The Snapdragon Surface: A Glimmer of Hope for Gaming and Power Management

As I spent some time with the new Snapdragon Surface, I couldn't help but feel a sense of hope that this machine might finally bring us closer to having a seamless gaming experience. While it's not without its issues, there are definitely areas where the Snapdragon Surface shines. For example, playing Yakuza Zero was an absolute breeze, with smooth frame rates all around. This is a game that many people have struggled with on their previous devices, but on the Snapdragon Surface, it felt like a dream come true.

Of course, this machine does have its drawbacks. One of the biggest issues I encountered was the anti-che system, which made games like Valerant and League of Legends impossible to load. This is a major bummer, as these are two of my favorite games that I love playing on my PC. But I'm hoping that this will be addressed in future updates.

Another area where the Snapdragon Surface fell short was power management. While it's great for laptops that can run for hours on end without needing to be plugged in, this machine needs a wall charger just to keep up with demanding tasks like video editing or photoshopping. This isn't necessarily a deal-breaker, but it's definitely something to consider when deciding whether or not this device is right for you.

On the other hand, one area where the Snapdragon Surface truly excels is in its power management capabilities. Whether you're plugged into a wall or running on battery, systems like this very powerful M1 Max MacBook Pro basically run at full tilt while also providing excellent battery life. This is definitely something that MacBooks do better than most other devices, and it's one of the reasons why I love using my own MacBook Pro for work and personal projects.

But let's talk about pricing. The new Surface devices start at $999, which is a very competitive price point. Both the Surface Laptop and Surface Pro come with 16 GB of RAM, 256 gigs of SSD storage, and an Snapdragon X+ s chip - making them a great value proposition compared to some other options on the market. However, it's worth noting that there are definitely skews in pricing across both devices, and you may need to shell out extra cash for certain features or upgrades.

One thing I was disappointed by was the lack of pen support on the Surface Laptop. While this might not be a major issue for everyone, it's definitely something that would have been nice to see included. On the other hand, the 120 Hz display is a major win, and I wish that future models would offer an OLED option as well.

Overall, my experience with the Snapdragon Surface has been mixed, but it's definitely given me some hope for what this technology might be capable of in the future. While there are still plenty of issues to work out, I think that with a bit more development and refinement, this device could really shine.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe surface has always been Microsoft's poster child for going head-to-head with the ever popular MacBook though in my own opinion it's always lacked that wee bit of spice to make it a truly compelling sell but I reckon this is the first generation for the surface in a long time that really feels like proper competition and here's why here we have two of the newest surface products for 2024 the surface laptop as well as the new Surface Pro coming from Microsoft themselves these products represent what they believe is the most ideal Windows Experience at a time when AI is seemingly making its way into every facet of Our Lives it's a bit of a touchy subject but if there is anything to take away from all of this being shove down our throats it's that at the very least it's enabling some really interesting PC Hardware especially for laptops top level there are significant gains to be had here thanks to the inclusion of new Snapdragon x s so's these are arm-based processors that are especially designed to take on the Apple silicon arm chips people have been raving about on MacBooks but how does this translate into real world use well I've been using both the surface laptop and Surface Pro for about 3 weeks now and I got to say the experience is way better than I had expected and apple might have some serious competition this time in key areas such as performance efficiency and especially battery life full disclosure Microsoft sent both of these devices out to us for review and they basically share the same Hardware on the inside equipped with the Snapdragon X Elite with a 12 core CPU as well as 16 GB of RAM and 512 gigs of storage if we're looking at benchmarks alone these Snapdragon chips are not just capable but also powerful as heck compared to the Apple M3 and M4 the ex Elite might not necessarily Top Apple full stop but are within a close enough margin especially considering the slow development that we've seen on the surface side in the past now anyone that's been remotely following the windows on arm Saga over the years knows that raw performance can ultimately mean Jack if the OS and software aren't optimized for it but thankfully with some backend optimization the user experience this time around is quite good at least for most things to be fair a lot of what I do personally on these types of computers is on the web and Edge obviously runs very well on here but even graphic design apps such as Photoshop which I use to edit my YouTube thumbnails runs Amazing by working Direct directly with a large number of major app developers and services Microsoft is putting serious groundwork to improve the arm experience compared to where it was in the past and considering that this Snapdragon on PC story isn't just about the surface when these PCS are marketed and sold to Everyday People that might not necessarily know what they're buying things better be solid that being said however there are plenty of applications out there that might not officially support arm but to ensure seamless operation for the end user Microsoft hopes that prism can bridge the gap this is an emulation layer for x86 built natively into Windows 11 that's designed to allow unsupported programs to still work with arm Hardware basically it's for Windows what Rosetta 2 is for the mac and apple silicon now if Apple's Intel 2 arm transition is The Benchmark for a smooth roll out this evolution of Windows 11 to better support arm is still not quite at that caliber though it is a significant Improvement to where Windows was even a year ago in practice it actually works rather well especially for the little things such as utilities and app installers that are all too important in Windows 11 all that stuff certainly adds up though as I found in my testing don't expect the world from it in terms of performance and compatibility but then on the flip side you have apps like OBS which are not natively optimized forarm but actually works surprisingly well for me on emulation all this to say your mileage will vary for how apps work with prism which is kind of understandable given the sheer amount of programs out there for Windows of course these devices are aimed for more casual use and productivity but even still I can't help but be a little curious about what gaming is like on these Snapdragon X Elite systems and honestly while I wouldn't get it specifically for this Purpose By Any stretch it's not awful in fact this machine actually gives me a little bit of Hope for future optimization here for example I played some Yakuza zero that worked extremely well with smooth frame rates all around though natur Lally tons of games at this point in time also have problems track Mania would probably run well on this level of Hardware if it wasn't crashing so much but really the biggest issue that I found is actually with anti-che systems Riot Vanguard was very much not happy with letting this system work preventing games such as valerant and League of Legends from loading though maybe that's a feature not a bug the same thing with Fall Guys and presumably anything using easy anti-che I expect this to be ironed out at some point in the future but until then proper gaming on Snapdragon is more than an arms length away terrible joke but at least it's more than what can be said about Apple speaking of which something that MacBooks do very well is power management whether you are plugged into a wall or running on Battery Systems like this very powerful M1 Max MacBook Pro basically run for Full Tilt while also providing excellent battery life however look on the window side of things and power management is not as refined which is to say if you want the most performance you'll have to keep this plugged into a wall you're not going to really notice this when running lightweight tasks throughout the day but if you want as much power as possible while maybe photoshopping or editing video In Da Vinci resolve definitely keep that charger handy all this being said while we are getting throttled performance unplugged what I did like seeing was a major Improvement in battery life especially compared to the intel-based machines of the past on many occasions this Surface Pro lasted me well through a workday with left over charge for some video streaming in the evening and when it came to this surface laptop it was even better than that however taking a step back from all this let's talk about pricing with these brand new surfaces there are plenty of skews across both surface laptop and Surface Pro but of note both of them start at $999 and standard include 16 GB of RAM 256 gigs of SSD storage and also include a Snapdragon X+ s so the lower-end counterpart to the ex Elite with two less cores now I can't speak for the performance of this since I don't have it in for testing but on paper I think these machines should offer pretty good value as well especially compared to the base MacBook Air which has a 2-year-old M2 Chip as well as only 8 GB of RAM in fact you need to spend $1,200 on that machine if you want to match both the RAM and storage and add an extra 100 bucks on top of that if you would like to upgrade it to the newer more efficient M3 chip granted there is a bit of nuance on the surface end as well when it comes to value compared to a Macbook while it's nice that you get comparable build quality that feels just as premium as a Macbook specifically with the Surface Pro since it doesn't come with a type cover or pen as usual you'll have to factor those into the budget if you want a more complete setup which can get very expensive this guy cost $1,500 and when you add on this fancy new flex keyboard set that works wirelessly over Bluetooth which is super convenient this whole thing will run you just shy of $2,000 these higher-end trims do at least come with a beautiful looking OLED display but with that money you can buy a base M3 Pro MacBook Pro which besides the fact that it runs Mac OS is a way better buy considering the performance you're getting the surface laptop is much better sorted for Value considering that it has those peripherals built into it already the laptop does lose out on pen support this generation unfortunately though I don't think people looking at the laptop will miss it that much in fact without the extra hardware needed for it the 120 HZ display looks much better though I do wish that for for the higher-end models like with the pro that they gave us an OLED option as well given the price point that's all I got for now let me know what you think about these new Surface products in the comments below and otherwise thanks for watching this video on Dany Channelthe surface has always been Microsoft's poster child for going head-to-head with the ever popular MacBook though in my own opinion it's always lacked that wee bit of spice to make it a truly compelling sell but I reckon this is the first generation for the surface in a long time that really feels like proper competition and here's why here we have two of the newest surface products for 2024 the surface laptop as well as the new Surface Pro coming from Microsoft themselves these products represent what they believe is the most ideal Windows Experience at a time when AI is seemingly making its way into every facet of Our Lives it's a bit of a touchy subject but if there is anything to take away from all of this being shove down our throats it's that at the very least it's enabling some really interesting PC Hardware especially for laptops top level there are significant gains to be had here thanks to the inclusion of new Snapdragon x s so's these are arm-based processors that are especially designed to take on the Apple silicon arm chips people have been raving about on MacBooks but how does this translate into real world use well I've been using both the surface laptop and Surface Pro for about 3 weeks now and I got to say the experience is way better than I had expected and apple might have some serious competition this time in key areas such as performance efficiency and especially battery life full disclosure Microsoft sent both of these devices out to us for review and they basically share the same Hardware on the inside equipped with the Snapdragon X Elite with a 12 core CPU as well as 16 GB of RAM and 512 gigs of storage if we're looking at benchmarks alone these Snapdragon chips are not just capable but also powerful as heck compared to the Apple M3 and M4 the ex Elite might not necessarily Top Apple full stop but are within a close enough margin especially considering the slow development that we've seen on the surface side in the past now anyone that's been remotely following the windows on arm Saga over the years knows that raw performance can ultimately mean Jack if the OS and software aren't optimized for it but thankfully with some backend optimization the user experience this time around is quite good at least for most things to be fair a lot of what I do personally on these types of computers is on the web and Edge obviously runs very well on here but even graphic design apps such as Photoshop which I use to edit my YouTube thumbnails runs Amazing by working Direct directly with a large number of major app developers and services Microsoft is putting serious groundwork to improve the arm experience compared to where it was in the past and considering that this Snapdragon on PC story isn't just about the surface when these PCS are marketed and sold to Everyday People that might not necessarily know what they're buying things better be solid that being said however there are plenty of applications out there that might not officially support arm but to ensure seamless operation for the end user Microsoft hopes that prism can bridge the gap this is an emulation layer for x86 built natively into Windows 11 that's designed to allow unsupported programs to still work with arm Hardware basically it's for Windows what Rosetta 2 is for the mac and apple silicon now if Apple's Intel 2 arm transition is The Benchmark for a smooth roll out this evolution of Windows 11 to better support arm is still not quite at that caliber though it is a significant Improvement to where Windows was even a year ago in practice it actually works rather well especially for the little things such as utilities and app installers that are all too important in Windows 11 all that stuff certainly adds up though as I found in my testing don't expect the world from it in terms of performance and compatibility but then on the flip side you have apps like OBS which are not natively optimized forarm but actually works surprisingly well for me on emulation all this to say your mileage will vary for how apps work with prism which is kind of understandable given the sheer amount of programs out there for Windows of course these devices are aimed for more casual use and productivity but even still I can't help but be a little curious about what gaming is like on these Snapdragon X Elite systems and honestly while I wouldn't get it specifically for this Purpose By Any stretch it's not awful in fact this machine actually gives me a little bit of Hope for future optimization here for example I played some Yakuza zero that worked extremely well with smooth frame rates all around though natur Lally tons of games at this point in time also have problems track Mania would probably run well on this level of Hardware if it wasn't crashing so much but really the biggest issue that I found is actually with anti-che systems Riot Vanguard was very much not happy with letting this system work preventing games such as valerant and League of Legends from loading though maybe that's a feature not a bug the same thing with Fall Guys and presumably anything using easy anti-che I expect this to be ironed out at some point in the future but until then proper gaming on Snapdragon is more than an arms length away terrible joke but at least it's more than what can be said about Apple speaking of which something that MacBooks do very well is power management whether you are plugged into a wall or running on Battery Systems like this very powerful M1 Max MacBook Pro basically run for Full Tilt while also providing excellent battery life however look on the window side of things and power management is not as refined which is to say if you want the most performance you'll have to keep this plugged into a wall you're not going to really notice this when running lightweight tasks throughout the day but if you want as much power as possible while maybe photoshopping or editing video In Da Vinci resolve definitely keep that charger handy all this being said while we are getting throttled performance unplugged what I did like seeing was a major Improvement in battery life especially compared to the intel-based machines of the past on many occasions this Surface Pro lasted me well through a workday with left over charge for some video streaming in the evening and when it came to this surface laptop it was even better than that however taking a step back from all this let's talk about pricing with these brand new surfaces there are plenty of skews across both surface laptop and Surface Pro but of note both of them start at $999 and standard include 16 GB of RAM 256 gigs of SSD storage and also include a Snapdragon X+ s so the lower-end counterpart to the ex Elite with two less cores now I can't speak for the performance of this since I don't have it in for testing but on paper I think these machines should offer pretty good value as well especially compared to the base MacBook Air which has a 2-year-old M2 Chip as well as only 8 GB of RAM in fact you need to spend $1,200 on that machine if you want to match both the RAM and storage and add an extra 100 bucks on top of that if you would like to upgrade it to the newer more efficient M3 chip granted there is a bit of nuance on the surface end as well when it comes to value compared to a Macbook while it's nice that you get comparable build quality that feels just as premium as a Macbook specifically with the Surface Pro since it doesn't come with a type cover or pen as usual you'll have to factor those into the budget if you want a more complete setup which can get very expensive this guy cost $1,500 and when you add on this fancy new flex keyboard set that works wirelessly over Bluetooth which is super convenient this whole thing will run you just shy of $2,000 these higher-end trims do at least come with a beautiful looking OLED display but with that money you can buy a base M3 Pro MacBook Pro which besides the fact that it runs Mac OS is a way better buy considering the performance you're getting the surface laptop is much better sorted for Value considering that it has those peripherals built into it already the laptop does lose out on pen support this generation unfortunately though I don't think people looking at the laptop will miss it that much in fact without the extra hardware needed for it the 120 HZ display looks much better though I do wish that for for the higher-end models like with the pro that they gave us an OLED option as well given the price point that's all I got for now let me know what you think about these new Surface products in the comments below and otherwise thanks for watching this video on Dany Channel