Surface Pro 9: What the Surface Pro 8 Should've Been

The Microsoft Surface Pro 9 addresses all of the major shortcomings of its predecessor—the Surface Pro 8—and then some. However, it seems to be... "missing" a thing or two. Let's talk Surface Pro 9 and the future of the Microsoft Surface Pro product line.

In this video, we'll be taking a look at all of the major changes with the Surface Pro 9, as well as revisiting the Surface Slim Pen 2 and checking out some of the colorway refreshes for the Surface Pro Signature Keyboards.

I'll see you guys soon—in my review of the Surface Pro 10. Stay tuned. 💖

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:38 Previously on this channel...
• 1:11 Two steps forward, one step backward. But... who actually cares about that one step backward?

• 5:39 CPUs (Part 1)
• 8:36 CPUs (Part 2)
• 10:11 CPUs (Part 3)

• 11:13 Ports
• 12:36 Storage
• 13:36 Button Placements
• 14:35 Battery Life (Intel Configurations)

• 18:20 Everything Else
• 19:37 Surface Slim Pen 2
• 21:10 Colors

• 22:10 My Concluding Thoughts (Part 1)
• 24:47 My Concluding Thoughts (Part 2) + Thanks for watching!

•••

Highlights

• 6:15 Geekbench 5: CPU Benchmark Results
• 6:53 Geekbench 5: Compute Benchmark Results

• 5:39 CPUs (Part 1): Official Start of the Entire 3-Part Section About the CPUs
• 8:36 CPUs (Part 2): i5 vs. i7 Performance on the Surface Pro 9
• 10:11 CPUs (Part 3): Value in the Surface Pro 9's i5 Configurations

• 13:12 Storage Speeds (Results from CrystalDiskMark Benchmarks)

• 21:17 - 21:28 The best part of the video (you can’t convince me otherwise)

I fully covered the Surface Slim Pen 2 in my full review of the Surface Pro 8. That's why I went pretty fast recapping my assessment about the Surface Slim Pen 2 in this video (the one you're watching right now about the Surface Pro 9).

• 2:19 Notice the design differences between the Intel-configured Surface Pro 9 (blue unit) and the SQ3-configured Surface Pro 9 ("Surface Pro 9 with 5G" / silver unit)

• 17:04, 21:50 - 22:10 Mentions of the Surface Pro 9 configurations running on ARM (Microsoft SQ3 instead of Intel Core i5 or i7 CPUs)

These timestamps are for jumping to specific moments in the video. For timestamps to the start of each major section of this review, please use the timestamps provided under the "Chapters" section.

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•••

Special thanks to Koe Bennett, Kevin Thai, Van Le, Renee Tang, Drew Ho, ktraw, and jamerduhgamer. You guys have done so much for me, and I whole-heartedly appreciate the invaluable support you've given me throughout the making of this video. And here's an extra special thank you to Koe Bennett once again for creating the original music heard throughout this review and for granting me permission to use the really cool sound at the beginning of the video as part of my intro.

Music made by Koe Bennett. ♪
Intro sound made by Koe Bennett. ♪

Cloud Kyuro artwork made by @konvee_kou on Twitter!

[EJYu]

Better late than never, right? 👉👈

Thanks for watching! If needed, you can expand this pinned comment to find some timestamps that I've typed up for your convenience. Timestamps can be found in the description as well.

*Note:* This video is *not* a review.

•••

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:38 Previously on this channel...
• 1:11 Two steps forward, one step backward. But... who actually cares about that one step backward?

• 5:39 CPUs (Part 1)
• 8:36 CPUs (Part 2)
• 10:11 CPUs (Part 3)

• 11:13 Ports
• 12:36 Storage
• 13:36 Button Placements
• 14:35 Battery Life (Intel Configurations)

• 18:20 Everything Else
• 19:37 Surface Slim Pen 2
• 21:10 Colors

• 22:10 My Concluding Thoughts (Part 1)
• 24:47 My Concluding Thoughts (Part 2) + Thanks for watching!

•••

I'm always looking for feedback, so please don't hesitate to let me know what you like or dislike about my review down here in the comments section! I'm also still trying to get back into the swing of things, so any constructive feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all so much in advance!

•••

So... yeah!

How've you all been? It's been a while!

Yeah, I know. I'm pretty late to the party again, like how I was with my Surface Pro 8 review. But... like I said at the top of this pinned comment: better late than never, right? Haha.

In all seriousness though, I want to thank you guys for sticking around and believing in me despite the long turnaround times for new videos. I've been working on my Surface Pro 9 video since the day it came out back in October of 2022. And ever since then, it's been a battle to get this video done. But recently, I was able to pull through and finally set aside the time to finish it. And I'm super happy about that, despite not releasing this video when I originally intended to—which would've been about a year ago from today—and despite not releasing this video as a review like I originally intended it to be.

With that said, I really need to figure out how to make my video editing workflow significantly more efficient. Making these long-form tech videos take me a really long time to make. (And if you've been following the channel the past few years, then... this should come off as no surprise.) But I still really want to make tech videos because, y'know, *this* is just what I like to do "for fun." I've been acknowledging—for quite a while, actually—that I *really* need to give my videomaking process a major overhaul if I'd like to continue making tech videos without neglecting the importance of having a work-life balance. So... wish me luck! I have a pretty difficult journey ahead of me.

[lordneojacks]

this is one of best reviews i have ever watched in a long time. everything is paced excellently and the insights are amazing. amazing job.

[RemofRenaissance]

Appreciate your good work, thank you 👍🏾. I pulled the trigger on a SP9 around a year ago (and haven't watched this in full - will enjoy in the evening!) but due to cost I went for an 8GB model and although I have anxiety over throttling actually it seems to hold up well for the work I do on data models (Power BI / Excel / etc)....

I hate throwing money at the issue but interested to see how the Core Ultra and Snapdragon iterations benchmark and if it looks right that could be a second chance to fix the situation and get a 16GB iteration with one of those chipsets

[spilledcoffee]

I'm torn between surface pro 9 i5 8GB ram vs surface pro 8 i7 16GB ram. If both are offered for the same price point which do you think is better?

[JacquiG]

Do you mind me asking how you upgraded the ssd...I thought I read in the manual that the new ssd has to be the same size as the original. I've got an SP9 256gb and will probably want to upgrade it. Thank you, I really enjoyed your review and it helped me make the decision to leap.

[lewisgareen]

Yo. Thanks for doing the review. Thought you wasn't gonna do it. Should we expect surface pro 10 review anytime soon? Cause it was announced some days ago

[lordneojacks]

a video about the ARM based devices would be amazing, i would love to hear what you have to say about it

[alexmorgan]

Have you got a link of the ssd you have installed? I’ve bought the i7 16gb 256gb ssd and would like to install maybe a tb. Find it mad that it’s about £600 more online.

[nathachai.b]

The moment we all have been waiting for

[phoenixflameknight]

Can the keyboard be used while detached?

[Vleoc]

so it has shorter battery life than the pro 8?

[jaedo]

I don't like the uneven bezels. Make them the same width all the way around

[AminoobTheGamer]

19:49 EJ after March submission loading

[neomancr]

I'm literally not buying it due to the lack of the audio jack. It's so stupid. I can't believe it. The rest of the upgrades actually don't matter enough for me no it to be able to record and outout audio.

[johnmartin]

Are you going to review the Surface Pro 10?

[Whiskey_wayne]

"what the surface pro 8 should have been" is clickbait. The surface pro 8 is absolutely fine. 2 years later and its still a great device.

[brownfox]

I feel like reviews like these are incomplete until you do an honest comparison of iPadOS vs Windows vs Android. As a tablet, the windows tablet ecosystem is severely lacking.

[henrytomson]

Totally useless review. More like a surface pro 9 promotion. only data I got was the port differences. No comparison between benchmarks or battery life etc.

[Ecirroh]

So no headphone jack, and another iteration without current-gen CPUs... Nice

[almazy]

There is so much aggression and whining in your review, can't even watch