Surface Laptop 4: Variety of joy

 

Today, April 13th, 2021, Microsoft has announced the new 13.5-inch and 15-inch models of the Surface Laptop. Not a lot of changes in the hardware but there are some sweeping changes in the silicon choices. Last year's Surface Laptop 3 brought AMD into the mix for the first time. Where areas this year you can mix and match AMD and intel processors in the 13.5-inch and 15-inch models. Sounds great right...…right? 

 
 

Starting off at hardware we still have the classic metal build that has been a trademark of the Surface brand; these models come in matte black and platinum for the 15-inch models whilst adding a sandstone color for the 13-inch. Alcantara brings more vibrant colors on the 13.5-inch models with a new ice blue and platinum color palate. I'm sad that Surface products are distancing themselves from Alcantara, going with magnesium or metal is nice (I'm typing this on a magnesium Surface Book after all), but I still prefer the typing notion of Alcantara on the Surface Pro and I wish they could lean into it on Surface Laptop. Rants aside, no real changes to the design or hardware. 

 
 

Looking at ports we have one USB-C port, one USB-A port, 3.5mm headphone jack, and one Surface connect port. I simply can't look at these ports and say I'm satisfied. There's still room on the chassis (especially on the 15-inch) for more ports but there might be some issue with the processors, motherboards, or any other issue that has caused ports to be somewhat disappointing. Looking at storage options we have up to 32GB of RAM on both the 13.5-inch and 15-inch models, up to 1TB SSD on both models, do consider how the SSD is removable (big win). Quick note: what I assume to be production issues have caused a delay in the 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage models which will be coming 8 weeks (about 2 months) after launch. Whilst I'm spewing out random specs, I'll throw in that the webcams are 720p Windows Hello when they should be 1080p Windows Hello, no idea as to why.  

 
 

Now we arrive at the most important change in the Surface Laptop 4: processors. We now have to choice to buy AMD Ryzen chipsets in the consumer 13.5-inch model and the choice to buy intel chips in the consumer 15-inch model. Quick explainer: I keep on saying "consumer" because there's a specific skew made for enterprise use cases and some of those have different processor options, materials, etc. For the sake of simplicity, I'll be focusing on the consumer skews but if you want to check out the enterprise skews you can go ahead and check out the article on windows central covering this very story. Here's the link: https://www.windowscentral.com/surface-laptop-4-announce 

 
 

Let's dive into processors starting with the 13.5-inch models. Intel chipsets include your usual core i5 and core i7 with shiny new intel Xe graphics. For some thoughts on 11th gen head over to this article I released before it launched: bentechcode.blogspot.com/2020/08/intels-11th-gen-line-is-interesting.html. AMD choice is limited to Ryzen 5, interesting to note is that these are not Ryzen 5000 chipsets, their Ryzen 4000 chipsets which is something I'll break down at the end. At the 15-inch models we grab some more power-intense processors with the Ryzen 7 and core i7 being the only processors available. The 15-inch has always been viewed as the Surface Laptop you consider before the power threshold of a Surface book comes into consideration. It makes sense to put the most power chipsets into what are supposed to be the most powerful laptops in the Surface laptop line. A quick look at battery life also shows signs of improvement with Microsoft claiming 19 hours of battery life on the Ryzen 5 and 17.5 hours on the Ryzen 7 from the 15-inch model. Microsoft also claims that the intel models grab 17 hours for the 13.5-inch model (not clear which processor) and 16.5 hours for the 15-inch presumably equipped with core i7. I'll wait until reviews start rolling in to judge the authenticity of those claims.  

 

Image Credit: Microsoft 

 

With all the specs and features out of the way I just wanted to talk about my overall thoughts at launch and pricing. I think Microsoft might have done themselves a favor choosing Ryzen 4000. Looking at the global chip shortage they were fortunate to even grab stock of intel chips, making intel chipsets even rarer, and more expensive. Looking at pricing a Ryzen 5 and intel i5 base models we see a $300 dollar difference. That price difference not a coincidence. AMD still has plenty stock of 4000 chipsets that were a bargain in 2020 and even more so in 2021. Having a lesser-priced but equally capable AMD model is great for a ton of people looking for premium and capable laptop. Of course, we'll have to wait on benchmarks to judge the processors against each other, but I predict intel scraping out a win with the help of Xe graphics. My argument starts to fall apart on the 15-inch when considering that the 15-inch models are supposed to be performance models. Perhaps Ryzen 5000 would have been a wiser choice. Again, waiting on the testing before any further exploration.  

 
 

The surface laptop 4 is a laptop series that I'm starting to rather like, I wish Ryzen 5000 would have been there, but I'm starting to see why Microsoft chose Ryzen 4000. I wish more ports would have been available, but when you take into consideration that there are two types of processors in each model and their respective skews you can see why Microsoft played it safe. It's an incremental upgrade that isn't bringing new bells and whistles instead it's bringing more stable tires and frames for the figurative bike.  

 

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