Intel’s new CPUs also offer native support for both USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 ports, which is something of a moot point as the Surface Pro adopts neither next generation connectivity standard. In short, with the Surface Pro you can watch 4K content on websites like YouTube and Netflix to your heart’s content, the 2-in-1’s CPU will make short work of any UHD content, and it will do so while draining relatively little battery power. According to Intel, battery life when watching UHD content on one of its new chips is 260 percent better than when compared to on a Skylake CPU. Both codecs were designed with 4K playback in mind. Each Kaby Lake processor ships with native HEVC and VP9 codec support. While not a significant improvement over the company’s sixth generation ‘Skylake’ CPUs (themselves not a major improvement over Intel’s previous Broadwell architecture), the new processors do offer several advantages over their most recent predecessors.įrom the point of the average consumer, the most significant of these improvements is better 4K video playback. Leading the Surface Pro’s list of new features is one of Intel’s three new seventh generation ‘Kaby Lake’ processors. Graphics: Core m3: Intel HD Graphics 615, Core i5: Intel HD Graphics 620, Core i7: Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640.Ports: Full-size USB 3.0, Mini DisplayPort, 3.5mm headphone jack, Surface Connect, microSDXC card reader.Sensors: Ambient light sensor, accelerometer and gyroscope.Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.1.

Battery: Up to 13.5 hours of local video playback.Camera: 5.0-megapxiel front-facing camera with 1080p video capture and Windows Hello sign-in 8.0-megapixel rear-facing camera with 1080p video capture.Storage: 128/256/512GB solid state drive (SSD) or 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD.Processor: 7th generation Intel ‘Kaby Lake’ Core m3 7Y30, Core i5-7300U and Core i7-7660U.Display: 12.3-inch PixelSense Display, 2736 x 1824 (267 ppi), 3:2 aspect ratio, 10 point mult-touch.I’ll update this review in a week’s time to offer more detailed impressions on those aspects of Microsoft’s latest 2-in-1. Unfortunately, by the time I diagnosed the problem, I only had one day with a fully working unit, so I was not able to sufficiently test certain aspects of the device like battery life and performance.

Surface pro 8 artist review