Microsoft’s Surface lineup has become the standard for Windows 10 PCs, so it’s hard to believe that the first Surface Laptop wasn’t released until this year. That original device didn’t reinvent the wheel when it came to thin and light laptops, but it met many needs for most people.
The Surface Laptop lineup has since evolved and been tweaked, though the competition usually offers better value. Microsoft hopes that will change with the Surface Laptop 4, which now offers a choice between AMD and Intel chips on the 13.5- and 15-inch models. Battery life has also been improved. But is the Laptop 4 a wise choice as we enter a new era for Windows PCs?
As a traditional software company, Microsoft once preferred to hold back on developing computers that ran Windows, instead leaving third-party vendors like Dell and HP to take on the complicated task of designing, manufacturing and selling computers. In this way, Windows found its way onto an enormous range of devices, from home PCs and laptops to web servers and ATMs, solidifying the operating system as the de facto platform for business and personal use around the world.
Design
The Surface Laptop 4 looks very similar to its predecessor, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Many people will hope for more than this iterative update, but the proven design will also appeal to newcomers. Personally, we still really like the reduced, minimalistic design language, even if it is starting to look outdated.
However, those looking for outstanding design features will be disappointed. Apart from the Microsoft logo on the back, it is hard to distinguish the Surface Laptop 4 from the many other Windows notebooks. This is especially true of the generic-looking Platinum model we tested, although the Matte Black, Sandstone, and Ice Blue alternatives help it stand out better.
Regardless of the color you choose, the exterior of the device won’t be your main focus. When you open up the Surface Laptop 4 (which can be done with just one finger), the main event is revealed: the display.
Keyboard and Touch Pad
There are no two ways about it here – the keyboard is absolutely superb. we are particularly picky when it comes to our keyboards, and the Surface Laptop 4 offers near-perfect key spacing and travel for a comfortable typing experience. The entire keyboard is within reach when you place your palms in the typical laptop posture, which makes for quick, spontaneous, and error-free typing. The keys depress just enough for your fingertips to feel the feedback, but not so far that you tire too quickly while typing.
The trackpad is large, responsive, and accurate. The trackpad’s smooth surface supports sluggish scrolling, and overall there’s not much to complain about. The Omnisonic speakers, which sit behind the keyboard, are pretty impressive for laptop speakers. They support Dolby Atmos and provide a nice even listening experience overall. The sound has decent depth, although it gets flatter as the bass increases. For watching movies with an outdoor companion, the Surface Laptop 4 Omnisonic speakers are more than good enough.
Display
The Surface Laptop 4’s 13.5-inch screen with a resolution of 2256 x 1504 pixels has its charms, especially if you do a lot of reading, editing, or other things that benefit from the extra vertical space offered by the 3:2 display ratio. However, when we left productivity mode and started streaming TV shows and movies on the laptop, we were a bit disappointed with how dull and washed out some scenes looked.
Sometimes bright colors were vivid enough to stand out on the screen, like the bright orange explosions in Bad Boys 2 or the brilliant purple lightning discharges from Stormfront in The Boys. But in dark scenes or locations with lots of muted blues and greens, colors seemed to fade and blend into each other, making it difficult to make out details.
The screen is quite bright, with an average brightness of 348.6 nits when tested with our light gun. That’s decent and ahead of the Lenovo Thinkpad 14s Yoga (313 nits), but just behind the Intel and AMD variants of the 15-inch Surface Laptop 3 (which scored 366 and 380 nits, respectively) and well behind the Dell XPS 13 (469 nits).
Audio
The Omnisonic speakers with Dolby Atmos hidden under the keyboard are a mystery to me. How did Microsoft even put them there and how can they sound so good? After playing Billie Eilish’s “Hostage,” we stupidly whispered like a giddy child, “They sound so good.”
The beautiful ballad had a concert-like lightness that let Billie Eilish’s muted but powerful vocals dominate the soundscape, while the stripped back instruments were properly separated so you could hear every guitar pluck. When we played “all the good girls go to hell,” a more aggressive up-tempo track, the bass boomed, though it struggled to drop very low. When we played the track at 100% volume, the Surface Laptop 4 filled our apartment effortlessly and didn’t distort – in fact, it sounded just as good as at lower volumes.
Graphics
It is no surprise that the Surface Laptop 4 relies on the integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics card for gaming or 3D modeling software. This is sufficient for most applications, but if you need more graphics power, you should consider a proper gaming notebook with a discrete GPU.
The Surface Laptop 4 surprised us by playing Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gather Storm (1080p) at 30 frames per second, hitting our gaming threshold. That beats the XPS 13 (16 fps), the Spectre x360 14 (20 fps), and the category average (20 fps). In the 3DMark Fire Strike benchmark, the Laptop 4 scores 5.089, once again outperforming the competition and leaving the XPS 13 (3.598), Spectre x360 14 (4.229), and category average (4.756) behind.
Performence
When you’re not playing Cyberpunk 2077 with the settings up, Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 4 can handle just about anything you throw at it during an average workday. The 16 GB of RAM and the review unit’s 11th-generation Intel i7 CPU gave us enough power to handle as many basic tasks as we could assign it, including more than 20 tabs across four Chrome windows, which were arranged in a way that allowed me to watch two 4K YouTube videos, a Twitch stream, and keep track of my Spotify playlist while writing this review.
The Surface Laptop 4 we tested scored a decent 4,829 in our Geekbench 5 performance test, which is good but not great when compared to similarly priced competitors like the Dell XPS 13 (which scored 5,254 in the same test) or even cheaper Windows notebooks like Lenovo’s convertible ThinkBook 14s Yoga (4,885 points).
Battery Life
The battery life of the Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 has been significantly improved compared to the previous generation, and a full charge cycle is enough for almost 12 hours in a fairly busy workday. This also includes an hour of streaming 4K video content and 30 minutes of light gaming. This makes the Surface Laptop 4 the ultrabook to buy when you’re getting ready to head back to the office. However, we sincerely wish Microsoft would replace or at least improve the Surface Connect port.
The charger is far too easy to detach, and it’s not particularly easy to connect, either. Fortunately, the charging time of just over an hour is enough to get through a full day of presentations, countless web browser tabs, and web based video conferencing, checking off an important item on the Ultrabook checklist.
Configuration Options
Prices for the Surface Laptop 4 start at US$999 (£999, AU$1,599). For this price, you get the entry-level 13.5-inch configuration with an AMD Ryzen 5 processor, 8 GB of RAM, and a 256 GB SSD. If you want to step up to a 15-inch model, expect a Surface Laptop 4 price of $1,299 (£1,299, AU$2,199). For this starting configuration, you’ll get an AMD Ryzen 7 processor, 8 GB of RAM, and a 256 GB SSD.
This means that the biggest difference between the 15- and 13-inch Surface Laptop 4 in the entry-level configuration is the CPU. The AMD Ryzen 5 4680U is a 6-core processor with 12 threads, while the Ryzen 7 4980U is an 8-core processor with 16 threads. So the 15-incher will be slightly better for workloads with many threads like video editing. Everything else is basically the same.
Final Words
We hope you enjoy this blog about the Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 Review. The Surface Laptop 4 improves on the Surface Laptop 3 in many ways, offering Windows fans an ultraportable, bloatware-free device with top-of-the-line components in a nice, lightweight chassis.
While we’d like to see Microsoft make some major changes to the Surface Laptop’s formula, the Surface Laptop’s excellent speakers, improved battery life, and under-the-hood upgrades make the Surface Laptop 4 one of the best Windows laptops you can buy-and a serious contender for a spot among the best laptops on the market.
