For excellent premium hardware in an unexpected place, look no further than Microsoft’s range of Surface devices. It’s been a few years since the range launched in South Africa and the software giant remains bent on making its partners look… well, budget-focused.
Microsoft won’t call it that, of course. The Surface Laptop and Surface Pro, among other products, are “reference designs” but they’re really examples of what companies could do with a Windows-based machine. The newest batch to launch in South Africa, the Laptop 7 and Pro 11 two-in-one, are all that, plus baked-in AI.
Scratching the Surface itch
So what’s new? Well, the first thing you’ll need to know is that these Windows machines ship with a Qualcomm Snapdragon X processor inside. These aren’t the first example in the country but the Laptop 7 will tote the X Plus 10-core SoC (system-on-chip) while the Pro 11 features the X Elite 12-core SoC. New inside is an NPU or neural processing unit. That gizmo’s job is processing the internal AI functions Microsoft has baked in with Copilot+. If you feel the need for an Intel or AMD version of these machines, those are coming. At some point. Microsoft couldn’t say when.
The point of Copilot+ is to give you assistance that you think you need. This might be translation, summaries, entire articles you no longer have to write, or generated images, courtesy of a dedicated button on your keyboard. We tried Copilot out and while it seems to be tremendously useful in some instances, it just wasn’t willing (or able) to execute some of the tasks we had for it. Perhaps if you’re not using it adversarially, it’ll behave better. We’ll see during our review.
Welcome to 7-11
The Surface Laptop 7 claims to have a substantial battery behind it as a result of the new NPU and in spite of the additional AI calculations. Microsoft says it’ll run for twenty hours and we can’t see them lying about that. It’s easily checked. It does this with thinner bezels, an option for a 13.8in or a 15in touchscreen version, a haptic touchpad (it’s also massive), and support for WiFi 7. Microsoft also reckons each machine will feature at least 25% recycled material.
The Surface Pro 11, on the other hand, is a two-in-one that is up to 72% recycled, though Microsoft has some rather bold performance claims regarding power and battery life compared to competitors. Maybe they’re true, but we’d rather test them first. What is likely true are the battery figures. Ten hours of internet usage and fourteen hours of video playback translates into a whole bunch of time spent working away from a power socket.
The Pro 11 will have an OLED screen option, a first for the range, and another first is the new Flex keyboard cover. Like the traditional one, it’ll attach to one end of the Pro 11 but unlike it, users can detach and use it away from the screen. Why you’d do that depends on you but the Flex keyboard is now an attachable Bluetooth device.
Both new devices will have 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB storage options, and all ship with 16B of RAM at their backs. Claimed NPU performance of between 40 and 45 TOPs (trillion operations per second) should make them speedy when responding to your inane AI needs like ‘How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?’
Okay, fine, there’s also a GPT-like assistant (which is a bit uptight and unwilling to misbehave), a feature called Studio Effects that adds everything from custom backgrounds to filters to eye refocusing and the ability to follow you as you move around the room. And there’s also CoCreator, a drawing tool that lets you define a prompt and then vaguely sketch it so you get something more customised in Paint. It wouldn’t, however, draw our image of Tony Hawk kickflipping over a shark and into a volcano. Make of that what you will.
If you’re keen on the Surface Laptop 7, you can grab one today for at least R27,000 for the ‘basic’ package. That price climbs as high as R44,000 if you’d like the 15in version with a terabyte of storage. If two-in-ones are more your speed, the Pro 11 starts at R30,00 and goes all the way to R47,000. We’ll have reviews up just as soon as we can, if you’re on the fence.