Surface Pro X Review - The Good and The Bad

Surface Pro X is the future of the Microsoft Surface Design. After using the Surface Pro X for the past week or more, I go over the positives and negatives of the new Surface Pro X. In this video I cover everything from the design of the Surface pro X to the battery life, LTE signal and much more to help you decide if the latest Surface Pro is right for you. #Surface #Microsoft #SurfacePro #SurfaceDuo

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***Time Codes**
00:00 - Start
00:18 - Design and overview
01:30 - Display
02:00 - Signature Keyboard
02:40 - Battery life
03:22 - Speakers
04:10 - Surface Slim Pen
05:13 - LTE connectivity
06:08 - Storage
07:00 - WiFi 6
07:20 - PWM or screen flicker
08:10 - SQ1 CPU
08:30 - Using apps and games with Windows 10x
09:26 - Benchmarks
10:10 - Excel
10:40 - Portal 2
12:14 - Price
12:37 - Should you buy Surface Pro X?
11:40 - Wallpaper
13:30 - Conclusion
13:57 - Outro
14:17 - End

📷🎥 CAMERA on B&H Photo

🎤 Microphone

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Outro Music: “Halos” by Yung Logos - Available in the YouTube Create Audio Library

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[msp]

Purchased a SPX (SQ1, 8 ram, 128 ssd) for only $623US and absolutely love it!
1. Battery life is 50% longer than my SP7 (i7, 16 ram, 256 ssd). I get between 12-13 hours
of continuous YouTube viewing (40% brightness, BlueTooth off, Wifi and Power Saver on).
This is on par with my 15-inch 360x HP Spectre and its battery is twice as large.
2. The screen is bigger and brighter. I can read/watch video in a dark room with 0% brightness.
Larger screen is also great for reading/annotating PDFs.
3. It is thinner/easier to hold, so it's much better for notetaking or watching videos on your lap than the SP7.
4. Runs all my must-have work apps including Office 2019, statistical software, Zoom, Nebo, Snapdrop,
ReadAloud, and PDF apps. The only "nice to have" apps I can't run so far are BatteryBar and Throttlestop
(which has a 32-bit version)
5. Charges much faster than my SP7
6. Has a Sim Card slot
7. Keyboard is around $65 on Amazon
8. SP7 pen works on SPX

Negatives are:
1. No USB-A (dongle life)
2. No Thunderbolt 3
3. No microSD slot
4. MS's 64-bit emulator greatly reduces battery life (which is why I haven't downloaded it)
5. Can't run all 35 miillion of Windows apps/programs (yet)

Finally, I don't edit videos, edit photos, or play games. The SPX was not designed for these hobbies, it was designed for white-collar professionals and traveling business folks.

[HappieHowie]

The device runs 64 bit ARM with no problems. If the APP is not configured to run ARM, it may use a 32 bit X86 to run it. This is not ideal, but just to make it run. FireFox runs well with it and MS is going to release the New Web browser (Canary) in mid January. You can download the beta now. Once, developers convert their Apps to run on ARM, it will be fast and smooth. Make sure you check for updates on the Windows store as well. The Surface Pro X is getting better and better everyday. Patience! I use it for Office 365 and lots of web with no issues. Overall, I love my Surface Pro X.

[jubileecopperwood]

This is my third surface pro. I fell in love with this computer. It is so easy to carry around from spot to spot and has almost all the features of a laptop. However, I am being aggravated by two things with the surface pro x. One is that they put the power button on the side. now I have to use one hand to push the button and the other hand to keep it from sliding across the table. It was much better on the top. Secondly, I have a very small space to work in so I never use the manual keyboard. I just use the on-screen one. But they changed the pen (stylus) from running on batteries to needing to be charged on the manual keyboard. That means every two to three days, I have to dig out the keyboard, remove things off of the table and hook it up just to charge that pen. I am all for upgrading. But not changing the good things that were already there.

[Kencan]

I think that you missed the target market for which the SPX is meant. It is meant for the mobile user. Just like it is ridiculous to buy a Lamborghini for ploughing wheat farms, SPX was not meant to be a gaming machine nor for video editing. As a student, SPX was a no brainer choice thanks to its kickstand, lightweight and innovative pen storage. The only regret I have is that third party popular notetaking apps such as Good Note 5 do not work with Windows but then there is free One Note.

[zollotech]

What do you think of surface pro X? Thanks for watching!

[ronlarson]

I have owned the Surface Pro X since the launch date. At first I was frustrated with all the drawbacks, but I found I could personalize the X to work for me. I think everyone is missing the main two top specs #1 - Battery life, this will definitely go 10 hours without worry, grab and go the battery life will be there. #2 - The screen, it is the minimum size needed for real productivity and has a resolution that equals the Surface Book 2 and looks like paper.

I customized by adding a skin which fixed the slick feel and made it hard to hold. The device works great in portrait mode but the power button was constantly getting activated accidently, but you can change what the power button does when pressed - problem solved. Further customization, replaced the keyboard with pen tray with the basic keyboard, and viola, a very stable and solid typing, just like the other surface devices. I have a pocket on the back to hold the pen so I always have it with me and it does not get lost in my bag.

So now, I have what I was looking for a very portable, great screen, great typing experience and super great battery on a machine that runs Office extremely well. Took awhile, but now wouldn't trade it.

[ccroy]

I just bought an i5 Surface Pro 7. Spending my own $ I went the safe bet. Hopefully Microsoft sticks with ARM I would love to trade in a few years from now to that design and especially LTE plus maybe other windows pc manufacturers will jump on board. That would drive app development.

[RamonVazquez]

I'm one of these persons that the Pro X it is perfect for me
My work doesn't demand a lot of computing, just GOOGLE DOCS, that's it.

I used to travel with a Mac for work and an iPad for entertainment
Now I can do both with the Pro X
IPad is good but the keyboard is a joke and it doesn't support a mouse, so was uncomfortable to work on it.
I recommended using EDGE Canary to download pages as apps, like HBO or Amazon Video and it runs faster with it.

[randyqian]

That it can't run 64 bit apps is inaccurate: it can't run x86-64 apps but it can run 64 bit ARM apps. They released the device too early since even a 64 bit ARM browser wasn't yet available, however this is a perfectly good tablet experience with the added feature of some 90% compatibility with standard x86 apps.

[Manuel-rlum]

I think the Edge Beta you tried was faster simply cause new Edge works faster than Chrome, not because it was the ARM version. To have the ARM| build I think you have to install the Canary build. Stable(release 15 Jan) > Beta (live, update every 6 weeks)> Dev (live, update weekly) > Canary (live, update daily, has ARM). I could be wrong though. The ARM version of Edge works even faster for what've heard, and will consume less battery. Firefox Beta has an ARM build already as well.

When you started talking about apps and you went straight to 3D applications....and then videogames...I'm not sure what to say, although I was surprised by Portal 2.

In general, 90% of what we do is in the browser, YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Spotify, Whatsapp Web, Telegram, Facebook, Twitter, News sites, Google Suite, Microsoft 365, Slack, Trello, etc. More over, nowadays everything is going web, with PWAs (Outlook, Starbucks, Twitter, Spotify, Uber, Pinterest, AliExpress, Telegram, Wego...), you could've shown how easy is to install those PWAs with the new Edge through Settings>Applications, and have them shown on your Windows 10 menu for easy access. With Google also pushing hard on PWAs, with Google Maps, Photos, etc (this benefits Chromebooks as well).

Windows 10 native or Microsoft application work as well, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneDrive, Mail, Photos/Video viewer and editor, OneNote, Teams, Skype. Even the new Terminal(preview) and WLS2 work for what I've read, with a full Ubuntu OS in your terminal.

In addition to that, there are ARM and 32bits application that work right now, not just some Microsoft Store applications like Sketchable but Electron apps like Figma and even VS Code too, or the ones you showed.

There is nothing you said that was wrong, but in general I saw it as too focused on the negativity aspects, on what is missing and not in what it can do, so much so that even people that works mainly in the browser, check social media, office stuff, take notes with pen, etc, might stop looking into this after watching reviews like this one that don't show the whole picture.

Having Full desktop Browsers (Firefox Beta and Edge Canary) with all the extensions is already something powerful that other compatitors like Galaxy Tab S6 and iPad Pro can't have. Having all the office desktop applications that iPad can't have is also a huge advantage. These along make this device better than its compatitors for many many people, not only for a niche.

Having said that, they released the Surface Pro X too early, as not even stable Browsers are out. Adobe Fresco was shown working perfectly in the Surface Pro X by Adobe, but they haven't released it yet. Other Adobe are going to have ARM builds, but we don't know when. And there is just a lack of ARM apps, which is what iPad has.

[priyagehm]

Great info. Thank You! Does the Surface Pro 7 have the screen flicker issue as well? Do you prefer the iPad Pro 12.9? :)

[tomworthjr]

I look at this as I would any v1 of a product. Make no mistake: Surface Pro 7 is literally v7 of that line, but this is v1 of Windows 10 on ARM. As such, it is overpriced, not fully baked, and only for very specific users and use cases. BUT, Microsoft will iterate and the SPX line should get there in short order. Even this v1 will get better via firmware and software updates . They’ll keep the good/great stuff and fix the rest. Can’t wait for v2, which will be “for the rest of us!”

[Aaronage]

I'm sure it's been said a million times, but it does run 64-bit ARM software. Windows can emulate x86-32 on ARM but not AMD64 👍

There are native 64-bit ARM desktop apps out there, like Notepad++, Firefox, VLC etc.. All Windows Store apps are compiled to native ARM code, IIRC. 

The lack of native sofware is a pain point, though. It's not always easy to re-compile older software for ARM, especially for software making use of fine-tuned x86 assembly or proprietary libraries. Some sofware will literally just re-compile and work, some will need significant re-work. I imagine that's why Microsoft is leaning so heavily on emulation.

Most (if not all?) of the core Windows system is running native/without emulation. Including Office.

I'm guessing Wing Commander didn't run since it's 16-bit (not sure how Windows' DOS VM works on ARM).

It'd be interesting to see how the machine performs when only running native code and not throwing emulated x86-32 into the mix. I imagine performance/battery life would increase considerably.

It's a shame Microsoft can't go clean-slate with Windows - the legacy baggage is as much a hidrance as it is valuable asset. It's looking like Apple will be the first to do an ARM desktop right.

[miashottangel]

I just got my Surface Pro X and I love it.

[nathanlamaire]

The reason behind that why some 32-bit games don't work on SPX is all of those games do use non-existing API in the system (like full OpenGL, which SPX only has ES version)

[jaughnekow]

Wow!
Looks sleek. I'm already in love with the design.

[chrisblack]

It will run Arm64 apps like Edge Canary and win 64 would likely be supported in 2020.

[ConsolaArcadeDuo]

Excellent video!
A question for someone who has the Surface X, right now there are more apps available or almost the same that was 3 month ago? (sorry for my english!)

[LovelyPaper]

I picked mine up mainly for 2d illustrating in Clip Studio Paint and am actually having a blast. It's actually been a better experience than the MobileStudio Pro 16. That being said, altho 32-bit is running fine, I severely hope Celsys releases an ARM64 version, and that actually may be likely with Adobe having pledged support for WoA.

Then I just need for one good 3d app to be compiled for ARM64, hopefully from Autodesk.

[Montpbm]

I will be buying this, I've seen much better reviews from others that actually understand what this device is. Can't run those apps because this is Microsoft trying to get away from legacy apps on these types of devices but reviewers like you seem to never mention that and the real reason it can't run those apps. I'll take this any day over any other tablet. Although I disagree with your bad points, it's still good that you review other things outside of Apple so I thank you for that because I actually like your reviews believe it or not.