Microsoft Surface Pro (2017): Our first take

Microsoft’s Surface Pro (2017) doesn’t change the 2-in-1’s proven formula for success. 

The launch of the first Surface Pro in 2013 struck a chord. And as Microsoft’s hardware ambitions grew with its early success, it wasn’t long before Surface become a veritable family of devices. The first three years following the Surface Pro’s debut saw the Surface Hub, a digital whiteboard for boardrooms and classroom, and the Surface Book, an ultra-thin laptop with powerful graphics and a detachable keyboard. Then came the Surface Studio, an all-in-one desktop with an adjustable hinge, and the Surface Laptop, one of the first notebooks to run Microsoft’s lightweight Windows 10 S operating system.

But to Microsoft’s credit, it never forgot about the Surface Pro that started it all. And at an event in Shanghai, China on May 23rd, it’ll announce the newest member of the Surface Pro family. The Surface Pro.

It’s the fifth device in the Surface Pro series, but Microsoft, like Apple before it, is simplifying the nomenclature. It wants Surface Pro to be seen as a branch in the growing Surface Pro family —  as something of a compliment to the Surface Hub, Surface Laptop, and Surface Book. It’s fitting, then, that the new Surface Pro isn’t a leap forward in the same way that the first Surface Pro was. Instead, it’s a refinement — a minor, but welcome, iteration on a product that was nearing the end of its life cycle.

It wasn’t broken, so it’s not fixed

The new Surface Pro looks remarkably similar to the Surface Pro 4. Microsoft’s managed to shave a handful of grams and fractions of inches off the Surface’s frame and bezel — it’s 1.69 pounds and 8.5mm thin,   but it won’t be mistaken for an iPad anytime soon.

The Surface Pro’s smooth magnesium metal shell is intact, as are the prongs that magnetically pair the Surface Pro to the Type Cover. No detail’s left to chance — even Surface’s sounds are carefully designed. Microsoft said everything from the”click” the Surface Pro makes when you detach it from the Type Cover, to the mechanical fan’s acoustics, are thoroughly tested, calibrated, and adjusted in the world’s quietest sound lab.

Kyle Wiggers/Digital Trends

Kyle Wiggers/Digital Trends

Kyle Wiggers/Digital Trends

Kyle Wiggers/Digital Trends

But not everything on the new Surface Pro’s is unchanged. The 12.3-inch, 2736 x 1824-pixel touchscreen (the same as the Surface Pro 4’s) boasts improved responsiveness, thanks to a combination of hardware acceleration and a thinner glass sheet above the digitizer. The signature Surface kickstand is present and accounted for, but with a rounded edge and a new hinge design that allows the Surface Pro to lie almost completely flat against a table, like an easel.

The lack of major external changes may be controversial. While the Surface Pro is light for a PC, it’s still rather heavy for a tablet. The weight gap between the Surface and iPad is large, and Microsoft’s new model doesn’t do much to change that.

While the Surface Pro is light for a PC, it’s still rather heavy for a tablet.

Some of the biggest changes are on the inside. The new Surface Pro packs Intel’s 7th Generation Core processors, which deliver up to 20 percent better performance than the Surface Pro 4. They’re more energy efficient, too. Thanks to hardware optimization and new energy-saving techniques in the Windows 10 Creator’s update, the average user can expect about 13 hours on a charge, up from the Surface Pro 4’s nine hours.

Microsoft’s also expanding the quieter, passively cooled option for the Surface Pro. Configurations with Intel’s Core i5 processor will ship without a mechanical fan, joining the Core m3 model from the previous generation. It’s a feat for which Microsoft credits the Surface Pro’s new copper heatsink.

LTE connectivity, another first for the Surface series, will ship on pricier Surface Pro models. Microsoft wasn’t willing to say which carriers it’ll support, but promised that more details will be announced at the launch event in May. Otherwise, the new Surface Pro will sport the same specs as its predecessor: 4GB of RAM standard (up to 16GB), and up to 512GB of SSD storage, or 1TB of PCIe NVMe.

The keyboard looks the same, but it’s better

The Type Cover aesthetics are virtually unchanged from last year’s model, down to the luxurious, suede-like Alcantara material bordering the outer edges. But Microsoft says it’s made small adjustments to the Type Cover’s key travel, which we were given a chance to try for ourselves. We briefly pitted the old Surface Pro Type Cover against the new model, and found the keys much less resistive, and more comfortable. It’s a measurably faster typing experience.

Kyle Wiggers/Digital Trends

Microsoft’s smooth, circular $50 Surface Dial, which debuted with the Surface Studio late last year, will work with the new Surface Pro. It’ll recognize when you stick it to the screen, and assign tactile controls — like zoom level in the Windows Maps app and volume controls in iTunes — contextually, depending on which app you’re using.

A new, upgraded Surface Pen will launch simultaneously with the new Surface Pro later this year. It has 4,096 levels of sensitivity — four times the old Surface Pen’s 1,024 levels of sensitivity. And like the stylus that ships with Samsung’s Galaxy Book, it records tilt. The new Surface Pen recognizes when it’s angled forward or backward along the Surface Pro’s axis.

Surface Pen and Office 365, kissing in a tree

The Pen’s responsiveness has been improved, too. Thanks to system-level tweaks and hardware optimizations, strokes on the Surface Pro’s touchscreen appear the moment the Pen’s tip touches glass.

In Office, the Pen’s newfound capabilities have other tangible benefits. Tilting the stylus forward and backward increases and decreases the stroke’s thickness accordingly, and varying the amount of pressure on the glass affects stroke characteristics. Office’s rainbow brush stroke, for example, cycles between colors more quickly as you apply more downward force.

Strokes on the Surface Pro’s touchscreen appear the moment the Pen’s tip touches glass.

The Pen’s also easier to use with the Ink Editor and Solver, two new quick-edit tools Microsoft announced for Office earlier this year. The stylus’s precision makes highlighting zoomed-out lines of text a lot less arduous than before, and handwritten equations in OneNote are recognized with the help of the Microsoft Graph. Thanks to a combination of optical character recognition (OCR) and machine learning, equations are solved step-by-step inline with the sketches you’ve made.

A new app, Whiteboard, expands on those ideas. Microsoft describes it as a “limiteless canvas” for Windows 10 devices — a blank page with basic tools for sketching just about anything. Microsoft’s imbued Whiteboard with Office’s machine intelligence. If you sketch a triangle, square, or any other recognizable geometric shape, Whiteboard will automatically convert it to a manipulable object that can be resized, rotated, and moved to any position on the canvas. Built-in collaboration tools let other users jump in an contribute — a shrunken-down, circular avatar indicates which scribbles and shapes they’ve added.

Whiteboard won’t launch with the new Surface Pro — it’s in private preview on the Surface Hub, right now, where it’ll remain for the next few months. But Microsoft said it plans to bring it to more devices in the future.

Kyle Wiggers/Digital Trends

The new Surface Pen also compliments the Surface Pro’s Dial integration. Ink Replay, another recent Office addition, lets you play, rewind, and make changes to a sketch in Word, Office, or Excel by twisting the Dial’s rotating wheel. Microsoft gave the example of learning to draw a Chinese character.

While the new Surface Pen is great, it’s not bundled

In a move that’s sure to generate some controversy, the new Surface Pro won’t ship with the Surface Pen included — a decision Microsoft said it based on user feedback. Only about 30 percent of Surface Pro owners regularly use a stylus, as opposed to the 70 to 75 percent who use the touchscreen, Microsoft said.

Unfortunately, Microsoft’s not passing the cost savings to buyers. The new Surface Pro starts at $800 – same as the Surface Pro 4 at debut. Right now, the base Surface Pro 4 is $700, though it too does not include a stylus.

Kyle Wiggers/Digital Trends

Omitting the stylus is at odds with the messaging. Judging by what we’ve seen, the new Surface Pen is the real story, here — and Microsoft’s new Pen-optimized Office 365 suite, inking features (i.e., Ink Rewind and Ink Editor), and Whiteboard app are a testament to its commitment in a stylus-driven Windows experience.

That’s not to suggest the new Surface Pro’s improved Type Cover, faster performance, better battery life, and optional LTE aren’t solid improvements. But ever since Microsoft bundled the stylus with the Surface Pro 3, the Surface Pen has become inexorably linked to the Surface Pro’s identity. Excluding the very best version of it from the most refined Surface Pro yet seems like a misstep.

We’ll have to see for ourselves when the Surface Pro launches in June. It’s available for pre-order in platinum, burgundy, and cobalt blue colors starting today, and launches on June 15.

Highs

• Fanless design option
• Better Type Cover
• Improved Surface Pen design
• New stylus-optimized Office suite

Lows

• Design changes are minor
• Surface Pen not included