The Surface Laptop 4: A Surprisingly Impressive Device with Unconventional Battery Life

I recently had the opportunity to test the Surface Laptop 4, and I was impressed by its performance and battery life. The device's 150-nit display is surprisingly bright, but not as bright as some of my other favorite ultrabooks. However, this lack of brightness does not seem to have affected the device's overall usability.

During my testing, I noticed that even with a very low energy consumption setting, I was unable to achieve the advertised 19-hour battery life. In fact, I couldn't hit even 11 hours, which is still an impressive feat considering the device's thin and light design. Part of me doesn't care about this aspect because the actual battery life is still excellent at around 11 hours, making it easy to last a day or two without needing to recharge.

So what's behind this extended battery life? According to Microsoft, the company has achieved it through a combination of hardware customization and tweaks. The device's AMD processor is customized to maximize energy efficiency, which plays a significant role in its impressive battery life. Additionally, there are other physical hardware changes that help optimize the system's performance.

What really caught my attention was how Microsoft managed to balance performance with battery life. In general, I've tested many laptops on this channel and seen companies claim incredible battery life numbers without delivering them. However, the Surface Laptop 4 has set a new standard for durability in terms of battery life.

Design-wise, the Surface Laptop 4 is a stunner. The device boasts a premium finish that's both elegant and refined. The keyboard is truly excellent, with a tactile feedback that makes typing a joy. I also appreciate the massive trackpad, which offers a level of precision and responsiveness that's hard to beat. Some might find the thick bezels around the display panel to be off-putting, but for me, it didn't detract from my overall experience.

Another notable feature is the Surface Connect port, which either polarizes you or gets your vote. While I personally prefer more USB-C ports, some people appreciate the unique design and versatility of Surface Connect. Furthermore, the device's fans are whisper-quiet, making it an ideal choice for quiet workspaces or studying.

In terms of colors, this year's Ice Blue hue is a welcome addition to the lineup. However, I did notice that it's only available on Intel configurations, which seems like a missed opportunity given its aesthetic appeal. The company has maintained their tradition of offering limited color options, but this leaves some users disappointed.

Repairability-wise, the Surface Laptop 4 has made significant strides in terms of ease of disassembly. By removing the rubber feet and keyboard panel, users can access the SSD for upgrading or replacement without too much fuss. While there's still no visible screw removal required, it's a step forward towards making this device more accessible to consumers.

Lastly, let's talk about audio quality. The Surface Laptop 4 boasts an above-average speaker system that doesn't quite match Apple's MacBooks but is still respectable in its own right.

Choosing between the two versions: AMD and Intel

If you're someone who can easily swing between Mac OS and Windows, I'd say the Surface Laptop 4 is a compelling choice. Given its impressive battery life, top-notch performance, and stunning design, it's hard to beat. The AMD version delivers excellent graphics capabilities that are unmatched by most other laptops in this class.

In conclusion, the Surface Laptop 4 has proven itself to be an exceptional device that competes with even the best ultrabooks on the market. Whether you're looking for a premium thin-and-light laptop experience with impressive performance and battery life, or simply want a versatile device that can adapt to your needs, the Surface Laptop 4 is definitely worth considering.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enso when the surface laptop 4 launched last week my initial reaction my first response to this whole product launch was are these actually going to be good enough can they actually compete with the m1 macbooks from apple because these are very competitive they're reasonably priced they have good performance crazy good battery life these are tough to beat even if you're a windows user it's hard to ignore what apple has done with m1 macbooks right now so when these came out and because windows laptops in the past they're not traditionally like good performance for the money i had my reservations so there are two main variations that you can pick up the surface laptop for in they have intel versions as well as amd versions and the amd ones are like the base model they start at 999 dollars but unlike surface devices in the past the base model is very usable this has 8 gigs of ram 256 gigs of storage and traditionally like the base model surface product is usually just really under configured to the point where as a reviewer you're like why do they even make these things it almost feels like they put them out there just to like upsell the better configured stuff but the surface laptop four nicely configured and it has an amd 4680u processor so that's six core cpu seven vega gpu cores it's not like the latest and greatest ryzen 5000 series stuff but it is very capable both in cpu and in graphical performance but if you want to step up and upgrade it to the intel version this is a 300 upgrade it's a pretty significant bump up in price you do get more storage it's 512 gigs of storage but the biggest difference between the amd version and the intel version when it comes to the surface laptop four is in graphical capabilities so these intel versions are running the intel xe graphics chips for an integrated device that is low wattage as these devices are it's great and it's going to depend on the game that you're playing but realistically from the stuff i was testing you're looking at a 25 to maybe 30 improvement in frame rate over the amd version so if that matters to you if you're playing games if you're doing stuff that's graphically intense for work any kind of you know gpu based workflow the intel based laptop is gonna perform better now the real question though is how do these compare with apple's m1 macbooks so when it comes to performance they're comparable right when it comes to this kind of price point and this kind of performance category there's no product that really takes the league unless you're taking a specialized benchmark or a specialized application and comparing it like that but that i don't think that's a fair comparison so when it comes to performance they're similar but the real advantage that apple's m1 macbooks have had over almost every other product on the market right now is battery life so apple claims 20 hours of battery life on the m1 macbook pro so this is a abnormally long battery life right and i've run the test you can hit it you can actually hit 20 hours of battery life if you set the screen brightness to halfway you do all the tests that that apple has claimed that they do you can hit 20 hours i've done it realistically speaking though you can get 13 hours of battery life of real use okay when it comes to these devices the amd version microsoft is claiming 19 hours of battery life the intel version microsoft is claiming 17 and a half hours of battery life and these are incredibly long battery lifes compared to the surface laptop 3. the previous generation of service laptop had a claimed battery life of 11 and a half hours just the quick math is that these have a 65 improvements in battery life claimed so i had to test this out like are you for are you for real how did you jump up 65 in battery life without changing the architecture of this system so i ran the test and this is what we got on the intel device i got 10 hours of battery life a little bit more on that and then on the amd device i got 11 hours of battery life now these are not the 19 hour claim that microsoft claimed and part of me doesn't really care all that much because 11 hours of battery life on a 13 inch device is fantastic it's better than most thin line devices out there and it's significantly better than the surface laptop three from last year i got seven hours last year so 11 hours and 10 hours is very good but i i wanted to know how did they hit that 19 hour number so i looked on the website and it says they rented 150 nits which is really dim but you know what i'll play along 150 nits and no matter what i did i could never get it to 19 hours even if i ran my loop at like the lowest energy consumption possible doing like literally idling couldn't hit 19 hours so part of me doesn't care because 11 hours is really good but i cannot hit 19 hours on this device no matter what i did i'm just putting it out there but at 11 hours you can easily last a day maybe even two without bringing your charger with you it has an excellent battery life now from what i can see they didn't achieve this extended battery life through just software tweaks it's got some hardware customization like the cpu on the amd unit it's running a customized amd chip it's got uh it's got some tweaks just in physical hardware to be able to maximize the energy efficiency of the system but in general i am i'm shocked like i've tested a lot of laptops on this channel and i've seen a lot of companies claim these stupid numbers and i always run the same test for consistency and reliability and i've never seen a surface device go this long so congratulations to microsoft for delivering something that is it's it's very impressive and i would say it actually competes with the biggest strength the greatest strength of m1 macbooks so yeah that's a good thing to see now if you choose to pick up a surface device you get all the surface-ness with it all the good and all the bad right so you get in terms of the good you get a nice design with a really premium finish to it you get an excellent keyboard a truly excellent trackpad possibly best in class you get the alcantara finish on some of the units you get a 3x2 aspect ratio screen with decent brightness and colors to it we also get these thick bezels that run around the whole display panel personally i don't love them obviously thinner bezels would be nicer but i don't think it's too big of a deal when it comes to actual usage you also get surface connect which you either like or dislike it's a very uh controversial thing i mean more usb-c ports would be better for me personally but some people like surface connect we also have very quiet fans these systems are always quiet and the surface pro 4 is as you would expect but there's also the topic of color so this year there is a new ice blue color which i'd actually like it's a slightly lighter colored blue than last year's cobalt blue but you can only get it as microsoft tradition would dictate in certain configurations you can only get it with the intel chips you can't get an amd version with the blue color which i think is a shame right i think if you like colors you have to now choose an intel chip which is very microsoft but i don't like seeing but you also have decent repairability so on the bottom there's no visible screws but you remove the rubber feet and you can take off the keyboard panel and in there you can replace your ssd so the ability just to repair or replace that drive is really nice in comparison to m1 products but there's not much else you can do in there and if you're wondering the speaker system is above average but they're still not as good as apple's macbook products so my overall take on this like how do i view this product i think these are really good like i didn't expect them to have the battery life and the performance that they would have but they deliver now when it comes to choosing between the two like if you're someone that can go with either mac os or windows i would say that these are like they're the first product that's come out this year that's made me go hmm i would recommend these like if you're looking for a thin light laptop usually it's been like you know that 999 macbook is pretty good it's hard to beat but these because the battery life is so good and because the performance is on point i like them i think that these are very easy to recommend for the person that has this kind of budget right if you want that premium thin and light laptop experience and you want good performance you want good battery life these deliver i will say the amd one's the one like that's the one i would choose because graphics when it comes to this type of graphics like it's it's not like gaming good graphics right it's just acceptably good i would go for the amd i just wish it came in the better colors but there you have it surface laptop four okay hope you guys enjoyed this video thumbs if you liked it subs you loved it see you guys next time youso when the surface laptop 4 launched last week my initial reaction my first response to this whole product launch was are these actually going to be good enough can they actually compete with the m1 macbooks from apple because these are very competitive they're reasonably priced they have good performance crazy good battery life these are tough to beat even if you're a windows user it's hard to ignore what apple has done with m1 macbooks right now so when these came out and because windows laptops in the past they're not traditionally like good performance for the money i had my reservations so there are two main variations that you can pick up the surface laptop for in they have intel versions as well as amd versions and the amd ones are like the base model they start at 999 dollars but unlike surface devices in the past the base model is very usable this has 8 gigs of ram 256 gigs of storage and traditionally like the base model surface product is usually just really under configured to the point where as a reviewer you're like why do they even make these things it almost feels like they put them out there just to like upsell the better configured stuff but the surface laptop four nicely configured and it has an amd 4680u processor so that's six core cpu seven vega gpu cores it's not like the latest and greatest ryzen 5000 series stuff but it is very capable both in cpu and in graphical performance but if you want to step up and upgrade it to the intel version this is a 300 upgrade it's a pretty significant bump up in price you do get more storage it's 512 gigs of storage but the biggest difference between the amd version and the intel version when it comes to the surface laptop four is in graphical capabilities so these intel versions are running the intel xe graphics chips for an integrated device that is low wattage as these devices are it's great and it's going to depend on the game that you're playing but realistically from the stuff i was testing you're looking at a 25 to maybe 30 improvement in frame rate over the amd version so if that matters to you if you're playing games if you're doing stuff that's graphically intense for work any kind of you know gpu based workflow the intel based laptop is gonna perform better now the real question though is how do these compare with apple's m1 macbooks so when it comes to performance they're comparable right when it comes to this kind of price point and this kind of performance category there's no product that really takes the league unless you're taking a specialized benchmark or a specialized application and comparing it like that but that i don't think that's a fair comparison so when it comes to performance they're similar but the real advantage that apple's m1 macbooks have had over almost every other product on the market right now is battery life so apple claims 20 hours of battery life on the m1 macbook pro so this is a abnormally long battery life right and i've run the test you can hit it you can actually hit 20 hours of battery life if you set the screen brightness to halfway you do all the tests that that apple has claimed that they do you can hit 20 hours i've done it realistically speaking though you can get 13 hours of battery life of real use okay when it comes to these devices the amd version microsoft is claiming 19 hours of battery life the intel version microsoft is claiming 17 and a half hours of battery life and these are incredibly long battery lifes compared to the surface laptop 3. the previous generation of service laptop had a claimed battery life of 11 and a half hours just the quick math is that these have a 65 improvements in battery life claimed so i had to test this out like are you for are you for real how did you jump up 65 in battery life without changing the architecture of this system so i ran the test and this is what we got on the intel device i got 10 hours of battery life a little bit more on that and then on the amd device i got 11 hours of battery life now these are not the 19 hour claim that microsoft claimed and part of me doesn't really care all that much because 11 hours of battery life on a 13 inch device is fantastic it's better than most thin line devices out there and it's significantly better than the surface laptop three from last year i got seven hours last year so 11 hours and 10 hours is very good but i i wanted to know how did they hit that 19 hour number so i looked on the website and it says they rented 150 nits which is really dim but you know what i'll play along 150 nits and no matter what i did i could never get it to 19 hours even if i ran my loop at like the lowest energy consumption possible doing like literally idling couldn't hit 19 hours so part of me doesn't care because 11 hours is really good but i cannot hit 19 hours on this device no matter what i did i'm just putting it out there but at 11 hours you can easily last a day maybe even two without bringing your charger with you it has an excellent battery life now from what i can see they didn't achieve this extended battery life through just software tweaks it's got some hardware customization like the cpu on the amd unit it's running a customized amd chip it's got uh it's got some tweaks just in physical hardware to be able to maximize the energy efficiency of the system but in general i am i'm shocked like i've tested a lot of laptops on this channel and i've seen a lot of companies claim these stupid numbers and i always run the same test for consistency and reliability and i've never seen a surface device go this long so congratulations to microsoft for delivering something that is it's it's very impressive and i would say it actually competes with the biggest strength the greatest strength of m1 macbooks so yeah that's a good thing to see now if you choose to pick up a surface device you get all the surface-ness with it all the good and all the bad right so you get in terms of the good you get a nice design with a really premium finish to it you get an excellent keyboard a truly excellent trackpad possibly best in class you get the alcantara finish on some of the units you get a 3x2 aspect ratio screen with decent brightness and colors to it we also get these thick bezels that run around the whole display panel personally i don't love them obviously thinner bezels would be nicer but i don't think it's too big of a deal when it comes to actual usage you also get surface connect which you either like or dislike it's a very uh controversial thing i mean more usb-c ports would be better for me personally but some people like surface connect we also have very quiet fans these systems are always quiet and the surface pro 4 is as you would expect but there's also the topic of color so this year there is a new ice blue color which i'd actually like it's a slightly lighter colored blue than last year's cobalt blue but you can only get it as microsoft tradition would dictate in certain configurations you can only get it with the intel chips you can't get an amd version with the blue color which i think is a shame right i think if you like colors you have to now choose an intel chip which is very microsoft but i don't like seeing but you also have decent repairability so on the bottom there's no visible screws but you remove the rubber feet and you can take off the keyboard panel and in there you can replace your ssd so the ability just to repair or replace that drive is really nice in comparison to m1 products but there's not much else you can do in there and if you're wondering the speaker system is above average but they're still not as good as apple's macbook products so my overall take on this like how do i view this product i think these are really good like i didn't expect them to have the battery life and the performance that they would have but they deliver now when it comes to choosing between the two like if you're someone that can go with either mac os or windows i would say that these are like they're the first product that's come out this year that's made me go hmm i would recommend these like if you're looking for a thin light laptop usually it's been like you know that 999 macbook is pretty good it's hard to beat but these because the battery life is so good and because the performance is on point i like them i think that these are very easy to recommend for the person that has this kind of budget right if you want that premium thin and light laptop experience and you want good performance you want good battery life these deliver i will say the amd one's the one like that's the one i would choose because graphics when it comes to this type of graphics like it's it's not like gaming good graphics right it's just acceptably good i would go for the amd i just wish it came in the better colors but there you have it surface laptop four okay hope you guys enjoyed this video thumbs if you liked it subs you loved it see you guys next time you\n"