A lowering but certainly sweet

The 12-inch Surface Pro is the most similar on an iPad hybrid tablet that Microsoft has still made, but in order to get there, the company had to make many compromises. Incorporating £ 1.5, it weighs almost the same as the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, and its 7.8mm thickness also makes it the thinnest surface so far. But it also works a slower processor than the 13-inch surface Pro last year and is stuck with a far worse screen. Its keyboard, which is again sold separately for $ 149, is also not suggested by ergonomic introduction.

So all this was worth a more compact Surface Pro than $ 800? It depends on what you are looking for. If you have heard of an incredibly lightweight Windows tablet, which can sometimes be transformed into a charming 12-inch laptop, Surface Pro is a success. Just don’t expect too much of that. Much as Asus ZenBook A14Its weight and subtlety are remarkable, but it is still full of compromises.

Microsoft

Surface Pro is lightweight, thin and can handle the main job just well. It is also sweet as a button, so you probably don’t mind that there is a non-flashed performance and a smaller screen than the 13-inch model.

Pluses

• Lightweight and slim design
• A relatively low starting price
• 16GB Standard of RAM

Disadvantage

• Slow processor
• The keyboard is an additional $ 150
• The screen can be better
• There is no port to connect the surface

$ 800 in Microsoft

What is new in the 12-inch surface pro

The 12-inch Surface Pro is the mainly retinue version of the 13-inch model: it’s lighter lighter and 1.5 mm thinner. Therefore, the comparison of the iPad. It feels much more like a real tablet in your hands, while previous surface devices have always felt a little clumsy, as if they were laptops, pushed in a slate-like case (which, of course, were).

Qualcomm’s echoed Snapdragon X Plus is the main driving force for this redesign. As a low power chip, it allowed Microsoft to build a more compact tablet instead of sticking to its older cases that had to keep hot chips Intel. Even last year’s 13-inch Surface Pro, which is also powered by Qualcomm hardware (10-core Snapdragon X Plus and 12-core X Elite) was not a huge deviation from earlier Intel models.

Like the MacBook Air, the Surface Pro 12-inch is also without a fan, which can be a problem if you are working in a warm environment. Of course, this also means that the device is completely silent, but frankly I have not had many problems with the noise of the fan in other modern ultraports. Basically, it becomes a problem in high -end game systems and workstations, but these devices also operate hot, so the fan noise is inevitable.

As the goal was to make the 12-inch Surface Pro smaller and cheaper, Microsoft also lowered its screen a little. There is no OLED option as it has with the 13-inch Surface Pro, and its LCD is maximum refreshing speed 90Hz instead of 120Hz. The resolution is also reduced to 2.196 to 1.464 (3.2 million pixels, 220 pixels per inch), which is far from 2880 on the screen with 1 920 (5.5 million pixels, 267ppi) of the larger model. While the screen of the smaller Surface Pro is nowhere as sharp as the 264 PPI Retina Display on the iPad Pro and iPad Air, it also does not look like a cheap LCD. Pop colors are still decent in the sun. But it is not perfect if you are seriously editing photos or videos for both its size and simply its adequate resolution.

Another surprising step down? This surface Pro has no port for charging a magnetic surface. Instead, you will need to load it on one of its two USB-C ports. Oh, and when we talk about charging, Microsoft includes only a USB-C cable in the field-you will need to deliver your own variable adapter. You can Our fast loading guide Instead.

Last but not least, Microsoft also designs a new 12-inch Surface Pro Keyboard. Although it just has to be tied to Surface Pro (who the hell will buy it without a keyboard?!), Microsoft again says it offers users a “choice”, making you pay an additional $ 150 for this accessory.

Obviously, the company wants to launch $ 800 Surface Pro, which would be impossible if the keyboard was actually tied. But this is still a deceptive practice of Microsoft, the one that is inherently an anti-consumper and ultimately continues to harm the accumulation of the accuracy of the surface composition. It would be another story if other companies built their own keyboards that could stick magnetically on the surface – Microsoft would not comment when I asked if it was possible.

By use: a charming surface for the basics

The 12-inch Pro surface did not surprise me with Zippness, which I saw in the 13-inch model of Snapdragon X Ultra-Powered. And it certainly didn’t blow my mind like the MacBook Pro with the Apple M1. Instead, the smaller surface is just … well. He coped with my typical workflow – juggling several dozens of browser, Evernote, Spotify and Light Image Eding – no problems. But I could understand from her comparison that I really can’t emphasize it.

Honestly, however, slow performance has always struck 12-inch laptops, such as Apple’s last MacBookS You don’t buy a little speed laptop, you buy it because it’s sweet and super portable. And in this respect, the 12-inch Surface Pro succeeds. Along with the 0.3 pound surface keyboard, the entire Surface Pro package weighs about 1.8 pounds. This is still about 0.2 pounds less than the 13-inch Pro surface alone without a keyboard! Needless to say, it was easy to throw the 12-inch Surface Pro in my messenger bag to do the job around the city. After a while, I completely forgot that I was carrying it.

And while I didn’t expect much from the new surface keyboard, I found that it was enjoyable and responsive to introduce. I was worried that the keys would feel narrower than the 13-inch model, but my fingers couldn’t understand a big difference. I definitely miss having a bigger trackpad, but the 12-inch keyboard is still smooth and accurate. If you want a little stylus action, you can also push a $ 130 surface pen, which is magnetically mounted in the top of the tablet. I personally fell in love with the tablet stylus as a whole, but the surface pen worked well for notes for drawing and writing hands on the 12-inch Surface Pro.

As a standalone tablet, Surface Pro is again adequate, but is restrained by the small goals of Windows and the overall inaccessibility for plates. This is not a tablet that I will casually look at as an iPad, instead I usually use Surface Pro in the form of a laptop and then pull out the keyboard to read longer articles.

Back to these indicators: Like ZenBook A14, which practically reflects the surface results, the 12-inch tablet is a truly lightweight. But at least it’s a little more cheaper than A14, even including the additional surface keyboard. Both systems marked about the same on the tests of the Geekbench 6 and GPU processor, although Surface Pro was a little faster for one-thread performance. They are also bad 3D performers, with some of the lowest 3DMark Wildlife Extreme We’ve seen for years.

Given your size and weak hardware, I don’t think anyone will have any game expectations for the 12-inch Surface Pro. Cloud streaming would be the best option for a system like this – I was able to start Halo infinite With the Xbox app for about 15 seconds, the campaign was running smoothly over Wi-Fi without hiccups. You can find a handful of light games that work on Surface Pro, but because of the architecture of his hand, popular titles such as Fortnite and Overwatch 2 It won’t even start. (Not that I expected them to perform very well.)

Unfortunately, as I tried to test the Surface Pro battery in PcMark 10, I continued to come across strange software mistakes. I will continue to try to finish this test, but for now I can say that its battery has reached 53 percent after about eight hours of comparative analysis. As for real -world performance, it remained about 30 percent of battery life after using it for a full day. Microsoft claims that the 12-inch Surface Pro should last 16 hours. In our testing, the 13-inch model works for 12 hours and 15 minutes in PCMark 10.

Do you have to buy the 12-inch Surface Pro?

The 12-inch surface Pro is something you buy with your heart, not your brain. I could tell you that the 13-inch Surface Pro is a far faster and more capable computer. I could tell you that the greater surface is theft while selling for $ 800 with the best purchase, which is $ 200 less than its typical base price. But none of this really matters if you just want a sweet computer with Windows you can take anywhere.

I would not accuse you of being confused in Microsoft’s price strategy. The company recently removed its cheapest 13-inch surface professionals from its online store, which has led to a reporting that the company actually increases surface prices. So far, we are in a strange situation where the 12-inch and 13-inch models are sold for $ 800.

One result for all this? Microsoft can simply be sold through its existing stocks of base 13-inch models, so in the end, your cheapest option is the configuration of $ 1400 (which is currently sold for $ 1.030).

Wrapping

Surface Pro is lightweight, thin and will keep up with most of your basic performance tasks. In addition, it is incredibly charming, so much that you probably don’t mind that there is a non-flashed performance and a smaller screen than the 13-inch model. Microsoft has finally designed a surface computer that actually feels like an iPad, and for some people it’s the only reason to buy it.