Surface Pro 11 review: it’s absolutely spectacular

The Surface Pro 11 is the best Surface Pro ever made. It’s also the best Windows 2-in-1 ever made. Heck, I might even say it has some serious advantages over the new iPad Pro.

It’s buoyed by the new Snapdragon X chip, first and foremost. But it also has a new webcam, improved keyboard, and a killer OLED screen all in a package that’s as refined as ever.

If you can’t tell, I’ve very much enjoyed my time reviewing the Surface Pro 11th Edition. It’s not perfect, but I find myself with very little to dislike about Microsoft’s flagship 2-in-1 — a true achievement for Microsoft and the Windows ecosystem at large.

Specs and configurations

The Surface Pro 11 comes in two primary configurations. The $999 starting configuration comes with a Snapdragon X Plus chip, IPS panel, and 256GB SSD. It starts with 16GB of RAM, but you can increase RAM and storage from there.

The second option is the OLED model, which comes with the Snapdragon X Elite. This one starts at $1,499, but it comes with 512GB of storage. From there, configurations max out at 1TB of storage and 32GB of memory.

Neither configuration comes with the Type Cover or Surface Slim Pen bundled in.

Design

The Surface Pro hasn’t changed much over the years, and I’m not sure that it’s needed to. The trusty 2-in-1 design still feels rather refined, whether that’s the sturdy kickstand or the snazzy color options.

The latest version is nearly identical to the previous version, but it doesn’t at all look dated. The Surface Laptop 7th Edition catches up in its latest model, but the Surface Pro remains confidently unchanged.

If there’s one area I would have liked to see some changes, it’s in the dimensions. Now that it’s moved to an Arm-based chip, I would have loved to see a thinner chassis. The thickness of the device is even more notable when you consider the cuts made to the 2024 iPad Pro, which is just 0.2 inches thick. That’s about half as thick as the Surface Pro. Of course, when you include the corresponding keyboard covers, that difference isn’t quite as noticeable since the Type Cover isn’t as thick as the iPad Pro Magic Keyboard. Still, it’s pretty significant when using the tablet as a tablet.

Speaking of the keyboard, the Type Cover has yet again been improved. The keyboard and trackpad are both flawlessly on point now. The surface of the haptic feedback trackpad is perfectly smooth, and the keys are a joy to type on. I’m amazed by just good of a keyboard Microsoft has evolved this into — and for my money, is even better than the Magic Keyboard. It’s even sturdy enough to use on your lap, so long as you don’t mind the kickstand digging into your thighs. It even does a great job of covering over that bottom bezel when propped up.

One of the best changes (and advantages of getting one of the new Type Covers) is the ability to still use the keyboard when removed from the tablet. This is a huge improvement to usability, opening up lots of ways to get comfortable while using the device.

Ports

The Surface Pro doesn’t have lots of ports, but I wouldn’t expect it to. It has the two USB-C ports, the Surface Connect dock, and that’s it. No headphone jack.

That’s frustrating, even if it feels more reasonable on a tablet. But considering most people will want to use the Surface Pro 11 as a laptop replacement, the lack of a headphone jack is a nuisance.

The one huge advantage of the Surface Pro 11 is that it features a removable SSD. Using the simple magnetic slot on the back, you get quick and easy access to the storage, letting you upgrade it. That’s highly recommended since Microsoft charges quite a lot to upgrade storage up front.

Display

The Surface Pro 11th Edition has a fantastic screen. It really is gorgeous. It’s certainly one of the best displays on a Windows device I’ve ever tested — as long as we’re talking about the OLED model that I reviewed. This is the first OLED Surface Pro, and it’s exactly what this device needed.

There are two display modes that have very different functions. The default HDR mode gives you that high peak brightness but sacrifices color accuracy and saturation. The Vivid mode turns off HDR, but improves gamut up to 100% sRGB (and 85% AdobeRGB) and accuracy to 0.74. Regardless of which mode you’re in, though, you’re getting well over 500 nits of SDR brightness (up to 533 nits in the Vivid mode). Of course, that is about half the brightness that the iPad Pro’s tandem OLED panel offers — so it’s not quite on the same level.

But within the Windows ecosystem, there are few displays that can match this. The new XPS 13, for example, has an option for a tandem OLED panel, but maxes out at just 400 nits in SDR.

And either way, of course, you get the 120Hz refresh rate, which keeps things feeling responsive.

Speakers and webcam

Here’s a fact: Tablets usually have better speakers and webcams than laptops. Because of the way they’re designed, with the components behind the screen rather than under the keyboard, there are all sorts of possibilities for improving things. Take the webcam, for example. It’s a 12-megapixel wide-angle lens that looks gorgeous. When’s the last time you’ve heard a webcam described that way?

The resolution is off the charts, obviously, and it handles exposure beautifully. When it comes to Windows devices, you won’t find a better videoconferencing device. And, of course, you also get the benefit of having a 10-megapixel camera on the rear, even if use cases for that are far more rare.

The speakers aren’t as big of a win, but they’re still quite nice. Despite there being just a pair of 2-watt speakers onboard, you get some decent audio quality of this device. They get quite loud without distortion, and there’s a decent amount of bass. They have a fuller sound profile for music than even the 15-inch Surface Laptop 7, making it one of the better options in terms of audio quality.

Performance

The recent Surface Pro devices have always been powerful, but it gets even better in this latest iteration. My review unit came with the Snapdragon X1E80100, a 12-core chip with a 3.4GHz clock speed. It also comes with the obligatory 16GB of RAM to be qualified as a Copilot+ PC. The 10-core X Plus model comes in the base configuration, but you’ll always get 16GB of RAM.

The resulting performance is impressive. Of course, it lands near the bottom of other laptops with this chip that we’ve reviewed so far, including the Surface Laptop, Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x, HP OmniBook X, and more. That’s to be assumed, though, considering the Surface Pro is the only tablet in the mix and is by far the thinnest device in the group. And yet, performance is on par with modern Intel Core Ultra laptops in both single-core and multi-core performance.

What this device can do, however, is ramp up quite a bit in its Performance mode. You get a 38% increase in multi-core performance and 15% more single-core performance. That’s a big jump, much more than what we typically see. The Surface Pro 11 has clearly been restrained quite a bit thermally to keep it cool and quiet, which is a good decision in my opinion.

As we’ve discussed in other reviews of the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite, the integrated graphics aren’t anything to write home about. They aren’t a huge letdown, but they lag behind the current Intel Arc graphics and well behind Apple’s M3. Combine that with some compatibility in games, and you have a device that really shouldn’t be counted on for PC gaming. That’s perfectly all right for this device, but it’s something you should know before moving forward.

Battery life

I’ve always been disappointed by the battery life of the Surface Pro devices. It’s just never felt good enough for a highly portable device of this type — making for yet another reason why Windows tablets never truly took off.

That’s no more. The Surface Pro 11 finally has the battery life appropriate for a tablet, thanks to the Snapdragon X chip. In our light web browsing test, the Surface Pro 11 was able to last over 14 and a half hours. It’s the longest lasting Copilot+ PC so far, and while it’s not quite up to the standard of MacBooks, it’s a huge upgrade over previous generations.

It’s never been this good

The Surface Pro 11th Edition is the fulfillment of a long journey for this line of devices. It’s always been a device that was more about what it could be than what it’s been. But now, the Surface Pro is not just the best Windows 2-in-1 ever made, it makes a compelling case for the category as a whole. If this doesn’t inspire a larger movement in the ecosystem, nothing will.

The only real downside is the price. The $999 base configuration sounds great, but you’ll need to add on the $140 keyboard at the very least. Most people may even opt for the $280 add-on that includes both the keyboard and Surface Slim Pen. That being said, Microsoft says it sells them separately to allow people to reuse older Type Cover keyboards.