I Swapped to the New Surface Pro 11 for One Week! (Snapdragon X)

I swapped to the latest Microsoft Surface Pro for a whole week!

So how did it go?

[vin.k.k]

Video editing is a really niche use case that YouTubers focus on too much when regular people hardly edit videos.

[TheRealMafoo]

I used to trust you, I thought you never would lie to us... and then it happened... "I don't do a lot of gaming"

[iu]

Surface Pro user for years.
I have to say I agree with you on every level.
What a device.
For people who don't know, the Surface IS a PC.
It is not LIKE a PC. It is not SIMILAR to a PC.
It IS a PC.
Once you get that, you are good to go, and the world is your oyster.
You have a PC with you whenever you need one.
I have a sling bag which I throw mine into, and I take it everywhere.
It is amazing.
I have the SP9, so I also have a battery pack and a charging adapter, which is a bit of a bummer.
If I had the SP11, I would just leave home with the device and be good to go.
I am looking forward to that day.
I might wait until the SP12 or 13 when all the kinks are gone from Windows on ARM. Also, my device is just over a year old and does all I need, so I will keep it for a little bit longer.
The SP line is amazing.
I have no real use for a tablet of any other kind because I have a 13-inch tablet whenever I need one and I have a PC all the time.
Since I got the original RT, I have had a Surface and I would simply never go back.
Of course, if I had needs that meant the cooling was a problem for me, I would change, but since I don't, I am good to go and loving it.
It is so good to hear someone who is used to having a Mac and still uses one enjoying the SP11 so much.
It kind of means that Microsoft has really upped their user experience game, which I think I can agree with.
Windows 11 has some road left to travel in becoming a good tablet interface. Let's be honest, it is NOT a good tablet interface, haha, but apart from that, everything works and the workarounds are great. Small keyboards, pop-up trackpad - a godsend.
It all works and will get better now that the tablet can be an all-day tablet.
I am so looking forward to what happens next.
Great video. Thanks for making it.

[magus]

I've been looking at reviews since this came out but I think i'm sold. Your reviews are the best I've found because I feel like I get a realistic view of how it will work for me. I also really appreciate that you don't have any bias towards MS/Apple and are just looking for the best computer for your needs. I appreciate that because I feel the same and also have a mix of products.

[whipaw]

My honest opinion is if someone doesn't go outdoors to edit and likes to stay in his room to do stuff on his device then a Desktop PC is preferable and also has many customization choices

[LionelGeek]

Thanks for the review. I agree with your assessment. Been using it since launch day last month. Love, love, love the flexibility of this machine. It's worked great for Office apps, Teams and Zoom calls, Photoshop and the (non-classic) version of Lightroom have all worked flawlessly. Only hiccups wee with the Davinci Resolve beta... but it's not a critical app for me. I can wait for the official ARM version. Only issue I had so far: the Flex keyboard wouldn't work when I detached it from the SP11. The pen did, but the keyboard didn't. Microsoft's recent hardware update fixed the issue for me. I'm really happy with the performance, the battery life and the flexibility of the Surface Pro 11.

[arondyte]

This Surface Pro proves that this generation of Windows on Arm devices is actually pretty good and Dell just sucked at making theirs lol

[LucaRossi]

I've been using a SP9 for a while now as my daily driver. Not the fastest machine (but in my line of data analysis when I need fast i need to connect to a remote machine) but flexibility and portability are unmatched. You need to join a meeting, it's a nice note taking device, you want to share slide or show videos to colleagues... It's a gorgeous screen, you want a laptop... The keyboard is very comfortable.
The only downside has been battery life that doesn't do more than 5ish hours... If arm fixes that, it's a killer form factor.

[billymania]

The Surface Pro 9, 10 and 11 devices are pretty sweet. For me personally, there is no way I'm giving up X86 compatibility. I work in the enterprise IT space and I need that. I'm not sold on the ARM stuff per se, but I think its a good option for people that just need a productivity device.

[cluberti]

@TheEverydayDad - If your dock is a Thunderbolt dock, it'll have issues with non-Thunderbolt systems and multiple monitors - because when using the Thunderbolt chip to provide multi-mon, it only works with Thunderbolt hosts. If you want something to be truly universal, you need a non-Thunderbolt dock that does DisplayPort MST over displayport or USB-C. If you want a dock that works with the Surface port on the side that the PSU plugs into, you'll want to get a Surface Dock 2 (and make absolutely certain the firmware on it is up-to-date) - if you absolutely need to use a Thunderbolt dock with something that doesn't use Thunderbolt, you'll have to plug an MST hub into one of the video out ports on the Thunderbolt dock (and test it to validate that it works with the dock it's plugged into as well) to get multi-mon out of a Thunderbolt port that does DP alt mode.

[mademedothis]

I said it on the last video and I'll say it here: stop bending the keyboard backwards. It detaches for a reason, and if the ribbon cable under the cover cracks the entire super expensive thing has to be replaced. It's happened to me. More than once.

Otherwise, I mostly agree with everything said here. I think the Surface acutally works very well as a tablet, it's just a tablet that turns into a laptop with a single gesture. And yes, those of us who bought into this idea ages ago have always known. We just kinda needed all the annoyances of Win x64 regarding battery life and sleep states and noise to be resolved. Which they have. I weirdly agree that the Pro 11 is a game changer but coming from the other side: it's not a new concept for a laptop, it's the hardware catching up with the old concept for a 2-in-1 and making ti as smooth as an ARM tablet. I love it.

[chemboy]

Thanks for postiing this. I'm currently using a Surface Pro 9, my third surface. I don't think I'm quite ready to upgrade just yet, but the 11 looks very promising indeed.

[orangeofmars]

Good point about Windows 11. I use a Surface Pro 8 (with i7) and am trying to find out if upgrading to Surface Pro 11 is a better idea than upgrading my iPad Pro 12.8 inch 2018 to Surface Pro M4. I like Windows a lot. Not sure if it is because I have used Windows 11 a lot more but I really prefer it over MacOS though I cannot say anything about either that I really don't like. I am leaning to upgrading to Surface Pro 11+ when Lunar Lake comes out and upgrade my iPad Pro to iPad M2 11 inch rather than a 13 inch. This will depend a lot on how well the Samsung Ring works and how well it integrates with the Samsung S24 Ultra and the Galaxy Watch. I expect Apple will come out with Apple Ring but not until likely 2026 which is a long time. I am an artist and prefer the iPad Pencil 2 over the Slim Pen though the Slim Pen is fine. If Microsoft would upgrade to a Surface Pen that is a complete rival to the Apple Pencil Pro I will go with upgrading Surface Pro.

[damonaniton]

Once drivers and more apps are optimized for arm and with a dock this can quite possibly be the only device many if not most people need.

[NeKa..]

Surface pro 11 is a step in the right direction. The rest (or most of the rest) depends on compatible vs emulated vs native performance. Pretty much like iPadPro M4, which depends on iPadOS. Hardware wise surface pro 11 still takes the crown because it can do much more. I don't think Microsoft surface line waa ever about the 'best'. I think the tag line was 'original by design'. Anyway, marketing aside, it still took them up until surface pro 9 to get close to my goldilocks case. I can't use XElite yet because my apps are niche and not supported. So I am satisfied and happy with my 32GB ram surface pro 9. I did upgrade to the new flex keyboard though. Which you can't with apple because my partner can't borrow my apple pencil 2 anymore to work on his shiny new ipad air. Honestly though, it is 'cheap' of apple (or any company) to bring out products that's not backward compatible. So while Microsoft is taking a step in the right direction Apple is going down my value and perception chain. Maybe that's another reason new copilot 2-in-1s looks like a better option to spend. Most of us have to choose one and surface pro is still best spec on any 2-in-1 category

[kzmailman]

I am in a more "managerial" position, meaning, office work all the time, messaging, zoom meetings, google sheets, etc... and I use my Tab S7+ with a logitech mouse and keyb (yes the Master 3 mouse) and everything works fine... connected to my external display and wired network, no problem... and I take it home and use it as a tablet the rest of the time, couldn't be more happy with it. A glitch here and there, but nothing noteworthy

[dalelangehennig]

2:59 - Use the Thunderbolt Surface Dock and you are good to go with your dual monitor set up.

[ericgao]

I agree with you! I would say this is the first time the Surface Pro "really" did what it should do. I think in the past few years, the most pain point of the Surface Pro is it does not have a really suitable chip. The Snapdragon X chip (especially X Plus) really solves this pain point!

[markstev]

Have you tried the Minisforum V3? I can't help but think at the moment Ryzen might be the way to go while ARM Windows finds it's feet. Also love that it can be used as a second display, making it a great personal device to add a second screen to a work laptop when travelling.

[aashishnakarmi]

Next gen x-elites should improve 20 percent on cpu and more than 150 percent on gpu to be truly what it was meant to be.