For all the talk of a lack of innovation from Intel, the charts comparing the various generations are quite incredible. 60% improvement in single threaded, 175% in multi, combined with a 100% improvement in battery life.
Microsoft has got a winning device here, I see more Surface Pros at conferences than any other type of laptop including Macs, though still behind iPads
I'm guessing these are Microsoft conferences? Not sure where you're seeing more Surface devices than Macs or Thinkpads or HP laptops. Surface sells in incredibly small numbers compared to those other manufacturers. And what conferences have more iPads than anything? I'm not sure if you're lying or if you're attending conferences selling timeshares to senior citizens?
You're just wrong here. Apple definitely sells more than Microsoft (Lenovo is around the level of Apple with HP and Dell far outstrip the rest). But the different isn't huge. There's no world in which "Surface sell in incredibly small numbers" compared to any other manufacturer's line.
When you are talking about premium laptop-ish devices, the Surface line is comparable to the other popular makes. It's smaller than the top 4 - but in its category not by all that much.
I don’t know what conferences you go to, other than those for IT, but I’ve never seen one of these anywhere.
With all of the talk about these, as though they’re really important, Microsoft still has to show that they can grow yearly sales beyond the 3 million (maybe!) they barely managed so far. With SurfaceBook sales lower than 500,00 a year, and the Surface PC supposedly in the tens of thousands a year, none of these lines are doing anything near well.
Except that speed increase comes from lower power usage. At the same clocks, intels chips are still not any faster then 3 years ago.
Yeah, great, you went from "slow" to "decent speed.". The iGPU is still no faster, max performance is still dependent on the cooling system, and anything that isnt restricted to CFL light-bulb power levels is no faster.
Looking at this sort of improvement misses the reason for concern with Intel. The original CPU (i3-4020Y) is 1.5 GHz, no turbo. The end point CPU (i7-7660U) is 2.5GHz base, turbo to 4GHz.
Now from one point of view, it's nice that Intel has managed to boost frequency this way while not moving too far outside the power envelope. That helps low power devices (like Surface!) AND it helps large core count server chips.
BUT look at the larger story. It's about lower power, NOT about higher achievable frequencies. The tech that got this does not help that much in boosting the frequency of your 120W desktop CPU in single-threaded mode. Meanwhile, there's been very little improvement in IPC, which can improve performance at the high end.
If you care about some classes of devices, yes, great progress by Intel. But if you care about single-threaded performance at the high end, what's shown here is irrelevant, and just highlights that Intel either through inability or lack of interest is not delivering anything close to the same improvements at the high end.
The original was a i5-3317U dual-core hyperthreaded 1.7Ghz -> 2.6Ghz turbo. I have one. It's still quite nice, although with the cooling it has it can only maintain ~1.9Ghz under full load with BOINC.
Surface Pro 2 and 3 were significant steps back in terms of single-threaded performance, to achieve the "thin and light" goal and improve battery life. That was probably the right decision for the target audience, but given I use my Pro 1 as a second screen I'm glad I got it cheap when the Pro 2 came out.
The days of CPU improvement are near the end IPC improvement is near the limit adding more instruction to the already large CISC is doubtfully helpful. We are just about the end on how far we can push the clock speed and and adding more cores and threads is useful but to a certain degree. And this is also true for AMD. A new direction should be taken like instead of stack of general purpose CPUs for a all consumers a family of specialized CPUs would good idea.
What is the downside of using a U-class CPU without active cooling? Surface Pro i5 is not the only one. Huawei's Matebook also pairs U-class 15Watt chips without fans.
Got it. I just checked the i5-8250U spec. Its turbo ceiling should be 3.4Ghz and according to this article the Surface Pro can only hit consistently at 3Ghz before needing to throttle down.
Still, I wish more companies would make fanless U-series laptops. Given that prices are basically the same I would like to have choices between 3.2Ghz two core Y-series or throttled 3Ghz four core U-series in various silent form factors.
Depending on laptop manufacturer settings for max turbo TDP, it is possible to hit 3.4 GHz on 4 cores with a 35-45W short turbo.
Clock speeds will ramp down for sustained turbo, and with decent cooling maintain 3.0-3.3 GHz sustained turbo at 25-28W. Laptops with crappy cooling will ramp down more and end up with sustained Cinebench R15 multi scores in the 500s.
It can hit it's turbo boost ceiling. It's a matter of how long it can stay there that's the downside. Could be a few secs, could be a few minutes. It's more the former, than the latter though.
It's more complex than just active cooling = no/little throttling, no active cooling = throttling. MS has developed one of the best passive cooling solutions for ULV CPUs, second only to Acer liquid loop, and it has improved it over the years. Hardly any manufacturer manages to do as well. What's more it's even harder in a detachable like the surface. Surface pro 5 outperforms some active cooled 7th gen i5 laptops in sustained loads. So no, it's not just throttling (as it was in surface pro 3) but above all how good the passive heat dissipation is.
-No need for USB C. Yet. Ish -No need for HDR. See through the marketing. (Yeah, but it would be nice) -and? -Did you view the graphs? -No issues there. -Pretty poor. At least we have a usb port to add something faster -True dat.
The iPad is more of a toy when you think about it. I have an i5 4Gb Surface Pro (2017) and the first gen ipad pro (12.5"). The ipad is my web browser and mild gaming while the pro is everything else. But that's me.
I love my SP4, but you are not wrong. The SP6 is like the third generation of the SP4, and the SP4 was not all that different from the SP3 to begin with. Microsoft needs to cure the core problems on the platform (wireless speed, storage speed, and bad long-term reliability) and bring the physical IO situation to modern standards. I could live without the graphical updates, but the rest of it is non-negotiable. It's 2018, almost 2019, and it doesn't have USB-C. That is just not acceptable.
While I don't disagree that it probably should have usbc for future proofing I really haven't seen anything making use of it. There always seems to be an alternative at the minute.
I've never had any long-term reliability problems (knock on wood) and I've owned the Surface Pro 2, 2 Surface Pro 4, and a Surface Pro 2017. I think the SP2017 was a big step up from SP4. My SP4's battery life was borderline terrible as with my workflow, I would get maybe 3 hours of battery life on a single charge. Sleeping was awful so I basically shut down the SP4 to conserve battery. But the 2017 model (both i7, 8GB, 256GB) would get nearly a full work day's worth on the same workflow.
Never in the Surface Pro or Surface Book, possibly one day in cheapest Surface. Microsoft try ARM before and it failed. It interesting Microsoft has Windows for ARM ( Qualcomm ) and don't even use it in there own product. Sounds like Qualcomm paid Microsoft to developed Windows for ARM.
How is the i5 SP6 beating the Surface book 2 at the h264 tests? They both have 8th gen quads, while the SB2 have active cooling and a higher TDP. It doesn't make sense..
The SB2 is a mixed bag. No dedicated graphics, no active cooling. Even if you have the dedicated Nvidia GPU, only the performance base gets active cooling. None of the versions have active cooling for the Intel CPU. It's probably throttling right after a few secs of work.
I think you should do sustained CPU tests with cinebench, as Notebookcheck does. It reveals device's true performance under long, heavy workloads and tests the effectiveness of the cooling solution better.
For example, in their tests surface book 2 15" achieved a 669 score on the first, cold run but by the fifth run it was down to 589 and later on it hovered in the 584-586 range.
I think the idea is to chart multiple Cinebench runs like they do on notebookcheck.
The first result demonstrates the capability of the chip, at the thermal settings specified by the laptop vendor. Some vendors specify an extremely high max TDP for short turbo.
Subsequent results show how much performance degradation is attributed to good/bad thermals, as well as the vendor specified sustained TDP.
You can run it back-to-back in a loop. Notebookcheck does 50 runs, although you can do less since the lowest sustained number usually becomes clear by the 10-11th run.
Mistake: " Here the Surface Pro 6 does quite well, especially on the lower detail settings. When the game is set to its maximum settings at 1920x1080, the Iris GPU in last year’s Surface Pro 6 ends up throttling heavily and offering lower performance despite being a quicker GPU on paper."
Should be: "last year's Surface Pro (2017) ends up..."
Yawn. No new features, even more anemic GPUs, still meh battery life, throttled performance.
What is the point of a pro device if there is noting pro about it? At least the macbook "pros", for as anemic and poorly designed as they are, have the option of iris plus graphics. They are the only company to use the 28 watt options. MS cant even be bothered to use the 15w iris chips.
Did you read the review? Did you look at the charts? Does the macbook have a touchscreen? Can you use a stylus on the mac that's of the same quality? Did you notice that the Iris graphics didn't offer that much compared to a quad core cpu? Did you notice that the battery life is class leading? Did you notice that it didn't throttle as much as, for example, the Dell quad tablets?
For the intended use, what purpose does more GPU serve other than decrease battery life? My workbench computer is a previous gen I3, and it handles electronic CAD and my 3D model railroad CAD programs just fine - every bit as snappy as my main desktop with a GTX970. There is absolutely no difference with Office type apps. This isn't a gaming device. I built my workbench computer to be as small and low power as possible (without resorting to the ultra low power laptop CPUs), so no discrete GPU, not even Iris, just a plain old I3 and an SSD in a mini-ITX cube. It does the job just fine. So will this Surface. So, in fact, does my laptop, with an I7-660U - it can run the same programs just fine. Games? No, but I did't buy it for that.
And to think that the only reason I have a SP4 instead of a SP3 is that I was holding out for a USB-C port! It would have been fairly early to market at that point. Looks like I made a great decision.
Tell me... what would you use that port for? You can do it... you can hold out for the Surface pro 3.
You could always try the 'Surface Connect to USB-C Adapter'?
Heck wouldn't it be great to run USB c raid arrays with this? No. Heck wouldn't it be great to have an external GPU with this? No, how much money do you have!? Heck wouldn't it be great to have a fast usb C thumb drive? No, USB 3.1 drives are still selling lots. Heck wouldn't it be great to have HDR?
The main draw of the Type C is that I can charge my laptop and phone with the same charger (and even power my 2in1 with a mobile power pack with USB-PD). I fail to see how a more future proof port that already offers display out capacities is worse than the mini-DP in the SP5. Also, while External GPU's via Thunderbolt 3 are expensive, it is cheaper than building a complete desktop just to get a similar (or likely better) experience. Why is more choice bad?
It's not bad, at all, but the quality on the USB C chargers is startling. Same with the docks. Plus it's another change to overcharge for something that should realistically be cheap. While all of the printers, scanners, mice, keyboards and thumb drives are still USB, USB C can just wait.
Plus there's always the MS adapter. People are probably not aware of that.
Usb-c and usb-a ports aren't exactly mutually exclusive. We can pretty easily have both simple backwards compatibility and future proofing in the same model. Meanwhile the future proofing option offers obvious and significant utility opportunities that are just not available on the previous generation spec. To skip it on a flagship device when the tech has been available for years and is now being used by pretty much all of the competition even down to mainstream pricing levels seems like a significant oversight.
Brett, I think you are underestimating the difference between the 2017 i5 and i7 in battery life. I have seen reports of over one hour more battery like in the fanless i5. So I don't think battery like in the 2018 model has improved much or at all. Once we have some direct i5 to i5 comparisons (eg. from notebookcheck) we'll be able to see if there is any improvement worth mentioning.
Yes and the display is 100 nits brighter so being able to reproduce the same black level with a white that's 100 nits brighter is a sizeable improvement.
Argggh, I hate that Avastar wireless card so much. I have a Surface Pro 3 and it posts decent 802.11ac speeds for when the SP3 was new... most of the time... but sometimes it just decides to screw up and slow down by like 90%. Copying files over the network, wired gigabit to wired gigabit PC? 60 MB/sec, forever. 802.11ac adapter in my dad's laptop? 40 MB/s. That damn Avastar? 30 MB/s, until it decides to screw up, then 2.5! Yay!
Do you guys have plans on reviewing the Laptop 2? I'd like to know more about the display calibration and throttling characteristics.
Also, I wish you guys were a little harder on Microsoft about their misleading SSD dual sourcing with review and retail units. Historically (I've noticed this with the SP4, SB1, SP2017, SL1), they send reviewers a unit with a decent drive, but in retail, you'll only ever find units sold with a cacheless, slow TLC drive that doesn't even come close to the results seen in reviews. This has been passed off as lottery/dual-sourcing in the past, but I deploy these machines and follow user comments online, and have yet to find anyone who has received the "good" drive.
For example, for the first gen Surface Book, they sent reviewers units with a decent Toshiba drive, but every retail unit had the PM951 which was a truly awful drive in the 128 and 256 GB configurations since it did not have the TurboWrite from the equivalent EVO.
In the 2017 models, they sent reviewers units with a decent PM971, but almost every retail unit had the piece of junk Toshiba THNSN0128GTYA. Sometimes, in the case of Notebookcheck, they even misled the reviewers into thinking the i5 comes with the Toshiba and i7 with the PM971, but every i7 Surface Laptop I've deployed still has the crappy Toshiba drive.
Many people, especially content creators, who want a good SSD buy Surface devices and come out disappointed when they don't perform up to par with MacBooks. It's unclear to me if MS is still doing this with 2018 devices, but they really need to be called out.
I actually had a surface pro 4 with the toshiba drive. The screen developed a pressure spot and i took it in to the microsoft store and i requested a replacement with the same drive and not the slow samsung drive. No one i the store had ever seen the toshiba drive. We tried 4 sp4 and they all had the samsung drive.
I am willing to bet the new Surface sucks in real life just as much as the previous ones. Super unreliable driving more than one monitor and I’ve just had two where the battery has swollen detaching the screen - I will say though MS was great replacing both even though their warranties ended a year earlier. Also the high rez screen SUCKS - you need a lot of scaling to use it directly or when running multiple monitors it can cause issues getting resolutions set. I have never seen anyone use it as a tablet - they are either docked or used with a keyboard. A thin & light laptop is the better solution IMO.
Btw my inital comment about multi monitors - Surfaces have a terrible time reliably attaching to monitors via dock. Telling execs to unplug and replug until they work is not good. All but two (we have 18 deployed) users hate them...
This is why I am hesitant to purchase 3:2 screen laptops for work. 16:9 desktop monitors are the norm in workplaces and homes. 3:2 might be more practical on a small screen but 16:9 is just easier with 1:1 docking when you don't work primarily with the laptop screen.
With a non-replaceable battery these devices have a usable life of 3 years or less before they become landfill. AVOID (Ifixit gives the Surface Pro 6 a repairability score of 1 out of 10 - unrepairable)
This is just non-sense. I have a 5 year old Macbook Pro I use almost everyday and its battery is fine. I'm sure some will die in 3 years, but most will run just fine for much longer.
I think it looks great. Some aspects of Windows 10 looks pretty decent too. Too bad a lot of third party Windows software seems made by people who seemingly have little sense of graphic/user interface design an seems stuck with a Windows 95-ish look for their apps.
"the display on the Surface Pro 6 is one of the best around, with accurate colors, high resolution, and now, even better contrast."
The hell it is, the Ipad Pro has had a brighter, higher contrast, HDR display since last year AND has great battery life. My phone has a brighter, higher contrast, better calibrated, HDR display than this has. Lenovo has HDR screens on laptops that work fine, and have a higher PPI to boot. Microsoft is driving around competing for an entire division lower than "best tech possible" and charging a thousand+ dollars for it.
This entire device is pathetic, Whiskey Lake has a USB 3.1 controller built in but MS has deliberately downgraded it, probably just to make it's NEXT Surface seem like a better upgrade. Where's the Thunderboldt 3 ports MS? Intel dropped the licensing, even AMD laptops include it. Calling this device anything other than a deliberately crippled second tier device MS doesn't care about is a journalistic disservice.
"Other than Apple, Microsoft is the only company that controls both the hardware and software sides, and when the Surface lineup launched way back in 2012, Microsoft’s goal was to showcase the advantages of their platform with a premium hardware lineup. "
I'm curious what things you think Microsoft have done to take advantage of this in 2018?
Can you please let us know which software you use to measure the thermal performance in this review? If it's proprietary are you able to share it with us?
I am asking because my i5 Surface Pro 6 reproduces the results from all other benchmarks you have run on your test unit, but using prime95 or the powermax stress test, I absolutely havent to replicate your thermals. When all cores are testes (8 threads) the clock stabilizes at 2.4GHz and is a far way from the 2.9GHz you mention. The way I can replicate your results almost 1:1, is if I set the test to 2 threads, then I get a stable power draw of 18W with an average clock of 2.9GHz
Would love to see the same laptop with AMD's APU pro series installed. I have no doubt they can more than match CPU & GPU output at a lower price. Not that anyone is interested in high performance, low cost laptops these days.
When running the battery tests what was the brightness set to? (ie. 40%) It's hard for us to translate nits to windows brightness control. Also was the keyboard attached and was the video playback with audio? If so, what was the volume set to? I am trying to recreate the video playback test with my surface.
I'm a digital artist . I have a Surface Pro and I use it for drawing in Illustrator and like it a lot! Definitely do not regret the purchase, it saves me hours in terms of workflow. but the pen experience is not as good as the professional drawing tablet . I have a XP-Pen Artist 24 Pro drawing tablet with screen 24" . The pressure on my XP-Pen Artist 24 Pro screen drawing tablet is lighter and smoother especially at the low end, giving better, more natural marks. The Surface is usable, but is a bit of a compromise compared to the Artist 24 Pro . If you are looking for the best pen experience go with the professional graphic tablet.
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
80 Comments
Back to Article
Speedfriend - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
For all the talk of a lack of innovation from Intel, the charts comparing the various generations are quite incredible. 60% improvement in single threaded, 175% in multi, combined with a 100% improvement in battery life.Microsoft has got a winning device here, I see more Surface Pros at conferences than any other type of laptop including Macs, though still behind iPads
fallaha56 - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
you’re bigging up numbers from years and years ago....vanilla_gorilla - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
I'm guessing these are Microsoft conferences? Not sure where you're seeing more Surface devices than Macs or Thinkpads or HP laptops. Surface sells in incredibly small numbers compared to those other manufacturers. And what conferences have more iPads than anything? I'm not sure if you're lying or if you're attending conferences selling timeshares to senior citizens?althaz - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
You're just wrong here. Apple definitely sells more than Microsoft (Lenovo is around the level of Apple with HP and Dell far outstrip the rest). But the different isn't huge. There's no world in which "Surface sell in incredibly small numbers" compared to any other manufacturer's line.When you are talking about premium laptop-ish devices, the Surface line is comparable to the other popular makes. It's smaller than the top 4 - but in its category not by all that much.
melgross - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
I don’t know what conferences you go to, other than those for IT, but I’ve never seen one of these anywhere.With all of the talk about these, as though they’re really important, Microsoft still has to show that they can grow yearly sales beyond the 3 million (maybe!) they barely managed so far. With SurfaceBook sales lower than 500,00 a year, and the Surface PC supposedly in the tens of thousands a year, none of these lines are doing anything near well.
TheinsanegamerN - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
Except that speed increase comes from lower power usage. At the same clocks, intels chips are still not any faster then 3 years ago.Yeah, great, you went from "slow" to "decent speed.". The iGPU is still no faster, max performance is still dependent on the cooling system, and anything that isnt restricted to CFL light-bulb power levels is no faster.
name99 - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
Looking at this sort of improvement misses the reason for concern with Intel.The original CPU (i3-4020Y) is 1.5 GHz, no turbo.
The end point CPU (i7-7660U) is 2.5GHz base, turbo to 4GHz.
Now from one point of view, it's nice that Intel has managed to boost frequency this way while not moving too far outside the power envelope. That helps low power devices (like Surface!) AND it helps large core count server chips.
BUT look at the larger story. It's about lower power, NOT about higher achievable frequencies. The tech that got this does not help that much in boosting the frequency of your 120W desktop CPU in single-threaded mode. Meanwhile, there's been very little improvement in IPC, which can improve performance at the high end.
If you care about some classes of devices, yes, great progress by Intel. But if you care about single-threaded performance at the high end, what's shown here is irrelevant, and just highlights that Intel either through inability or lack of interest is not delivering anything close to the same improvements at the high end.
GreenReaper - Friday, October 19, 2018 - link
The original was a i5-3317U dual-core hyperthreaded 1.7Ghz -> 2.6Ghz turbo. I have one. It's still quite nice, although with the cooling it has it can only maintain ~1.9Ghz under full load with BOINC.Surface Pro 2 and 3 were significant steps back in terms of single-threaded performance, to achieve the "thin and light" goal and improve battery life. That was probably the right decision for the target audience, but given I use my Pro 1 as a second screen I'm glad I got it cheap when the Pro 2 came out.
Eliadbu - Friday, October 19, 2018 - link
The days of CPU improvement are near the endIPC improvement is near the limit adding more instruction to the already large CISC is doubtfully helpful. We are just about the end on how far we can push the clock speed and and adding more cores and threads is useful but to a certain degree. And this is also true for AMD. A new direction should be taken like instead of stack of general purpose CPUs for a all consumers a family of specialized CPUs would good idea.
wr3zzz - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
What is the downside of using a U-class CPU without active cooling? Surface Pro i5 is not the only one. Huawei's Matebook also pairs U-class 15Watt chips without fans.Why won't more companies do this?
fallaha56 - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
Chip cannot ramp up as much...makes it slow in real life, stuck at 3Ghz instead of hitting 4+wr3zzz - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
Got it. I just checked the i5-8250U spec. Its turbo ceiling should be 3.4Ghz and according to this article the Surface Pro can only hit consistently at 3Ghz before needing to throttle down.Still, I wish more companies would make fanless U-series laptops. Given that prices are basically the same I would like to have choices between 3.2Ghz two core Y-series or throttled 3Ghz four core U-series in various silent form factors.
Brett Howse - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
3.4 GHz will be the max on 1 core though not all 4 cores.krutou - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
Depending on laptop manufacturer settings for max turbo TDP, it is possible to hit 3.4 GHz on 4 cores with a 35-45W short turbo.Clock speeds will ramp down for sustained turbo, and with decent cooling maintain 3.0-3.3 GHz sustained turbo at 25-28W. Laptops with crappy cooling will ramp down more and end up with sustained Cinebench R15 multi scores in the 500s.
khanikun - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
It can hit it's turbo boost ceiling. It's a matter of how long it can stay there that's the downside. Could be a few secs, could be a few minutes. It's more the former, than the latter though.krutou - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
Hell no. There is no point in having a quad-core Intel CPU without active cooling.The 8250U already hits its thermal limit easily in most laptops with active cooling.
If you don't want fans, buy the neutered Y-class CPUs.
damianrobertjones - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
Did you read the review? Did you look at the charts?After doing so I made an order for the i5, 8Gb, 128Gb model to replace my 2017 i5, 4Gb, 128Gb Surface. Done.
For what I do the new i5 model trashes the older 2017 i5.
digiguy - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
It's more complex than just active cooling = no/little throttling, no active cooling = throttling.MS has developed one of the best passive cooling solutions for ULV CPUs, second only to Acer liquid loop, and it has improved it over the years. Hardly any manufacturer manages to do as well. What's more it's even harder in a detachable like the surface. Surface pro 5 outperforms some active cooled 7th gen i5 laptops in sustained loads. So no, it's not just throttling (as it was in surface pro 3) but above all how good the passive heat dissipation is.
fallaha56 - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
so, in summary:-no USB-C
-no HDR
-same resolution
-no IrisPro
-likely UHS-I
-slow Wi-Fi, no BT5
-no Spectre / Meltdown hardware fix
Surface owners groaning...count me out for at least a generation, plus the new iPadPro will probably be getting a shout...
damianrobertjones - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
-No need for USB C. Yet. Ish-No need for HDR. See through the marketing. (Yeah, but it would be nice)
-and?
-Did you view the graphs?
-No issues there.
-Pretty poor. At least we have a usb port to add something faster
-True dat.
The iPad is more of a toy when you think about it. I have an i5 4Gb Surface Pro (2017) and the first gen ipad pro (12.5"). The ipad is my web browser and mild gaming while the pro is everything else. But that's me.
melgross - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
I’ll take my iPad Pro any day over this. There’s far more software than you think, and performance beats most of these.damianrobertjones - Sunday, February 10, 2019 - link
Nah. I have a first gen iPad pro and it's a toy, to me, compared to a Surface Pro.Opinions vary.
murph17 - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
True. Mostly just another spec bump. True re-design/update is rumored for next year. Ready for it!erwos - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
I love my SP4, but you are not wrong. The SP6 is like the third generation of the SP4, and the SP4 was not all that different from the SP3 to begin with. Microsoft needs to cure the core problems on the platform (wireless speed, storage speed, and bad long-term reliability) and bring the physical IO situation to modern standards. I could live without the graphical updates, but the rest of it is non-negotiable. It's 2018, almost 2019, and it doesn't have USB-C. That is just not acceptable.jimbo2779 - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link
While I don't disagree that it probably should have usbc for future proofing I really haven't seen anything making use of it. There always seems to be an alternative at the minute.dirtyvu - Thursday, November 1, 2018 - link
I've never had any long-term reliability problems (knock on wood) and I've owned the Surface Pro 2, 2 Surface Pro 4, and a Surface Pro 2017. I think the SP2017 was a big step up from SP4. My SP4's battery life was borderline terrible as with my workflow, I would get maybe 3 hours of battery life on a single charge. Sleeping was awful so I basically shut down the SP4 to conserve battery. But the 2017 model (both i7, 8GB, 256GB) would get nearly a full work day's worth on the same workflow.fallaha56 - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
Can only hope MS ditch Intel for a 7nm AMD APU for the next gen (or possibly ARM)HStewart - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
Never in the Surface Pro or Surface Book, possibly one day in cheapest Surface. Microsoft try ARM before and it failed. It interesting Microsoft has Windows for ARM ( Qualcomm ) and don't even use it in there own product. Sounds like Qualcomm paid Microsoft to developed Windows for ARM.SaolDan - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
I have the same dream.francescop1 - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
How is the i5 SP6 beating the Surface book 2 at the h264 tests? They both have 8th gen quads, while the SB2 have active cooling and a higher TDP. It doesn't make sense..khanikun - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
The SB2 is a mixed bag. No dedicated graphics, no active cooling. Even if you have the dedicated Nvidia GPU, only the performance base gets active cooling. None of the versions have active cooling for the Intel CPU. It's probably throttling right after a few secs of work.eddman - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
The 15" SB2 has a CPU fan.https://www.notebookcheck.net/Microsoft-Surface-Bo...
Mitch89 - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
Feels like an Intel Quick sync thing.GreenReaper - Friday, October 19, 2018 - link
Yeah, the video block is a part of the GPU and I imagine the GTX 1060 just does it slightly slower.awehring - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
In the battery test 2013 there is a difference of 34 minutes in the graphic, not 1.25 hours as in the text.Some typo?
Brett Howse - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
Graphic shows 607 for SP6 and 533 for SP5? That's 74 minutes not 34.awehring - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
Oh, sure, you are right.Had 5:33 in my head.
thesloth - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
Would be nice to know the minimum brightness too.Brett Howse - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
It's 5 nits - sorry forgot to mention that.eddman - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
I think you should do sustained CPU tests with cinebench, as Notebookcheck does. It reveals device's true performance under long, heavy workloads and tests the effectiveness of the cooling solution better.For example, in their tests surface book 2 15" achieved a 669 score on the first, cold run but by the fifth run it was down to 589 and later on it hovered in the 584-586 range.
Brett Howse - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
Cinebench isn't long enough for sustained workload testing, but we run it 8 times and throw out the first number. x264 is a much longer test.krutou - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
I think the idea is to chart multiple Cinebench runs like they do on notebookcheck.The first result demonstrates the capability of the chip, at the thermal settings specified by the laptop vendor. Some vendors specify an extremely high max TDP for short turbo.
Subsequent results show how much performance degradation is attributed to good/bad thermals, as well as the vendor specified sustained TDP.
eddman - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
You can run it back-to-back in a loop. Notebookcheck does 50 runs, although you can do less since the lowest sustained number usually becomes clear by the 10-11th run.You run it 8 times in a loop or with pauses?
eddman - Saturday, November 10, 2018 - link
Just as I expected. While i7 model's performance drops by ~11%, the i5 drops by ~25%. That's quite significant.https://www.notebookcheck.net/Microsoft-Surface-Pr...
The omission of the fan was a bad move.
darkich - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
I don't understand..what supposed performance bump?If anything, the performance is a total fiasco judging by those web tests!
damianrobertjones - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
It look close but anything multi-threaded will adore the new quad Cpu. Single threaded will be down to cache.i5-7300u - i5-8250u
2.60GHz - 1.60GHz Base Freq
3.5GHz - 3.40GHz Max Turbo
3Mb - 6Mb Smartcache
2 - 4 cores
You might want to view ALL the graphs instead of the ones that you want to prove your point.
damianrobertjones - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
Mistake:" Here the Surface Pro 6 does quite well, especially on the lower detail settings. When the game is set to its maximum settings at 1920x1080, the Iris GPU in last year’s Surface Pro 6 ends up throttling heavily and offering lower performance despite being a quicker GPU on paper."
Should be: "last year's Surface Pro (2017) ends up..."
TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
Yawn. No new features, even more anemic GPUs, still meh battery life, throttled performance.What is the point of a pro device if there is noting pro about it? At least the macbook "pros", for as anemic and poorly designed as they are, have the option of iris plus graphics. They are the only company to use the 28 watt options. MS cant even be bothered to use the 15w iris chips.
damianrobertjones - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
Did you read the review? Did you look at the charts? Does the macbook have a touchscreen? Can you use a stylus on the mac that's of the same quality? Did you notice that the Iris graphics didn't offer that much compared to a quad core cpu? Did you notice that the battery life is class leading? Did you notice that it didn't throttle as much as, for example, the Dell quad tablets?rrinker - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
For the intended use, what purpose does more GPU serve other than decrease battery life? My workbench computer is a previous gen I3, and it handles electronic CAD and my 3D model railroad CAD programs just fine - every bit as snappy as my main desktop with a GTX970. There is absolutely no difference with Office type apps. This isn't a gaming device. I built my workbench computer to be as small and low power as possible (without resorting to the ultra low power laptop CPUs), so no discrete GPU, not even Iris, just a plain old I3 and an SSD in a mini-ITX cube. It does the job just fine. So will this Surface. So, in fact, does my laptop, with an I7-660U - it can run the same programs just fine. Games? No, but I did't buy it for that.sorten - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
And to think that the only reason I have a SP4 instead of a SP3 is that I was holding out for a USB-C port! It would have been fairly early to market at that point. Looks like I made a great decision.damianrobertjones - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
Tell me... what would you use that port for? You can do it... you can hold out for the Surface pro 3.You could always try the 'Surface Connect to USB-C Adapter'?
Heck wouldn't it be great to run USB c raid arrays with this? No.
Heck wouldn't it be great to have an external GPU with this? No, how much money do you have!?
Heck wouldn't it be great to have a fast usb C thumb drive? No, USB 3.1 drives are still selling lots.
Heck wouldn't it be great to have HDR?
Oh, here we go, the next excuse.
drew805 - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
The main draw of the Type C is that I can charge my laptop and phone with the same charger (and even power my 2in1 with a mobile power pack with USB-PD). I fail to see how a more future proof port that already offers display out capacities is worse than the mini-DP in the SP5. Also, while External GPU's via Thunderbolt 3 are expensive, it is cheaper than building a complete desktop just to get a similar (or likely better) experience. Why is more choice bad?damianrobertjones - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
It's not bad, at all, but the quality on the USB C chargers is startling. Same with the docks. Plus it's another change to overcharge for something that should realistically be cheap. While all of the printers, scanners, mice, keyboards and thumb drives are still USB, USB C can just wait.Plus there's always the MS adapter. People are probably not aware of that.
desolation0 - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
Usb-c and usb-a ports aren't exactly mutually exclusive. We can pretty easily have both simple backwards compatibility and future proofing in the same model. Meanwhile the future proofing option offers obvious and significant utility opportunities that are just not available on the previous generation spec. To skip it on a flagship device when the tech has been available for years and is now being used by pretty much all of the competition even down to mainstream pricing levels seems like a significant oversight.digiguy - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
Brett, I think you are underestimating the difference between the 2017 i5 and i7 in battery life. I have seen reports of over one hour more battery like in the fanless i5. So I don't think battery like in the 2018 model has improved much or at all. Once we have some direct i5 to i5 comparisons (eg. from notebookcheck) we'll be able to see if there is any improvement worth mentioning.OCedHrt - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
The black levels on surface 6 and 4 are the same?Brett Howse - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
Yes and the display is 100 nits brighter so being able to reproduce the same black level with a white that's 100 nits brighter is a sizeable improvement.evilspoons - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
Argggh, I hate that Avastar wireless card so much. I have a Surface Pro 3 and it posts decent 802.11ac speeds for when the SP3 was new... most of the time... but sometimes it just decides to screw up and slow down by like 90%. Copying files over the network, wired gigabit to wired gigabit PC? 60 MB/sec, forever. 802.11ac adapter in my dad's laptop? 40 MB/s. That damn Avastar? 30 MB/s, until it decides to screw up, then 2.5! Yay!Holliday75 - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
Yeah my SP3 is slower than shit on my WiFi. Usually get around 22-25MB/s. I had to force it to 5.2ghz to get those speeds.Da W - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
There used to have a big difference between i5 and i7 on surface. Not anymore. An i5 is enough and you will save 300$.stacey94 - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
Do you guys have plans on reviewing the Laptop 2? I'd like to know more about the display calibration and throttling characteristics.Also, I wish you guys were a little harder on Microsoft about their misleading SSD dual sourcing with review and retail units. Historically (I've noticed this with the SP4, SB1, SP2017, SL1), they send reviewers a unit with a decent drive, but in retail, you'll only ever find units sold with a cacheless, slow TLC drive that doesn't even come close to the results seen in reviews. This has been passed off as lottery/dual-sourcing in the past, but I deploy these machines and follow user comments online, and have yet to find anyone who has received the "good" drive.
For example, for the first gen Surface Book, they sent reviewers units with a decent Toshiba drive, but every retail unit had the PM951 which was a truly awful drive in the 128 and 256 GB configurations since it did not have the TurboWrite from the equivalent EVO.
In the 2017 models, they sent reviewers units with a decent PM971, but almost every retail unit had the piece of junk Toshiba THNSN0128GTYA. Sometimes, in the case of Notebookcheck, they even misled the reviewers into thinking the i5 comes with the Toshiba and i7 with the PM971, but every i7 Surface Laptop I've deployed still has the crappy Toshiba drive.
Many people, especially content creators, who want a good SSD buy Surface devices and come out disappointed when they don't perform up to par with MacBooks. It's unclear to me if MS is still doing this with 2018 devices, but they really need to be called out.
SaolDan - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
I actually had a surface pro 4 with the toshiba drive. The screen developed a pressure spot and i took it in to the microsoft store and i requested a replacement with the same drive and not the slow samsung drive. No one i the store had ever seen the toshiba drive. We tried 4 sp4 and they all had the samsung drive.Icehawk - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
I am willing to bet the new Surface sucks in real life just as much as the previous ones. Super unreliable driving more than one monitor and I’ve just had two where the battery has swollen detaching the screen - I will say though MS was great replacing both even though their warranties ended a year earlier. Also the high rez screen SUCKS - you need a lot of scaling to use it directly or when running multiple monitors it can cause issues getting resolutions set. I have never seen anyone use it as a tablet - they are either docked or used with a keyboard. A thin & light laptop is the better solution IMO.Icehawk - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
Btw my inital comment about multi monitors - Surfaces have a terrible time reliably attaching to monitors via dock. Telling execs to unplug and replug until they work is not good. All but two (we have 18 deployed) users hate them...wr3zzz - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
This is why I am hesitant to purchase 3:2 screen laptops for work. 16:9 desktop monitors are the norm in workplaces and homes. 3:2 might be more practical on a small screen but 16:9 is just easier with 1:1 docking when you don't work primarily with the laptop screen.tipoo - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
"The lack of an Intel Iris GPU option was unavoidable, since it no longer exists in the 15-Watt range,"Hmm. Wonder what happens to the 13" rMBP non-touchbar then.
Lew Zealand - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
The 13" rMBP is still using Kaby Lake because of that.Not to worry, the Mac Mini is still using *Haswell.*
WatcherCK - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
Do you still get a (time limited) free 365 subscription when buying a surface? I remember that being a thing with the older models...Duncan Macdonald - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
With a non-replaceable battery these devices have a usable life of 3 years or less before they become landfill. AVOID(Ifixit gives the Surface Pro 6 a repairability score of 1 out of 10 - unrepairable)
cfenton - Monday, November 5, 2018 - link
This is just non-sense. I have a 5 year old Macbook Pro I use almost everyday and its battery is fine. I'm sure some will die in 3 years, but most will run just fine for much longer.star-affinity - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
I think it looks great. Some aspects of Windows 10 looks pretty decent too. Too bad a lot of third party Windows software seems made by people who seemingly have little sense of graphic/user interface design an seems stuck with a Windows 95-ish look for their apps.Frenetic Pony - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
"the display on the Surface Pro 6 is one of the best around, with accurate colors, high resolution, and now, even better contrast."The hell it is, the Ipad Pro has had a brighter, higher contrast, HDR display since last year AND has great battery life. My phone has a brighter, higher contrast, better calibrated, HDR display than this has. Lenovo has HDR screens on laptops that work fine, and have a higher PPI to boot. Microsoft is driving around competing for an entire division lower than "best tech possible" and charging a thousand+ dollars for it.
This entire device is pathetic, Whiskey Lake has a USB 3.1 controller built in but MS has deliberately downgraded it, probably just to make it's NEXT Surface seem like a better upgrade. Where's the Thunderboldt 3 ports MS? Intel dropped the licensing, even AMD laptops include it. Calling this device anything other than a deliberately crippled second tier device MS doesn't care about is a journalistic disservice.
Mitch89 - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
"Other than Apple, Microsoft is the only company that controls both the hardware and software sides, and when the Surface lineup launched way back in 2012, Microsoft’s goal was to showcase the advantages of their platform with a premium hardware lineup. "I'm curious what things you think Microsoft have done to take advantage of this in 2018?
domboy - Friday, October 26, 2018 - link
Now if they'd just release a new ARM-based Surface with all these same improvements...c.economides - Saturday, October 27, 2018 - link
Can you please let us know which software you use to measure the thermal performance in this review?If it's proprietary are you able to share it with us?
Thank you.
c.economides - Saturday, October 27, 2018 - link
I am asking because my i5 Surface Pro 6 reproduces the results from all other benchmarks you have run on your test unit, but using prime95 or the powermax stress test, I absolutely havent to replicate your thermals.When all cores are testes (8 threads) the clock stabilizes at 2.4GHz and is a far way from the 2.9GHz you mention. The way I can replicate your results almost 1:1, is if I set the test to 2 threads, then I get a stable power draw of 18W with an average clock of 2.9GHz
albert89 - Saturday, November 10, 2018 - link
Would love to see the same laptop with AMD's APU pro series installed.I have no doubt they can more than match CPU & GPU output at a lower price.
Not that anyone is interested in high performance, low cost laptops these days.
dehwei - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link
When running the battery tests what was the brightness set to? (ie. 40%) It's hard for us to translate nits to windows brightness control. Also was the keyboard attached and was the video playback with audio? If so, what was the volume set to? I am trying to recreate the video playback test with my surface.qiechai - Friday, June 12, 2020 - link
I'm a digital artist . I have a Surface Pro and I use it for drawing in Illustrator and like it a lot! Definitely do not regret the purchase, it saves me hours in terms of workflow. but the pen experience is not as good as the professional drawing tablet . I have a XP-Pen Artist 24 Pro drawing tablet with screen 24" . The pressure on my XP-Pen Artist 24 Pro screen drawing tablet is lighter and smoother especially at the low end, giving better, more natural marks. The Surface is usable, but is a bit of a compromise compared to the Artist 24 Pro . If you are looking for the best pen experience go with the professional graphic tablet.