 Microsoft has been selling Surface Pro models with basically the same design since 2015. If you put the last four generations of Surface Pro devices next to each other, they look basically identical. But other laptops have gotten significantly nicer looking during that period of time. And we've been begging Microsoft for years to make the Surface Pro look like a modern flagship computer. And what do you know, Microsoft finally did it. This is the Surface Pro 8. So take a look at the Surface Pro 8 and you're not going to see a lot of the Surface Pro 7. What it does look like is the Surface Pro X, the super thin, super light, and just gorgeous device that Microsoft released in 2019. The Pro 8 has the same powerful specs as the Pro 7, but it borrows a number of physical features from the Pro X. The result is one heck of a nice computer, and one that I'm glad Microsoft has finally made. So the biggest thing it's borrowed is the screen. The new Surface Pro 8 has a 2880 by 1920 13-inch display, which means it's almost an inch bigger than the Pro 7. Microsoft also made the side bezels much thinner. Now the Pro 8 is also meant to function as a tablet, and you still need something to hold onto when you're using it as a tablet. So the top and bottom bezels are still somewhat chunky. But the clever thing about this design is that the keyboard cover actually hides the bottom bezel entirely when you're using the Pro 8 as a laptop. So it's really the best of both worlds. The other new thing about this screen is that it has a 120Hz refresh rate, meaning the screen can show you up to 120 frames per second. So this is more common on gaming rigs, so most productivity and business laptops have 60Hz displays. But even if you're just doing work in Office and Chrome, it totally makes a difference, and once you've used 120Hz, you won't want to go back. The cursor is nicer to look at as you drag it around the screen, there's less lag when you're writing with the pen, and the scrolling is so much smoother. Whether you're blazing through a Google Doc or a very long Verge article, it just makes the whole Windows experience slightly nicer to look at, especially if you're using the touch screen. Now, the downside of a 120Hz refresh rate is that it negatively impacts battery life. So if you want to save power, you can also use the Pro 8 at the regular 60Hz rate. So when I was using the Pro 8 for my standard Office workload with the screen at 60Hz, I was seeing close to 8.5 hours to a charge, while I was only getting around 7 with the screen at 120Hz. Windows 11 is supposed to have a feature called Dynamic Refresh Rate, which will automatically swap a device between 120Hz and 60Hz depending on the app you're using, but that's not a feature that the Pro 8 currently supports, and Microsoft hasn't given us a timeline for if or when we'll see it here. So for the foreseeable future, you need to dig into advanced display settings to change the screen's refresh rate, and that's kind of a pain. Unless you want to be doing that multiple times a day, you're going to be choosing between smooth scrolling and an extra hour of battery. So please, Microsoft, please give us Dynamic Refresh Rate soon. But the screen isn't the only thing that's new, so in addition to the dual Farfield Studio microphones, the Pro 8 has a 10 megapixel rear camera that can also shoot 4K video. For zoom calls, there's also a 5 megapixel front-facing camera, which shoots in up to 10 EDP. Speaking of zoom calls, the 2W speakers sound pretty reasonable. You can actually hear the bass. The keyboard cover is made of carbon fiber, which makes it stiffer and sturdier than Surface Pro type covers we've seen in the past. It's not quite the typing experience you'll get from a full-size laptop, but it's certainly the best detachable keyboard that I've ever used. The Pro 8 borrows a couple other things from the Pro X. So there's a removable SSD, which you can pop out under the kickstand. There's also a handy place to put Microsoft's Surface Slim Pen 2. You just pull out the keyboard deck and it lives and charges in a little slot against the screen. And there are finally two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports on the Surface Pro, in addition to a headphone jack. Now, this Slim Pen 2 comes with a built-in haptic motor, which it uses to make you feel like you're actually writing on physical paper while you draw or take notes. Even with the intensity cranked all the way up, the vibrations were pretty subtle. I could only feel them if I was paying close attention. Also, only a few apps currently support this haptic feedback, so I look forward to seeing Microsoft expand it. So our test model has the Intel Core i7-1185G7, which is one of the most powerful chips that Intel makes for thin and light laptops. This chip is in some of the best laptops on the market from companies like Dell and Lenovo, and it's probably more power than the typical Surface Pro user actually needs. My model also has 16GB of RAM, and it's fast. I was regularly running video calls over 15-16 Chrome tabs, a couple different apps, and even some streaming. It could handle whatever I threw at it without the tiniest amount of slowdown or heat. Now, that's about the bare minimum for this processor. It's a chip meant for powerful portable devices, so it would be very concerning if things were freezing all over the place. But what's impressive here isn't just the Pro 8's speed, it's the fact that it's able to maintain that speed for long periods of time. So part of the reason Microsoft put an ARM chip in the Pro X rather than a big and fancy chip like this is that the X was so thin and light that Microsoft couldn't fit a fan inside. Now, when computers can't cool their processors with fans, they throttle them, that is, they bump down the chip's performance so it doesn't fry itself, which translates to your apps slowing down. The reason the Surface Pro 8 has such a powerful chip is that it does have a fan. And that fan did a good job here. The chassis never got hot even when I was pushing it through pretty intense loads, and I was able to do that for hours at a time. In the past few years, I can't tell you how many people I've talked to who weren't sure whether to buy the Pro 7 or the Pro X. They wanted the Pro 7's powerful processor, but they hated the way it looked. And they loved the Pro X's design, but it wasn't powerful enough for the things they wanted to do. And it was hard for me to recommend either device to those people because they both came with serious compromises. The Pro 8 is the computer that those people have been waiting for. It combines the Pro X's flagship design with the Pro 7's flagship hardware. And for the first time, I think the Surface Pro line has a real mainstream flagship on its hands. It's finally Surface Pro that's, well, pro. With all that said, none of this comes cheap. So Surface Pro 8 models start at $1099, but that's without the keyboard cover, which of course you're going to buy, so the keyboard adds $179 to the price, meaning you're going to pay at least $1279 for the base model. And then if you want the Slim Pen 2, that's another $100, bringing that total to $1379. And that base model has a Core i5, just 128GB of storage and 8GB of RAM. But then many people probably want a bigger SSD and more memory for the work that they're doing. So if you want my spec'd up test model alongside the keyboard and stylus, you'll be paying $1879. That's a lot of money for these specs, guys. And while I don't have major problems with the Surface Pro 8, that price tag does limit who's going to be able to buy this. Sure, it's got one of the most powerful processors you can find in an ultra-portable device and it crams it into a beautiful chassis that's unbelievably thin and light. But most people will be able to find just as much power and better battery life for several hundred dollars cheaper in a MacBook Pro or a Dell XPS 13. Again, that doesn't make a Pro 8 a bad device. But the people who it's going to be the best device for are going to be the people who are willing to pay a premium specifically for the Surface Pro form factor. That is, something as thin and light as a tablet, but with the power of a full-sized computer. So in the past, that kind of device hasn't really existed. Using a Windows tablet this portable meant compromising on performance. But this year, you're not sacrificing that performance. You're just sacrificing some extra cash.