Expert's Rating
Pros
- Performance is excellent on native apps, and when plugged in
- Value is unexpectedly good
- Wireless Flex Pro keyboard is great in concept
- Lovely OLED option, though a bit grainy
- Excellent inking
- Excellent webcam, too
Cons
- Emulation performance isn’t great, and some apps won’t run
- Battery life suffers when tablet has to work hard
- AI experiences are decent, but not really there yet
- Games? Ha!
Our Verdict
Microsoft’s first Copilot+ tablet, the Surface Pro (11th Edition) balances upon a growing ecosystem of native Arm apps that run efficiently on its Snapdragon X Elite processor. Performance is solid, but the AI experiences aren’t fully there.
Best Prices Today: Microsoft Surface Pro (2024) 11th Edition
Microsoft desperately needs its new Surface Pro (2024) 11th Edition Copilot+ PC to be a success. It’s something like 80 percent of the way there. But the most important thing this Windows on Arm tablet does is point to what feels like an inevitable future for productivity PCs…someday.
You’ve seen a Surface Pro before. Weirdly, this 13-inch tablet is the least interesting part of the whole affair. Inside is the key: how well does Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X Elite work? Do the new AI experiences actually make a difference? And can Windows on Arm finally replace an X86 PC from AMD or Intel?
I have answers. An expanding ecosystem of native Arm apps run great on this tablet, and when plugged in, the performance seems to be on par or even better than Intel’s Core Ultra (Meteor Lake). But whether the app will run or not is still, unfortunately, a question. When unplugged, the story changes yet again, with intensive apps gobbling up great chunks of the tablet’s prodigious battery life. And I’m just not seeing enough in Microsoft’s Copilot+ AI features to overshadow that story, yet. But the hardware? Rather good, minus some weirdness.
Because of this, this review will be much longer than normal, even though I’ve tried to break out some of the topics into separate articles. Please use the built-in table of contents to navigate to portions of the review that strike your interest. Join me in the deep end, will you?
Looking for more options? Be sure to check out PCWorld’s roundup of the best laptops available right now.
![Surface Pro 2024 11th Edition primary 3](https://b2c-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/primary-3.jpg?quality=50&strip=all&w=1200)
Mark Hachman / IDG
Mark Hachman / IDG
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</div></figure><p class="imageCredit">Mark Hachman / IDG</p></div>
Surface Pro (2024): Buying options
After literal decades of pricing the Surface at or above the prices offered by its rivals, Microsoft’s Surface Pro (2024) 11th Edition is among the cheapest options for a Copilot+ PC. The Surface Pro costs as little as $999 ($899 for an educational discount), though that features a less powerful 10-core Snapdragon X Plus processor inside. Our review unit included the more powerful 12-core Snapdragon X Elite. A new OLED display option and up to 32GB of RAM and a terabyte of SSD storage bump up the total price to a current maximum of $2,099.99. It appears that Microsoft does not offer an LCD option with the Snapdragon X Elite at press time.
By comparison, the Surface Pro 9 ranged from $999 to $2,599 for a 12th-gen Core chip and $1,299 to $1,899 for the Surface Pro 9 (5G), the tablet with the older Microsoft SQ3 chip, a derivative of the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3, inside.
Surface Pro (2024): Detailed specifications
- Display: 13-inch PixelSense Flow (2880×1920, 267 PPI, Gorilla Glass 5) up to 120Hz with dynamic refresh rate and 10-point multitouch, optional OLED screen
- Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite 3.4GHz X1E-80-100 (as tested), Snapdragon Plus
- Graphics: Qualcomm Adreno
- Memory: 16, 32, 64GB LPDDR5X (OLED), 16GB (normal) (16 GB as tested)
- Storage: 512GB, 1TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD (OLED); 256, 512GB (normal) (512GB as tested)
- Ports: 2 USB-C (USB 4.0 w/DisplayPort 2.1), 1 Surface Connect port, 1 Surface Keyboard Port
- Security: Camera (Windows Hello), NFC/smartcard reader; TPM 2.0 chip
- Camera: Quad HD (1440p) ultrawide (user-facing) with Windows Studio Effects, 10MP rear-facing
- Battery: 51.4Wh (design) 53.5Wh (full charge)
- Wireless: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4
- Operating system: Windows 10 Home or Windows 11 Home 24H2
- Dimensions: 11.3 x 8.2 x 0.37 inches
- Weight: 1.97 pounds without accessories
- Color: Sapphire, Dune, Platinum, Black
- Price: $999 on up ($1,499 as tested)
- Optional accessories: Surface Slim Pen 2, $90 on sale at Amazon. Surface Flex Keyboard with Slim Pen, $449.98 at Microsoft.
Surface Pro (2024): Build quality
Physically, the Surface Pro (2024) 11th Edition feels very similar to the Surface Pro 9 (5G), enough that you’d have to take a close look to tell the two apart. Microsoft ships the new Surface Pro in packaging that matches the metallic color options: Black, Platinum, Dune, and Sapphire. As usual, the keyboard and pen (the new Surface Flex Pro keyboard plus the bundled Slim Pen 2) are “optional” adders that are really not.
The Surface Pro is somewhat unique, in that there aren’t too many Windows tablets in the market. The physical design is consistent from Surfaces past, with slim bezels that extend just about 0.25 inches from the side and about 0.5 inches from the top. I tend to use the Surface Pro as a “laptop” of sorts, but be advised that the Surface tablet mode is gone. That does make the new Surface Pro less of a traditional tablet and more of just an oddly-designed laptop. You might walk away thinking that the Surface Pro could have been a 360-degree convertible version of the Surface Laptop Go instead.
If you do use it as a desktop device, Microsoft has left the kickstand in place. The significant change is the new “wireless” Flex Pro keyboard, which changes the Surface Pro experience. We’ll talk about that in a bit.
![Surface Pro 2024 11th Edition right side](https://b2c-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/right-side.jpg?quality=50&strip=all&w=1200)
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