Surface Pro 7 is the
fastest tablet around for everyday use, as measured by PCMark 8.

M(Core i7-1065G7, 2736x1824)icrosoft Surface Pro 7 Max

M(Core i7-1065G7, 2496x1664) icrosoft Surface Laptop 3

M(Core i7-1065G7, 2736x1824)icrosoft Surface Pro 7

Lenovo IdeaPad M(Core i5-8250U, 1920x1200)iix 520

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet, 3rd

Gen (Core i5-8250U, 3000x2000)

Microsoft Surface Pro 6

(Core i5-8250U, 2736x1824)

Microsoft Surface Laptop 2

(Core i5-8250U, 2256x1504)

M(Pentium 4415Y, 1800x1200)icrosoft Surface Go

M(Microsoft Surface Pro Xicrosoft SQ1, 2880x1920)

PCMark 8 Creative

(Native resolution)

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

4,273

3,261

3,904

3,001

4,033

3,253

3,455

1,805

1,768

and its tablet cousin actually bear a close
resemblance on paper—they share the
same exact processor and GPU, clocked
identically. As you’ll see from the CPU-
specific Cinebench test below, the CPU
performance of both the Surface Pro 7 and
the Surface Laptop 3 are close.
Our daily experiences with the Surface
Pro 7—everyday Office use, web browsing,
and the like—were more than acceptable. The
Surface Pro 7 also offers “instant on”
capabilities, waking almost instantly with a
combination of the Windows Hello-enabled
camera and a fast internal SSD.
Our first test is the older PCMark Creative