Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio review
Our Verdict
Microsoft's Surface Laptop Studio is a premium 2-in-ane that's skillful enough to handle working, gaming, and creating digital art on the go. Whether information technology's the right laptop for you lot depends on how much you want that sliding 120 Hz screen.
For
- Versatile sliding hinged display
- Great speakers
- Bright, vibrant screen
- Optional Slim Pen two stylus works well
- Good bombardment life
Against
- Performance could exist better
- Ports are sparse and inconveniently placed
Tom'south Guide Verdict
Microsoft'south Surface Laptop Studio is a premium two-in-1 that's good plenty to handle working, gaming, and creating digital art on the go. Whether it's the correct laptop for yous depends on how much you want that sliding 120 Hz screen.
Pros
- +
Versatile sliding hinged display
- +
Nifty speakers
- +
Bright, vibrant screen
- +
Optional Slim Pen 2 stylus works well
- +
Good bombardment life
Cons
- -
Operation could be better
- -
Ports are thin and inconveniently placed
Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio specs
Price: $1,600 - $three,000+
Display: fourteen.4-inch 120 Hz touchscreen (2400 x 1600 pixels)
CPU: 11th Gen Intel Core i5 | Intel Core i7
Graphics: Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics | Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU
RAM: 16GB | 32 GB
Storage: 256 GB - one TB SSD
Ports: 2 Thunderbolt 4/i ports, headphone/mic jack, Surface Connect port
Battery: 18-19 hours (advertised), ten.5 hours (tested)
Dimensions: 12.vii x 8.9 x 0.7 inches
Weight: 3.8 - 4.0 pounds
The Surface Laptop Studio (from $one,599) is Microsoft's latest spin on the Surface formula, a reimagined Surface Book with a more MacBook Pro-like design and an eye-catching hinged display.
This is Microsoft's flagship device for Windows 11, which promises to make Windows a more than inviting place for both work and play. Like Windows 11, the Surface Laptop Studio is advertised every bit a one-stop shop for productivity, entertainment and creative work: a device you can employ equally well for schoolwork, digital art or gaming on the become.
After spending some time with the device for this Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio review, information technology'southward clear that the claims for this machine mostly ring true. But at that place are some of import caveats that might not get in the best laptop for your needs.
Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio review: Price and availability
- Look to pay between $1,600 - $3,000+
- $129 Surface Slim Pen 2 stylus pairs nicely
The Surface Laptop Studio is bachelor for buy from Microsoft's website right at present at a starting price of $one,599. For that, you lot go this hinged ultraportable configured with an 11th Gen Intel Core i5 CPU, 16GB of RAM, and a 256GB NVMe SSD. The Surface Laptop Studio's SSD is removable, so you should be able to upgrade it pretty hands downward the road. For another $200 upfront, you lot tin can go the same model with a 512GB SSD.
Pay $2,099 and you tin can get a Laptop Studio with a more powerful 11th Gen Intel Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti graphics card. This version of the Studio has plenty muscle to double as a decent gaming laptop, in a pinch. If you're willing to pay gaming laptop prices you can get an even beefier model: $2,699 gets you lot the i7 CPU and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU alongside 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, while $3,099 gets you the same model with a 2TB SSD.
Microsoft too offers a number of optional accessories you can bundle in with your purchase, from Bluetooth headphones and mice to USB hubs. The one you lot should really consider investing in is the Surface Slim Pen 2, a $129 stylus that you charge by magnetically attaching it to the Surface Laptop Studio.
Our review unit of measurement arrived sporting the Cadre i7 CPU, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD and the Nvidia discrete GPU. Information technology as well came packaged with the aforementioned Surface Slim Pen 2 and a $25 Microsoft Sea Plastic Mouse, which is a cheap, decent Bluetooth mouse. All told, you lot'd pay a bit more than than $2,900 to buy the aforementioned packet for yourself.
Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio review: Pattern
- Hinged sliding display feels sturdy and works well, once you get the hang of it
- MacBook Pro-like design — and a proficient one
The Surface Laptop Studio is a relatively compact only weighty laptop, measuring 12.7 ten 8.ix ten 0.7 inches and weighing 3.8 (Core i5 models) to iv pounds (Core i7 models). Its magnesium and aluminum casing comes in ane colour, Platinum, and there's a modest lower lip running around the base of the whole laptop, making it appear to sort of float slightly above the tabular array.
If you purchase a Surface Slim Pen 2 stylus, it can magnetically attach to the front side of this lip, assuasive you to stash the stylus abroad when not in utilise. This is how you charge the stylus on the Surface Laptop Studio, and it only charges if you attach information technology nether the front edge of the laptop — attach the Slim Pen to the keyboard deck (where it will too magnetically attach) and it doesn't seem to charge.
Lift the Surface Laptop Studio'south lid and yous're greeted with the most MacBook Pro-like Windows laptop I've seen all year. At that place'south no speaker grille flanking the keyboard, simply otherwise y'all're looking at a very similar matte silver chassis with thick black bezels around the screen, soft gray plastic keys in the keyboard, and a haptic touchpad laid out below them.
MacBooks have had haptic touchpads for years, but they're still pretty rare in Windows laptops. They're potentially meliorate than physical touchpads because at that place are no moving parts: instead, the Surface Laptop Studio'southward touchpad uses software and haptic motors to make it experience like you're clicking on something.
That means in that location's less take chances of the trackpad breaking (fewer parts) and, at least on the Laptop Studio, it ways that the touchpad recognizes presses on the edges and corners just every bit readily as in the center, which isn't always the example with physical touchpads.
But what's actually interesting about the Studio is its display: the xiv.4-inch screen lifts upwardly from the deck like a normal laptop, merely it has a textile-covered swivel running lengthwise beyond the middle which lets you pull the screen's bottom edge out toward you. Y'all can then slide the display toward you to set information technology upward as a tent over the keyboard (information technology magnetizes to the keyboard deck in the correct position, to make this easier), slide information technology all the way downward onto the deck to turn the Studio into a hefty tablet, or fifty-fifty spin it nearly 360 degrees around and so that the brandish is on the dorsum of the laptop lid facing abroad from you.
Getting the hang of moving the display is a bit tricky: there's a decent corporeality of magnetic force holding it into place similar a normal laptop screen, and if yous try to just pull the bottom edge of the display toward yous, it's quite hard to get it to detach.
I've found the easiest mode to manipulate the screen is to open the Studio like a normal laptop, then grasp ane side of the screen virtually where the swivel is and hold the top half steady while pushing gently on the rear bottom half of the screen, at which point the screen pops out smoothly and slides toward you.
All told, it's a neat design play a trick on inspired by the flexible hinged display of Microsoft'southward Surface Studio ii all-in-one, but unlike that desktop, the Surface Laptop Studio can't support more than a few positions. Instead, you take the iv main positions I described: normal laptop, tablet, screen tented over the keyboard like a fiddling easel (which leaves the touchpad accessible), and screen flipped around the back so someone sitting across from you can see it, a weird configuration which might be useful for presentations.
In practice, I found the Studio's hinged display very absurd but rarely useful. You might feel differently if you programme to use this laptop for creating digital art, as it is squeamish to have another supported position for the screen besides flat or open up. It would accept been fifty-fifty nicer to have the same sort of "zip gravity hinge" as the Surface Studio 2 does, since that lets you conform the superlative and angle of the display on a much more granular level.
Surface Laptop Studio review: Display
- Brilliant, colorful 14.4-inch display
- 120Hz refresh rate means better input response, more than frames per second
In one case yous become over the novelty of the hinge backside information technology, y'all tin can capeesh the quality of the Surface Laptop Studio's brandish. The 14.iv-inch, 3:2 touchscreen (2400 ten 1600 pixels) has a decent pixels per inch ratio of 201, and it can achieve refresh rates of upwardly to 120Hz. That'southward a nice refresh rate to have if you're planning to play games at framerates that high (and an Nvidia-equipped Laptop Studio makes that a reasonable proposition) or do a lot of stylus work: having a screen that refreshes faster means it can respond to inputs faster, and thus the feel of sketching or writing on the screen should feel smoother.
The Laptop Studio's screen too provides a nice surface for watching videos and movies. Sure, it tin can't do 4K or HDR, only I even so enjoyed my time streaming films like Hellboy and catching up on episodes of The Sopranos. The blues and reds of the Hellboy leads looked especially eye-communicable on the Studio's display, though darker scenes with lots of blues and greens tended to look washed out and blurry.
When nosotros pointed a colorimeter at the Surface Laptop Studio during lab testing, nosotros constitute that the Studio'south display tin attain 105.half-dozen% of the sRGB color gamut (usually the closer to 100%, the better) and 0.21 of Delta-E (the closer to zero, the improve). Our brightness meter registered an average of 487.2 nits across the entire display, though the center got every bit bright every bit 504 nits and the lower edges as dim as 472 nits. That's brighter than most competing laptops, including the Dell XPS 15 OLED (389 nits) and the MacBook Pro M1 (439 nits).
To my humble human optics, the screen gets plenty bright enough: at maximum effulgence I had no trouble using it in direct sunlight, and even at more reasonable brightness levels, I rarely caught sight of my reflection in the display.
Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio review: Ports
- 2 Thunderbolt four/USB-C ports are nice to have, but experience cramped on ane side
- Could use more than ports, peculiarly a microSD card reader
Sadly Microsoft really doesn't give you lot much to work with, ports-wise, on the Surface Laptop Studio. You get ii Thunderbolt 4/USB-C ports on the left side of the laptop, and a headphone jack and Surface Connect port on the right side.
It'southward nice to have the Thunderbolt 4 ports, specially if you lot're planning on hooking the Studio upwards to an external 4K brandish, but yet it's kind of a hurting to have them both next to each other. I'd have much preferred to see 1 on each side, for more user-friendly access.
It would likewise exist nice to see Microsoft grab agree of the zeitgeist and switch to USB-C charging: competing laptop makers like Dell accept, and units like the Dell XPS xv OLED have USB-C ports on either side, which makes it convenient to plug in your charger at whatever angle is most comfortable for wherever you happen to exist working.
Ditching the Surface Connect power jack would potentially give Microsoft more room for boosted ports. A microSD card reader for pulling photos off digital cameras would take been peculiarly welcome, given that this 2-in-1 is marketed to creative types.
Surface Laptop Studio review: Audio
- Loud, clear audio
- Surprisingly practiced bass for a laptop
Music and sound effects are nice and articulate when coming out of the Surface Laptop Studio, which may have something to practise with the fact that the device has both a subwoofer and tweeters: the subwoofer fires through the side, while the tweeters fire up through the keyboard itself.
Similar Microsoft's own Surface Laptop 4, the Surface Laptop Studio delivers louder, richer sound with better bass than I expected from a laptop. Information technology can go near painfully loud, and the bass on tracks like Massive Attack's "Angel" or Kendrick Lamar's "Humble" feels almost physical.
Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio review: Functioning
- Core i7 models are great for productivity work
- Subpar performance as gaming or video editing laptops
The entry-level Laptop Studio ships with reasonably powerful components, and if y'all kit it out like our review unit with the Core i7 CPU, 32GB of RAM, and Nvidia GPU, the Studio can deliver pretty good operation. Certainly, in twenty-four hour period-to-twenty-four hour period tasks, it packs more than enough ability for your needs. I loaded our Windows 11 Studio upwardly with all the apps I need for my daily work, and even with 20-plus tabs open in Edge (including multiple video streams from different sites) plus Spotify, Discord, and more, I never caught the Studio stuttering.
When nosotros put the machine through Geekbench 5.4's multicore CPU benchmark (a constructed test which measures performance), the Surface Laptop Studio achieved a score of 5,820. That's pretty adept, only information technology's a scrap less than what we usually run into from laptops that cost $two,000 to $three,000. The Dell XPS xv OLED (vii,477), the Razer Blade fourteen (7,471), and fifty-fifty the significantly cheaper Asus Zenbook thirteen OLED (6,411) all performed amend in the aforementioned exam.
We likewise tasked the Studio with transcoding a 4K video file down into 1080p using Handbrake, which it did in 13 minutes and 30 seconds. Again, that'due south decent but not great: the Dell XPS 15 OLED (8:10), the 15-inch Surface Laptop 4 (8:21), and the M1-powered MacBook Pro (seven:46) all handled the same task in significantly less time.
However, the Laptop Studio's SSD is one of the fastest we've seen yet, if our file transfer test (which tasks the laptop with duplicating 25 GB of multimedia files) is any indication. The Studio managed to achieve a file transfer rate of 1,051 MBps, which is faster than the the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360 (869.5 MBps) and the Dell XPS 15 OLED (825.half dozen MBps), though non though non as speedy every bit a high-end gaming laptop like the Razer Blade xv Advanced (i,95 MBps).
I as well spent some time playing games on the Studio, and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti in our review unit of measurement gave me enough ability to run even relatively recent 3D games like Forza Horizon 4 and Control at a decent clip. When we ran it through the Sid Meier's Civilization Half-dozen: Gathering Tempest graphical benchmark, the Studio achieved an boilerplate 66.2 frames per second running the game at 1080p and 57.2 frames per second at its native 2,400 x one,600 resolution. That'south cervix and neck with the Dell XPS 15 OLED (67.one fps, 41.9 fps) configured with the aforementioned Nvidia GPU.
Put simply, the Surface Laptop Studio offers plenty of power for productivity applications, and it tin can fifty-fifty practice some half-decent video editing and photo editing if you configure it with the best components.
However, in most areas, the Surface Laptop Studio can't quite match the operation of similarly-priced laptops, so if gaming or video editing is your priority you might be better served with some of the other laptops listed here.
Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio review: Keyboard, touchpad and touchscreen
- Comfortable keys on the keyboard
- Haptics in touchapd offer disarming feedback
I similar the keyboard on the Laptop Studio more I expected I would. At first glance the keys await mushy with little travel, but fifty-fifty and then, I found them quite comfortable to blazon on. They're spaced out enough that even my big hands felt cozy resting on the home row, and typing for extended periods on long projects (like this review) didn't leave me aching.
The touchpad below the keyboard is also well fabricated and comfortable to use. I couldn't have told you lot information technology's non a physical touchpad if Microsoft hadn't told me, as the haptics do a decent job of making it feel like you're physically depressing the metal. In my experience it's accurate and easy to use, and I had no problem using gesture commands to navigate through Windows 11.
The Studio's touchscreen is equally effective, and I had no trouble using the Surface Slim Pen 2 stylus Microsoft sent united states to create some truly awful fine art quickly and painlessly. I likewise had no problem tapping and swiping my way through my daily work since information technology reliably registers gesture commands, and while information technology does pick up fingerprints they seem less noticeable on the Studio'southward display than on other touchscreen laptops.
Surface Laptop Studio review: Surface Slim Pen 2 stylus
- Slim Pen 2 stylus costs actress
- Haptic feedback is very engaging in apps that support it
The Surface Laptop Studio doesn't come with a stylus, so if y'all're planning on doing any doodling you'll demand to buy your own. Microsoft is heavily advertizing its new $129 Surface Slim Pen 2 stylus every bit a good complement for the Studio; the two devices were unveiled together, and the Slim Pen 2 is specifically designed to magnetically attach to the Studio for charging and safekeeping.
The Slim Pen two likewise sports a new haptic motor for providing tactile feedback; Microsoft calls this feedback "tactile signals," and information technology's currently but supported when you're using the Surface Slim Pen 2 with either the Surface Pro 8 or Surface Laptop Studio running Windows 11.
Handily, Microsoft sent us a Surface Slim Pen 2 stylus for review along with the Surface Laptop Studio running Windows 11, then I'm well-equipped to tell y'all how well it works. In curt: quite well, especially when you're using the Slim Pen 2 in an app which supports haptic feedback.
Yous won't confuse the slight vibration that happens when y'all touch on stylus to screen with the awareness of actually dragging a pencil across paper, but it's yet a nice flake of feedback that makes drawing and sketching on the Studio feel nice. You also experience haptic feedback when yous use the Slim Pen 2 to execute gesture commands in apps like Microsoft Word, or switch artistic implements in Microsoft Whiteboard, and these little spurts of sensation make sliding the stylus beyond the screen feel more than engaging and responsive.
Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio review: Camera
- 1080p webcam works well, captures smooth video
- IR camera supports Windows Hello 2.0, and it's a smashing upgrade
If y'all're planning to do a lot of video calls, the Surface Laptop Studio won't permit you down. The chassis sports a 1080p camera congenital into the top bezel, and in my experience it makes you look pretty skillful on video calls.
You can also employ the born IR photographic camera for facial authentication via Windows Hi, and Microsoft claims that should be easier than ever because the Surface Laptop Studio supports Windows Hello two.0. The idea is that facial recognition should be faster and easier, even if you're wearing a mask or glasses, considering of some under-the-hood upgrades to how Hello works.
In my feel, this is absolutely true: I habiliment glasses about half the time, and when I ready Windows Hullo on a new laptop I have to accept them off because it never seems to work well otherwise. On the Surface Laptop Studio, though, I had no such trouble -- Windows Hullo recognized my confront and logged me in within seconds every time I sat downwardly in front end of the screen, regardless of whether I had my glasses or mask on.
Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio review: Battery life
- Bombardment life is good but non great
- Charges pretty speedily
Microsoft advertises that the Laptop Studio can last up to 18 or 19 hours on a single charge, depending on whether you buy the Cadre i5 or i7 configuration. In our bombardment testing, which charges the laptop to full and sets it to endlessly browse the spider web via Wi-Fi with screen effulgence set to 150 nits, our Core i7-equipped Studio lasted x hours and 42 minutes.
That's pretty proficient, albeit far less than Microsoft's advertised max. Information technology means the Surface Laptop Studio tin outlast the Dell XPS 13 (7:59) on battery power, though the new Microsoft auto is non nearly every bit long-lived as the Samsung Galaxy Volume Pro 360 (13:33) or the Asus Zenbook 13 OLED (15:00). And of course, it's nowhere near the MacBook Pro with M1's remarkable 16-hr battery life.
The battery charges pretty quick, though — I plugged it in at 9% and an hr later, it was juiced upwardly to 51%; Within 2 hours it was topping 97% charged.
Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio review: Rut
- No meaningful estrus buildup under day-to-day use
- Even gaming didn't plow it into a lap-scorcher
In the form of writing this review I never once noticed the Surface Laptop Studio getting noticeably hot, fifty-fifty when I was playing demanding 3D games. My experience was backed up by our lab testing: when we put the laptop to work for 15 minutes and so ran a heat gun over it, we institute it never got hotter than 89 degrees Fahrenheit.
Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio review: Verdict
The Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio is well-built and reasonably powerful, with a nice bright screen, great speakers, and a bombardment good enough to see you lot through a day at work.
But if that's all you intendance about, you would probably exist ameliorate off investing in a cheaper, more powerful Windows laptop like the Dell XPS 15 OLED or the Asus Zenbook xiii OLED, which tin can't lucifer the Studio's sound quality only make up for it with but gorgeous OLED screens.
The thing that makes or breaks the Surface Laptop Studio equally a must-purchase is how you feel about that eye-catching 120Hz hinged display. If y'all're in the market for an ultraportable Windows laptop that doubles as a decent creative tool for digital artists, the Surface Laptop Studio paired with a Surface Slim Pen ii is a powerful contender for ane of the best laptops you tin buy right now. The haptic feedback is cool, the sliding screen affords you lot a more easel-similar bending for working, and the Surface Laptop Studio has the power and longevity to be a keen laptop for schoolhouse or work.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/microsoft-surface-laptop-studio-review
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