A Thunderbolt 3 port is conspicuously absent from both
the laptop and the optional dock. As a minor consolation
prize, you do get an additional USB port built into the AC
adapter. That USB port works only for charging, however,
not for data transfer. The Surface Laptop 3 supports Wi-Fi
6 (802.11ax) and Bluetooth 5.0 for wireless connections.
Audio quality remains essentially unchanged from the
Surface Laptop 2, as Microsoft isn’t touting any improved
speakers or sound processing. Still, the speakers deliver
reasonable quality and surprisingly loud sound, even
below maximum volume. You’ll probably want to keep the
volume dialed down a little from 100 percent, as higher
pitches become tinny at that level, and it’s plenty loud at
80 or even 60 percent.
CONFIGURATION OPTIONS
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with 16GB of memory and a 256GB solid-state drive, in
addition to the 10th Generation “Ice Lake” Intel Core i7-
1065G7 processor with four cores and Hyper-Threading
support. The base model comes with a Core i5 processor,
8GB of RAM, and the same SSD storage capacity. All
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In a departure from the sealed chassis of most other
ultraportables, the Surface Laptop 3’s SSD is designed to
be removed and replaced, but only by authorized service
technicians. You need a special tool and heavy-duty
suction cups, which puts the operation out of reach for all
but the most committed DIY-ers. It’s best to upgrade the
SSD at the time of purchase if you need more space;
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AMD Ryzen CPUs and Radeon GPUs, which come
standard on the 15-inch version of the Surface Laptop 3,
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The speakers
deliver
reasonable
quality and
surprisingly
loud sound,
even below
maximum
volume.