Surface laptops have seen better days.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite-powered Surface Pro (11th Edition) and Surface Laptop (7th Edition) (both of which were released in June) should have been the highlight of Microsoft's new AI PC platform, but instead, they wound up being two of the more lackluster launches in the lineup. Both scored a middling 3.5 out of 5 stars in our reviews.
Now, new rumors indicate that Microsoft is overhauling the 2024 Surface lineup, including models powered by Intel and AMD's new AI chipsets. Given recent releases, it would be easy to meet that news with a big shrug, but thanks to Intel, this year's Surface hardware could actually be a brand-saving upgrade.
Can Lunar Lake's successes make up for the Surface's issues?
The Surface Laptop (7th Edition) and Surface Pro (11th Edition) suffered from poor graphics.
Despite having a good early showing, the Snapdragon X Elite's Adreno integrated GPU doesn't hold up as well as the Intel Arc or AMD Radeon integrated graphics chips on the Lunar Lake and Ryzen AI chips. So switching to Lunar Lake or even Ryzen AI will offer a much more satisfying gaming experience at Medium settings and 1080p resolution.
We even pushed the Intel Arc 140V integrated graphics chip on the Asus Zenbook S 14 (UX5406) on three demanding games at high settings with ray tracing and were pretty blown away by the performance. Sure, a discrete GPU will always handle ray tracing better than an integrated GPU, but the Zenbook S 14 did stay within the 50-60 FPS range on Doom Eternal at High, 1080p settings with ray tracing off, which is far better than expected.
The Surface Pro may have lasted 12 hours on our battery test, but it was far less efficient than other Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite systems.
Lunar Lake has done a solid job of keeping up with the Snapdragon X Elite in terms of battery life. The Dell XPS 13 (9350) with Lunar Lake's 18:35 battery life is just a half hour less than the XPS 13 (9345) with Snapdragon X Elite's 19:01 battery life. So the Surface Pro 11 with Lunar Lake may have a similar 12 hours and 11 minutes of battery life.
However, some benchmarks have indicated that the Lunar Lake chipset is less power-hungry than its Snapdragon counterpart. After all, Lunar Lake requires less CPU power than the Snapdragon chip, making Intel's AI PC platform a more efficient choice. So there is always a chance that the Lunar Lake model gets better battery life.
Surface Laptop and Surface Pro fails
Some of our biggest problems with the Surface Laptop (7th Edition) and Surface Pro (11th Edition) came down to construction. The Surface Laptop had a poor display with flat colors and severe ghosting, while both the Surface Laptop and Surface Pro suffered from shallow keyboards.
If Microsoft overhauls the Surface line to add AMD and Intel processors, the company may as well go in and fix some of our other issues, like adding a better display panel and keyboard to the Surface Laptop.
Unfortunately, as the Surface Pro uses the existing Surface Pro Keyboard folio case, we likely won't see much of a change there. Microsoft is also unlikely to update the Surface Pro chassis to add more ports for a mid-cycle refresh.
But switching to Lunar Lake can help offset some of our other issues like poor graphics performance and better battery optimization.
Outlook
Lunar Lake as a platform focuses more on battery efficiency and smooth graphics compared to the raw CPU power offered by the Snapdragon X Elite, which could help turn around the Surface lineup's struggles this generation.
After all, most people who gravitate to thin and light laptops don't need benchmark-busting CPU power. They need a laptop that can last all day on battery. And some may want the flexibility of being able to game without needing a dedicated gaming laptop.
However, some of our issues with the Surface come down to manufacturing on the Microsoft side. After all, a new chip can't make a bad display look better, and a new processor can't fix a poor keyboard.
But there certainly is some hope that these new Intel-powered Surface devices can help breathe new life into Microsoft's premium brand.
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