Something interesting is happening to laptops and computers in general lately, under the hood. Anyone who was into their computers for the last few decades would be vaguely aware of the Intel vs AMD rivalry.
It has ebbed and flowed since I first got into gaming and tech in general. At the moment, AMD seems to have the upper hand for processors but while no one was looking, a third company, Qualcomm, has made their move, both for processors and for graphics cards.
So, it is with great interest I got my hands on the new Microsoft Surface 7th edition laptop as it has a Snapdragon X elite on board graphics card as well as a Snapdragon X 12-core processor; words you might be more used to hearing in relation to phones or tablets.
First impressions for this laptop were very good. Some effort has gone into the packaging with everything fitting precisely into the box. I’m not one for unboxing videos, but I was genuinely tempted to document how neatly everything was set up.
The laptop itself feels like it’s made of high-quality materials, with an entirely metal exterior having a simple smooth matte finish with only a simple shiny Windows logo on top.
The case feels rigid and sturdy, no flex or creaking and the laptop opens smoothly and easily with one hand. The left side features a headphone jack, USB-A and two USB-C ports, while the right side just has the surface proprietary connector for charging and docking.
Some people like this proprietary connector, some don’t, but it connects very easily (and in either orientation) and should a cable get snagged, it won’t drag the laptop down with it which is useful and there are other connections offered without the need for an adaptor.
Also, there’s a USB-A socket in the power brick for the laptop which is useful for charging your devices without tying up one of the laptop’s ports.
Specs-wise, the laptop appears very capable, the 15’’ screen is crisp and clear at 2496×1664 with touch screen capability, and boasts 16GB RAM, 512GB storage with the processor operating at a healthy 3.4 GHz. These are respectable specs, though nothing groundbreaking, so why the fanfare?
Well, these chips allow the laptop to have much lower power consumption, allowing for nearly 20 hours of video playback on a single charge.
To give that some context for lower-power usage, the laptop I own has about 60% battery remaining, or about 2 and a half hours, the surface meanwhile has 45% remaining, seems to be downloading updates and the estimate is near 6 hours.
I fully charged the laptop once in my time testing it and it still had about 10% before I plugged it back in to charge it before resetting/returning it. The battery life on it is genuinely impressive and allows for a full day of work without access to a plug.
How does the laptop handle intensive tasks? Well, I had no issues with multitasking, streaming or basic browsing or leaving multiple tabs open. New drivers for the X-elite seem to be improving gaming compatibility as time goes on, however I wouldn’t expect this laptop to be your main gaming rig in the short term.
I tried a few indy games and had no trouble, but couldn’t get Wolfenstein to run. There are lists being maintained online detailing what games are compatible or not.
A widely advertised feature that I’ve not discussed yet is the built-in co-pilot AI. Edge now has a button to press to pop out a co-pilot tab that you can converse with.
What does it do? Let’s ask it: ‘Can you give me a paragraph summary of your capabilities?’
‘Absolutely! Here’s a concise overview of my capabilities: I can help you stay informed by quickly retrieving and summarizing information from the web. Boost your productivity with my assistance in drafting emails, managing your calendar, and creating documents.
‘I offer technical support for troubleshooting and provide how-to guides for various applications. Enhance your learning with educational resources and language practice. For creative projects, I can generate ideas, draft content, and suggest design elements.
‘I also engage in meaningful conversations, offer entertainment recommendations, and make technology more accessible through voice commands and text-to-speech features. Feel free to ask me anything or let me know how I can assist you today!‘
The AI assistant is built into the Edge browser, so it can easily summarise webpages you have open. I asked it to summarise a few articles and it does a good job of it.
Asking it to explain topics/words and having it read out its responses is a great tool for accessibility. It can also search the web itself to answer your queries, so I asked it to give me the local news which it did seamlessly.
I also asked it for some local recommendations for things to do as well as a movie to watch and its suggestions were all reasonable and accurate.
For ‘meaningful conversations’ and language practice I found it a bit lacking. The AI will end a conversation abruptly if it talks itself into a dead end (or for whatever the reason might be on the back end) and, while the suggestions for language practice are logical, they are quite limited.
I found it more useful to speak to it in the language I was practicing and then trying to understand the response as the AI automatically switches to the language you are speaking to it in. The microphone picks up conversational volume speech very well and the speech-to-text interpreted what I was saying without issue.
I’m hesitant to recommend how-to guides and suggested ideas as, while it never erred while I was using it, AI in general has been known to ‘hallucinate’ some pretty wrong answers, so your milage may vary and always double check its work.
Were there any downsides? Honestly, very little. While it works fine for some games, I wouldn’t recommend the laptop for anyone hoping to cover anything other than light gaming at least for now.
Drivers are being updated regularly for the Elite-X, but anyone expecting their game library to immediately run may be disappointed.
It’s priced at the luxury end of the spectrum, but I think it certainly deserves its ‘luxury’ tag, but if the price is a concern, there are versions available with lower internal storage and a smaller screens.
For anyone looking for a tidy laptop that can run all day while you don’t have access to a plug or just a light, neat and tidy streaming laptop that really feels quality I think you could do a lot worse.
