Microsoft Surface Pro 8 Review

October 28, 2021 at 10:20pm
By Jason Stettner

It’s always exciting to play around with the latest technology, and particularly the Surface line as I’ve been very much into it since the devices were first introduced. A matter of fact, I still use the original Surface Pro Gen 1 model to this day. The Pro 8 is essentially what they’ve been working towards all of these years. A beautifully well designed device that brings incredible lightness to what’s a gorgeous and large tablet screen.

It can be a two in one with the external keypad that you have to buy separately as well. Whatever the case, it’s quite well done and rather impressive being something that’s perfect for the top tier apps of today, while having the versatility to provide a decent gaming experience or just for regular casual usage such as watching videos.

It’s quite fantastic for general viewing and touch screen usage, very accurate for those artists out there and something you can essentially take anywhere with you which is nice to have. With that, time to dive in to talk about the various elements that make up this latest iteration. Again, one that’s the legacy of these devices almost perfected. From silent usage to a stunning outer aesthetic. Then there’s the nice adjustable stand, it really provides almost any angle, very comfortably I might add.

The Screen
This devices is just under two pounds (891g/1.96lbs), providing the dimensions of 287mm x 208mm x 9.3mm (11.3 in x 8.2 in x 0.37 in). This is a 13” PixelSense Flow Display that features a resolution of 2880 x 1920 with 267 PPI and a 3:2 aspect ratio. It’s a great size that can snuggly fit into bags or wherever you need to shove it as you begin to leave for a day of work, school or general play.

What’s really neat about this is that you can change the default 60Hz display to 120Hz for an insanely high frame rate. The fluidity of 120Hz is so awesome for browsing and general usage. I’m so glad that they’ve embraced it with this device. I should go further with the screen mentioning that it has very accurate ten point multi-touch.

You can have great penmanship whether you’re using a single finger or the special pen that comes with the keypad accessory. There’s GPU Ink Acceleration and to top things off there’s Dolby Vision support which has growing support across devices and really looks quite pleasant. I would like them to work more on anti-glare in the future, something that can be improved upon I feel.

Tech Specs
The processor here comes with two choices, both are Quad-core 11th Gen Intel where you can grab an i5 or i7. I should mention distinct specs are available in the table below as well. This runs Windows 11 which was my first go with the operating system, that was intriguing. You also 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 LPDDR4x with 8GB, 16GB or 32GB. When it comes to storage you can choose between 512GB or 1TB options alongside a removable storage SSD option of 128GB or 256GB. The graphics are Intel Iris Xe and they do look fairly good visually across video or actual gaming. Not necessarily super performance gaming wise, but decent I suppose all things considered.

The sensors are an accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer and an ambient color sensor. While having these options it also seemed to keep relatively silent the entire time, with only gaming making things loud. Once I had completed my gaming session with Gears 5 it did silent down very fast which was great.

Other Specs
Battery is probably fairly important for most, and it delivers with up to sixteen hours of regular usage. That being regular browsing and video types of things to clarify. I was a bit impressed by how well the battery held when gaming as well, with Gears 5 and Minecraft being my test choices for the device this year.

For those wanting to plug things in you get 2 x USB Type-C options with USB 4.0/Thunderbolt 4 ports. There’s also a 3.5mm headphone jack and 1 Surface connect port. Bit more limited for what you can plug in, but since it’s so paper thin it makes sense. The camera options could use a bit of work. There’s front Windows Hell face authentication for sign-in. Past that a 5.0MP front facing camera with 1080p at 30fps video.

The rear camera is 10MP with 4k at 30fps video. It’s a bit ridiculous not to offer higher frame rates for the cameras. This is a rather expensive device, and it’ll be an aspect I’ll continue to complain about across the Surface line-up. The visual quality for video and photos was decently solid. It’s not really a device I would imagine folks would use for capturing the world around them, but in case you need to it’ll do an alright job.

I would imagine the best case scenario for using the video would be during regular conferencing calls which are more common these days. With that you’ll be more than pleased with the dual far field studio microphones that sound fantastic for audio capture. Past that, it sounds excellently sharp with the 2W stereo speakers that feature Dolby Atmos. For the wireless there’s Wifi 6: 802.11ax compatible and Bluetooth 5.1 support as well. This could have used a LTE cellular option though.

Gaming
As mentioned I did use this for gaming purposes. I downloaded Minecraft and Gears 5 natively from the Microsoft Store. The latter of which was such a convoluted mess to download. That’s more software I suppose. Anyways, Minecraft ran very well with a good draw distance and the performance seemed to be steady.

Gears 5 on the other hand wasn’t too pretty to get a higher frame rate going. It also really pushed the device, but that was expected. I would say it handled the game effectively. I would suggest going the Xbox Cloud Gaming route to stream the games in, as that will probably give better results for more demanding games. You can definitely enjoy regular gaming on this, with solid battery but just keep in mind you might need to dial down those visuals a bit.

The Conclusion

The Microsoft Surface Pro 8 is a near perfect culmination of what this product line has been working towards over the years to achieve. It provides a gorgeous screen in compact form that is nearly silent throughout many of its operations. It’s incredibly thin, with accurate touch that can be perfect for artistic properties while also being something great to generally just view anything on. Whether that’s work documents, or something more complex when it comes to programs that will run on it fine.

It has excellent audio quality whether you’re capturing sound of listening in. The visuals of the screen pop with a stunning high fluidity with the 120hz option. It has decently fine camera options for video conferencing. They do need to get higher frame rates going for the cameras though. It delivered a great battery life through regular work, and the extra keyboard is great though again a standalone additional purchase.

You’ll find it perfect for typing though with a comfortable design and a fancy pen to use with the device. Anyways, this compact offering really packs a punch for work usage or perhaps even school life. If you’re using it casually at home it’s really a great companion for around the house, the size makes it easy to take around and just plop places. It’s aesthetically stunning with its design, and they nailed it with this one.

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

Rating Overall: 9.0