Still the best tablet-laptop: Microsoft’s Surface Pro 9 review | Tech Reddy

Let’s talk about the Surface Pro 9.

Which Surface Pro 9? The 5G version, which comes with a Microsoft SQ3 Arm processor from Qualcomm, and not the typical shortcomings of an Arm Windows device (relatively low performance, application compatibility problems), but the vanilla, simple Surface Pro 9, Intel – based on the decade-old numbered Surface Pro models.

Aside from that name confusion, the regular Surface Pro 9 isn’t designed to impress. It improves performance while keeping (mostly) everything that worked on previous models. It won’t win over all Surface haters, but for those who love their 3-5 year old Surface tablet, it should be a pretty safe upgrade.

See and feel

The basic design of the new Surface Pro is the same as it was eight years ago, when Microsoft invented a fully adjustable kickstand and keyboard that fold into the screen to increase stability and prevent the entire device from flopping around on a table. or lap (a lesson some tablet manufacturers choose not to learn).

The design has steadily evolved since then, opting for USB-C ports (and eliminating USB-A), shrinking the bezels of the display, enlarging the display itself, and gradually getting faster and bigger. The biggest change came last year, when Microsoft redesigned the front of the tablet enough to break compatibility with older Surface Type covers, but the screen size went up from 12.3 inches to 13 inches. The Surface Pro 8 mirrors design changes Microsoft made to the Arm-based Surface Pro X a few years ago, and the two are compatible with the same keyboard covers and other accessories.

Compared to those changes, the Surface Pro 9 is an upgrade mostly small enough to be overlooked by most people. The buttons and ports have been moved, but the Microsoft Signature keyboard has the same cover, the same screen, and the same front and rear cameras. Pen support is the same (we had some notes about the Surface Slim Pen 2 in our Surface Pro 8 review). It’s lighter, but not by as much as you’d notice (just 0.02 pounds). And the Surface Pro 9 comes in a green ‘Forest’ option and a blue ‘Sapphire’ finish rather than Graphite and Platinum (our review unit is Sapphire and looks pretty good). The default Windows 11 flower wallpaper is color-matched to the finish you choose, which is a nice touch.

Someone else will change you it’s possible Note that the headphone jack is where the headphone jack (it fits perfectly into the device but for some reason doesn’t work) goes when it dies. If I were to list every device released without a headphone jack in the last two or three years, we’d be here all night. Let me just say that as the number of devices in my life that don’t have a headphone jack increase, so does the amount of time I spend cursing Bluetooth and related technologies.

Every time my phone refused to connect to my headphones, they connected to the computer above instead; whenever my battery runs out in the middle of something; Every time a bud falls out of my ear and lands on the floor or sidewalk, I ask if we really have one. improved things, or if we simply swapped one set of problems for another, more expensive set of problems. I still use wired headphones sometimes, and I can’t say I miss the wire hanging out and holding everything. But they’re reliable and predictable, two adjectives that don’t enter any conversation about Bluetooth audio unless you prefix them with “un-.”

All the same. Bluetooth audio on the Surface Pro 9 doesn’t seem to be any better or worse than most devices I’ve used.

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