Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 Review

October 29, 2022 at 4:45pm
By Jason Stettner

While it’s always exciting to play around with a product from the Microsoft Surface line-up I did find the laptop line to be a tad disappointing. Not necessarily anything bad one might say, but not quite up to the legacy or expectations I’ve come to have from playing with the other devices within the same family of products.

This was my first go at the particular laptop tree, having had experience with the Books and Pro options in the past. Instead of being blown away like I typically am, having played with this device for a period of time it came across as a bit of a generic laptop which is more disappointing than anything else.

With that, it certainly does function well with its intended design, it just feels a bit barebones and or minimal in terms of what it provides from a technical or aesthetic standpoint. Hence the whole generic laptop, while at the time coming in at a premium price point. There are lots of color options though, so that’s something.

The Screen
There are two screen options present, the first being 15” and the second being 13.5”. I was loaned the former to take a look at for the purpose of review. The 13.5” weighs about three pounds (fabric 1,272g/2.8lbs or metal 1,297g/2.86lbs) providing the dimensions of 308mm x 223mm x 14.5mm (12 in x 8.78 in x 0.57 in).

The 15” weighs about three and a half pounds (1,560g/3.44lbs) providing the dimensions of 340mm x 244mm x 14.7mm (13.4 in x 9.6 in x 0.58 in). Both are PixelSense displays and feature an aspect of ratio of 3:2 at 201 PPI. The resolution of the 13.5” is 2256x1504 and the resolution of the 15” is 2496x1664.

Both are very similar in scaling and sizing, but there obviously is a difference between which you go for. I did notice that there is quite a black bezel around your screen, it’s very thick and rather apparent. The screen features a default 60hz display, or well something like 59.8hz and it was disappointing not to have the option for 120hz like the Surface Pro 8 or higher offers.

There’s 10 point multi touch support so it’s fully a touch screen which is good for browsing at times. There’s also Dolby Vision IQ3 support. This one didn’t have too bad of glare, at least from the viewing angles I tried at differing lights but there’s still some work to go in that regard.

Tech Specs
The processor here comes with two choices, both are 12th Gen Intel where you can get either an i5 or an i7. The distinct specification details are in the table below as well. This runs Windows 11 which is an operating system I still haven’t fully integrated into my day to day.

You get some subscription trials loaded in, including the Family 30 day trial for Microsoft 365 and a one month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate trial. The memory for the device includes multiple options of LPDDR5x with 8GB, 16GB or 23GB. When it comes to storage the SSD options are 256GB, 512GB or 1TB.

The graphics are Intel Iris Xe and for this type of device when it comes to gaming it’s not really the best of choices. The sensors are just an ambient light sensor. The laptop keeps itself relatively silent through extended periods of usage but gaming will certainly make things get loud after a shorter period of time.

Other Specs
Battery is probably a fairly important element for this type of device and while it does vary based on your particular screen model you are getting up eighteen hours of battery life via regular usage. Things such as browsing or say video. You’ll notice that the battery will drain much quicker when using intensive things such as gaming.

It holds decently well while running games with my test subjects being Gears 5 and Minecraft. For those wanting to plug things into this laptop you get 1 USB 4.0/Thunderbolt 4 port; 1 USB 3.1 port, a 3.5mm headphone jack and 1 Surface Connect Port. Somewhat limited for ports, but it is rather thin in that particular portion of the device.

I actually found the general base area to be a bit basic. Somewhat slippery too for grip, and I feel they can do a lot more with the base and keyboard area in general as it doesn’t quite have any sort of exciting or fancy element to it. Very basic for a premium model offering.

The camera option is atrocious, you get a 720p 30fps front facing camera that looks awful. It’s just simply terrible, particularly for this pricing point. In an era of more device driven calls for conferencing it’s just not acceptable. The dual far field studio microphones sound nice for audio capture. The audio is an Omnisonic Speakers setup with Dolby Atmos sound.

It’s very loud, clear and somewhat immersive. Probably a stand out element for me. I think maybe the clarity could be slightly more clear as it’s loud, but that aside I thought it sounded good. For the wireless there’s Wifi 6: 802.11ax compatible and Bluetooth 5.1 support. A cellular option might be a nice choice down the road, get some 5G LTE support going on.

Gaming
This really isn’t a device aimed towards gameplay. While this might be a decent offering for say the Pro line or a tablet type of thing in a laptop I expect much better gaming performance. My test games were Gears 5 and Minecraft as per usual, eventually I’ll probably switch up my benchmarks but alas these are my go to options.

For Gears 5 it’s all low settings and sub 1080p getting like 45fps. The textures load in badly and it wasn’t a good experience. Minecraft runs but isn’t necessarily perfect there. Again, for a laptop in the modern era I do expect some level of gaming capability out of it.

It’s not like I’m expecting a specific gaming laptop like quality, but just a light level of quality to enjoy titles a number of years old. Just don’t expect to be playing games with this unless you’re doing something like Xbox Cloud Gaming which actually looks quite nice. But alas, once again this is a laptop so we should expect a decent level of performance without having to rely on the cloud.

The Conclusion

The Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 is a really generic laptop, and that in itself is more disappointing than anything as there’s typically a magical sort of style that comes with this type of device family. I’ve long been impressed by what Microsoft has done with their Surfaces devices and this laptop line-up just felt alright or generally sort of boring.

There’s nothing that really makes it stand out aside from that atrocious camera that’s built in. The specs are fine for browsing, working with some programs, the audio is great for listening but you won’t be doing gaming on this unless it’s for Xbox Cloud Gaming. I’m not expecting killer gaming performance, but I do expect some level of quality from a laptop as opposed to say a tablet.

The screen quality is nice aside from the overly apparent bezel, but the limited 60hz is a bit disappointing. It just really seems like a regular run of the mill laptop and that is ever so disappointing here. Like, it’ll get the job done but it comes in at a bit of a premium price point and those smaller disappointments just add up to something that comes across as rather tame as opposed to be exciting to use.

I’m typically really happy with the Surface products and this one is sort of just okay. That’s not to say it won’t work well for you, I sound negative but the thing to take away is that this functions for what it’s supposed to but it won’t exceed any sort of expectations you might have.

Read our Surface Pro 8 Review
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Surface Laptop 5 Review product loaned by Microsoft tested with Games, Video and Streamed Content. Games; Gears 5, Minecraft

Rating Overall: 6.0