ISSUE387|COMPUTER SHOPPER|MAY2020
SPECIFICATIONS
Battery life
0% -50 Reference + 50 + 100
See page 88 forperformancedetailsPROCESSOROcta-core3GHzMicrosoft SQ1•RAM8GB•
DIMENSIONS287x208x7. 3mm•WEIGHT774g•SCREEN SIZE
13in•SCREEN RESOLUTION2,880x1,920•GRAPHICS
ADAPTORAdreno 685•TOTAL STORAGE256GB•OPERATING
SYSTEMWindows10Home•WARRANTYOneyearRTB•
DETAILSwww.microsoft.com•PART CODEMNY- 000029h 3mfeels prettyresponsivewittth
hardlyanylag.Palmrejection
isexcellentaswell.
TheSurfaceProX’s13in
IPSPixelSensedisplayis
simply superb.Itisn’t quiteee
perfect,butit’sasclosetoooit
asyou’deverneedittobeee.
Its resolutionof2,880x1,9 2220
andpixeldensityof2 67 ppppi
ensuresit’stacksharp,
and it’s bright, too,
reachingapeak of
452cd/m^2 in ourtests.
It’s also verycolour-accccurate.WiththesRGB
settingenabledinthedisplaysettings,ourtests
showeditachieving91.7%coverageofthesRGB
colourgamutandacontrastratioof1, 39 4:1.
Colour-accuracy results were even more
impressive, with thedisplay achievingnumbers
close to ideal across allcolours. This is a
sensationally good display by any standards.
INARM’SWAY
The MicrosoftSurface ProXis amighty fine
pieceofhardware,that much is clear.The
question is, without an Intel or AMDchip under
the hood, can youuse it forday-to-daywork?
The answer to this questionis, largely,yes.
We’ve beenusingitquite happily forword
processingand browser-based tasks, and in
doing so have had as many as 30 tabs open in
Edge.It’sperfectly responsive and, as long as
the tablet will runthe app you wantittorun,
you shouldn’t have any problems.
However,therein lies the rub,which is thatthe
system’s SoC is an ARM chip,whichmeans lots
of appssimply won’t installinthe firstplace. In
particular,the Surface Pro Xwon’t run any 64-bit
application that hasn’tbeen ported to ARM 64.
The ProXwill run 32-bit (x86) apps, which
mighthelp youget around this issue.Wewere
able to install a32-bit version of Chromeaswell
as Photoshop CC (after afew false starts where
Adobe CC failedtoinstall),soitisn’t quiteas
restrictedasthe Surface RT,which was only able
to runWindows Storeapplications.Evenso, you
can expect performance issues with resource-
heavy applications, becausethe x86 Windows
apps run in an x86 emulator.Although Chrome
and Photoshop wouldrun, neither felt as nippy
as you’d expect fromthe hardware at hand.
And there are otherissues. Any hardware
that needs adriver to work with Windows will
only be able to talktothe Surface Pro Xifthe
manufacturer has specifically writtenARM 64
driversfor them. Given the Pro Xisone of only a
handful of ARM 64 Windows devicesaround, we
can’t see many manufacturers investing the time
or money required.Games won’twork, either,if
theyuse aversion of OpenGL beyond 1.1.
Either way, if you’rethinking of buying a
Surface Pro X, you’re going to have to do some
seriousresearch to ensure all thesoftware and
the hardware youwant to run will work on it.
All in all,it’s abit of amess.
With such great hardware,that’s ashame,
becausethere’sclearlyplenty of potential
here.Unfortunately,wecouldn’t getour usual
4K benchmarks to run, but withhhhGeekbench 4
scoresof3, 509 inthesingle-coretestand11, 643
inthemulticoretest,theSurfaceProXisvery
nearlyaspowerfulasthetopCorei7versionof
the Surface Pro 7.
It’sfurther behind the 12.9in iPad Pro,which
scored 4,979 and 12,921 respectively,but should
still be fast enough to run most applications
without problems. It’s mainly the softwareand
drivercompatibility that causesissues.
Thatsaid,the SSDisalsoslower than thatof
the Surface Pro 7–we recorded asequential read
speed of 1,463MB/s and asequential writespeed
of just 364MB/s –but you might be willingto
accept that when you seethe differencein
battery life. In ourvideo rundown benchmark, the
Surface ProXlasted nearly two hourslonger(9h
3m vs 7h 20m) than theCorei7Surface Pro 7.STYLUS OVER SUBSTANCE
The Surface Pro Xiscertainly anicepiece of kit.
It’s slimand light, and has abig, beautiful display.
Its keyboard,touchpad andSurface SlimPen all
function superbly,and battery lifeisexcellent.
Addinupgradable storage, built-in4G
capability and nippyperformance,and it looks
likethe perfect 2-in-1. It’salittlepricier than the
equivalentSurface Pro 7, whichisodd,but not
by much, and it’s morecost effective than the
cellular 12.9in iPad Pro.
However,Microsoft’s decision to use an
ARM-based processor at the heartofthe
Surface Pro Xmeans it has some pretty big
limitationswhenitcomes to thesoftware you
can run on it. Ultimately,thisputsthe brakes
on the Surface ProX’s appeal.
No matter how good the hardwareisorhow
attractiveitlooks, if youcan’t run the software
you need to run on it,it’s notgoing to work for
you. At the very least, make sure youdoyour
homework before you splashout.
JonathanBray