Surface Pro 8, 1 Year Later: This Thing Does It All

For our 8th day of Microsoftober, we're revisiting the Surface Pro 8 after a slight detour.

Buy the Surface Pro 8 here: (this is a partner link, meaning I might earn a small amount from your purchase)

Check out our reviews playlist:

Follow InnoIso:

Product Links:

[emithesheep]

I still have my surface pro 2017 and it runs like a charm till this day, I used photoshop with ease and sometimes play video games on it too. Bought it when it first came out so 5-6 years later and it runs strong.

[LindaBJDFan]

Thanks for the video, makes me feel better about my decision to ask for a Surface Pro 8 from Santa this year. I used both Windows & Macs for years in my work as tech support but I've always preferred Windows; so I'm happy to hear MS made a great tablet sized computer. The battery life may not be an issue for me as I usually find myself at a desk anyway but the mobility will be great.

[jwmcq]

This is basically my experience - I have a macbook pro for work and a big desktop rig for projects and play, but the Pro 8 is the computer I have in my bag and so gets a lot of use.

It's not the *best* at anything really (except maybe inking, which I do quite a lot). My other computers would do most things better, I'm sure. But I've got the Surface with me most of the time, and it's amazing to see what you can do on it when you have to.

[AgentZeroNine]

Didn't expect to see my post from six months ago randomly showing up. Hearing my username perked my head up lol.

[SjerryBerdet]

My SP8 also does it all. There may be better UX's for tablets but for me it checks all the boxes. More importantly, it is great for writing, a great laptop and between 9 and 5 the i7 shows itself a true workhorse in parametric 3D modelling.

[DanielHarrisCodes]

The ARM SKU of the Pro 9 is actually the more premium and more expensive model rather than a bottom tier model.

I noticed they did mention it uses SQ3 but they avoided a distinction between ARM and x64. Instead they always refer to the ARM version as “Surface Pro 9 with 5G”

[NickAndTech]

thanks for the thoughtful review, I think it would have been even more effective to demonstrate using the device to illustrate your points more but otherwise informative and helpful

[hksduhksdu]

I only have SP8 and use it as workstation with Core X + 3070. There are three things I want to have on SP9 but then my dream didn’t come true. I want to have at least 8 cores / 16 threads with 32GB RAM, and battery lasts minimum 8 hours when watching local 1080p movies. Other than these wishes, I love my SP8, it’s almost perfect for me. I give it 95/100.

[kingoficeage]

I’m planning to get the surface 9 soon and this is exactly the video I was looking for, as I want to know if it will still hold up in one year. Thank your for the content, you just got a new subscriber!

[_Digitalguy]

Great video! Concerning the wireless keyboard connector, mine still works but only when plugged in as the battery is dead. I guess you have tried to do same and didn't work with yours (maybe the battery is even "more" dead...😅). Even a couple of years ago when I tried to find a replacement unit, it was hard to find any.... (I only found some in Canada, but they didn't ship to Europe).
Concerning stand-by, I have this issue with all surface devices and most Windows devices, so I use hybernation....
Concening Windows on ARM, the performance of the SQ3 (8cX gen 3) seems to be in line with 10th gen Intel in general, but because of the emulation sometimes the device will hang a few seconds here and there... I am looking forward to you reviewing it in the pro 9... I wish Microsoft put the same chip on the Go, so that, in addition to more power, we could have iPad-like battery life, but knowing Microsoft they think small = low end, contrary to Apple, which put the M1 even in the iPad Air...
Concerning the pro 8, my first wish would be something to avoid accidental touches, this ruins my experience on the Tab S8 ultra, can only imagine how bad it must be on the pro 8 when used as a tablet... Also would love for them to have screws to open it and change the battery, like my HP Elite surface clone. Battery swelling is an issue, it killed my surface 3 (non pro) and had to replace the battery twice on my HP, although thanks to battery protection and fans it should happen much less (but battery protection on the surface is pretty extreme and it's only good if you used plugged in all the time as it only charges the battery to 50%). SSD replacement is great, I suspect my pro 3 died because the SSD died.
As for the new Intel chips, I am a bit skeptical about Alder lake... it doesn't seem to be very efficient, maybe even worse than the 11th gen...but again looking forward to your review!

[RemofRenaissance]

Thank you for this. Does anyone have a view on wether 8GB gets the job done for data analysis (excel, power bi, etc). I think the 8GB is good value so trying to save money. 👍🏾

[DanielHarrisCodes]

I agree the side bezels are too small when using as a tablet horizontally. Agree less on the gestures. Yes Windows 8 had better ones but it was also worse in some ways.

The gestures in 22H2 are a huge improvement. When people complain about Windows 11 still being “awful” as a tablet I can’t help but think they’re obsessing over it too much and if you’re using it as a tablet a lot of the time there’s better products. You’re right about it being versatile, which means it’s not the best at anything.

The Surface Pro is a bit big and heavy to use as a tablet in the first place, it’s mainly designed for inking and short periods, iPad Pro 12.9 isn’t heavy but it’s size makes it feel worse as a tablet than the 11” iPad Pro. The Go is much better as a pure tablet and would be great to see an ARM version of that with iPad Pro style bezels

[muhammad-bin-american]

I have the SPro7 and I agree with the battery and sleep issue. It does take longer to wake when on sleep but I can live with that. What annoys me the most is the random restart when not in use. Its also a bit too aggressive with power save. It keeps going to sleep mode when on battery with music playing on the background. Unable to fix this. Otherwise its a great machine. I have the fanless i5 model and love it. I like that the SPro8 has a bigger screen. Previous gens are a bit too small IMO.

[xX_cumtech_Xx]

What/\? Where have you been throughout my life??? This is the first video I have watched from you and I loved it! You have a super chill voice, I love that you interact with coments and your whole method and organization to make this video! Cheers

[Omar-ehdr]

Surface Pro family has an issue with battery drain during shutdown or hibernation mode. Which drains almost 1% of the battery for every hour.
And when I monitored the Surface logic board under thermocamera, I saw a heat spot comping from the GPU during the shutdown which is causing the battery drain.
I hope Microsoft will recover that fail in future designs.

[dejangrbec]

I had surface pro 3 back in the days when it was released. It was a good ultrabook laptop, but as a tablet it was owful. Lack of proper tablet apps, it was getting noticably warm in the cpu area during cpu load, and I also had a batery drain where sometimes didn't go into hybrid sleep and batery completely drained over night, really annoying stuff. Now I was considering to buy new SP9 but since you are saying that SP8 is still having batery drain I think I will just skip it.

[freddynz]

don't know if you check comments on your older video, and infact you may already have seen the video, but LTT have just released a video on standby battery drain and why they think it's happening. In the comments section a MS employee tested the theory and said it likely was the problem... worth a watch !

[boshooda]

thanks for the great overview! keep up the good work. I would definitely love it if the still included a micro sd card slot

[gehteuchnichtsan]

I would also like to see a 14 or 15" surface with a dedicated GPU and a bigger battery.

[blastu]

people need to look at the Lenovo duet 5i looks great! It has a Bluetooth detachable keyboard so you can use it when you remove it from the tablet, it has the newer intel CPU, and it has more internal storage at the base model, none of that 128gb.