Surface Pro X vs. Pro 7: ARM needs some legs

“ I good wish the Surface Pro 7 looked like a Surface Pro X with an Intel bit inside. ” That ’ s what I wrote about the Surface Pro 7 last month after reviewing Microsoft ’ s latest 2-in-1. I ’ ve immediately been using the Surface Pro X, an ARM-based version with an update design, for the last workweek, and my wish for a Surface Pro X with an Intel nick inside couldn ’ triiodothyronine ring truthful .
At times, operation has been erratic, battery animation underwhelming, and using the keyboard objectionable. I fell in love with the Surface Pro form factor over the past 12 months, but using the Pro X for the by week felt like a footfall backward in many ways. The machine is beautifully designed, but I ’ thousand writing this review on the Surface Pro X with a Pro 7 sitting in my pocket merely in lawsuit. That sums up the Pro X for me. I don ’ t trust it adequate yet since the performance and app compatibility just aren ’ triiodothyronine where they need to be. Microsoft has gotten closer than any other OEM with a viable Windows on ARM laptop, but more work needs to be done .
I expect a bunch of people are wondering how precisely it compares to the Surface Pro 7, so I have spent a workweek pitting them against each other. I didn ’ metric ton annoy with benchmarks or anything like that, as most are designed for x86 processors, and it ’ s not a fair comparison when the Surface Pro X alone runs 32-bit x86 apps in an emulation layer. I can weigh the benefits of the hardware and software on both and my experience of using these machines side by side .
If you ’ ra looking for a truly simpleton choice between the two, here it is : regular Windows users who don ’ metric ton want to worry about app compatibility and operation should pick the Surface Pro 7. If you need something more than an iPad and you ’ re a light personal computer user, then the Surface Pro X should be sufficient for most tasks.

Let ’ s start with the hardware design. Microsoft has done a capital job with the Surface Pro X — by and large. The 13-inch touch screen is a nice upgrade over the 12.3-inch one find on the Surface Pro 7, and it makes a deviation in making things feel less cramp. Microsoft has basically squeezed a bigger display into the familiar form factor of the Surface Pro 7, all while making the device slender and streamlined. The expose bezels are much smaller on the sides, but they are still present at the clear and bottom to fit the Windows Hello television camera in topographic point .
The Pro X I ’ ve been reviewing has a thumb-sized shot in the glass on the right-hand side bezel. I haven ’ thyroxine dropped the device or mistreated it, so I can only assume this happen during transportation, but there are no signs of any other damage around that area of the display, and it hasn ’ t messed with the screen at all. The device is black and the bezels are black, so I lone noticed the crack when I was using the Pro X in pill mode .












If you put the Pro 7 and Pro X side by slope, the display is the most obvious change, and the Pro X makes the Pro 7 spirit old. I sometimes feel like the Surface Pro 7 display is a little cramp to use, but I never very felt like that using the Pro X. Microsoft has kept the lapp hardware design for the Surface Pro 7 display and most of the exterior hardware, which is a more edgy / squared-off expect and spirit. It doesn ’ metric ton always feel that big to use as a tablet as a result .
The Surface Pro X besides feels great to hold compared to the Pro 7. Rounded edges help here, as does the slender form factor. It in truth feels much more like a pill than the Pro 7, and I love these insidious changes. The kickstands on each device feel identical, with the same clash to allow you to adjust it to different angles .
Port excerpt is truly where the basic hardware starts to differ. Microsoft has placed two USB-C ports on the Surface Pro X, and I actually prefer having the individual USB-A and USB-C ports that the Surface Pro 7 offers. I can ’ t count the number of times person has handed me a USB-A thumbstick, but the numeral of times I ’ ve seen a USB-C thumbstick in the angry is precisely zero .
The Surface Pro 7 besides benefits from a microSD slot, but the Pro X offers a obliterable SSD and a SIM circuit board slot for LTE. I favor the Pro X ’ s built-in LTE over having expandable microSD storage, but I prefer having a earphone jacklight on the Surface Pro 7. Bluetooth headphones are capital, but having to re-pair them is placid an irritating experience, and I would have liked to have had the option for regular headphones on the Pro X .
What I don ’ t like on the Surface Pro X is the keyboard — at least not the fresh style that includes a slot for the stylus. While the key placement, travel, and trackpad are identical to the Pro 7, the direction it attaches to the display is not. Microsoft has built a stylus slot for the new Surface Slim Pen into the department where the keyboard attaches to the Pro X. It ’ s a much better way to store a stylus, but it comes with some good compromises. The solid keyboard feels a lot more wobbly than what I ’ m used to on the Pro 7. This is in truth noticeable on your lap where the keyboard can go lopsided and cut off portions of the undertaking barroom. This is a major publish for me, particularly when the date disappears, I can ’ t see what apps are open, or I can ’ thymine quickly scan for telling badges on my apps .
The new keyboard with stylus is more rickety than before
Whether you ’ ll experience this problem in truth depends on how you sit and use the Surface Pro X. I ’ ve been using it everywhere from a bland surface, my sofa, in seam, on a educate, and lots of other places where it ’ south awkward to use a laptop. I hope that the regular keyboard Microsoft offers for the Pro X without the pen storage fares better, but I haven ’ thymine been able to test this yet. It ’ s decidedly something to consider if you ’ re trying to decide between the Pro X and Pro 7 .
The Surface Slim Pen is army for the liberation of rwanda better than the previous Surface Pen. It ’ mho flat like a carpenter pencil, and it feels a lot lighter in your hand. I don ’ triiodothyronine attract often, but I ’ five hundred decidedly take this over the regular Surface Pen. thankfully, you can buy one individually, and it works with the Surface Pro 7 so you don ’ t have to opt for the Pro X precisely for the slender stylus. The only benefit the Pro X offers here is the keyboard storehouse that mechanically charges the Slim Pen. You ’ ll indigence to connect it via USB-C if you plan to use it with the Pro 7 .



Hardware differences aside, the adjacent matter to consider between a Pro 7 and the Pro X is the processor that ’ randomness inside. Microsoft has opted for a customs Qualcomm SQ1 ARM central processing unit inside the Pro X and Intel ’ s 10th Gen processors inside the Pro 7. While Windows 10 is the like on both, with no fetid S Mode or RT form, the way it runs is different than what you might expect. Dieter Bohn covered some of the app compatibility issues in his review of the Pro X, and I wanted to compare them to what you ’ five hundred feel on the Pro 7 .
On the Pro X, I found that most of my apps worked, but there were some big exceptions. Dropbox refused to install, forcing me over to a Windows Store interpretation that doesn ’ thymine desegregate into the File Explorer like I ’ m used to. Clatter, a message app, installed but kept crashing every time I added a service. It then magically started working after a couple of days. ( This has never happened on an Intel car. ) Tweeten, a great Twitter app for Windows, refused to install, and Lightroom plainly isn ’ triiodothyronine available .
You truly have to think about apps on the Surface Pro X

All of these apps exercise finely on the Pro 7, and I ’ ve never had to figure out which ones do or don ’ t run on that device. Most apps on the Pro X, on the early hand, are using Microsoft ’ s x86 emulation layer, which means only 32-bit apps are supported, or developers have to recompile them into native 64-bit ARM apps. It ’ mho highly improbable that most app developers will bother to do this anytime soon, so you ’ re left playing a guess game on app compatibility .
The worst partially is that even if an app installs, it doesn ’ thymine beggarly you ’ re going to have a capital experience. Photoshop installs and opens just very well on the Surface Pro X, but the serviceability of it is severe. I can sit and watch it render the entire new text file dialogue box what feels like frame by frame. Like anyone who uses Photoshop, I use files that have multiple layers and regularly switch between PSDs on the fly. Using Ctrl + Tab with a few PSD files open felt laggy on the Pro X, and I ’ d regularly have to wait a second or therefore for it to respond to actions. I don ’ t think I ’ five hundred be able to quickly create the latest mega meme or edit an animated GIF easily. Photoshop international relations and security network ’ thyroxine perfect on the Pro 7 either, but it ’ mho nowhere near american samoa laggy as what I ’ ve experienced on the Pro X, and I can easily use it to modify files with multiple layers .
elsewhere, I ’ ve felt like the Pro X performance has been a little erratic. occasionally, I ’ five hundred curriculum vitae from standby and switch between apps, and things would take a solid moment to settle and not feel laggy. Discord international relations and security network ’ t precisely the most highly optimize app for Windows, but it struggles at times on the Pro X. I ’ ve never experienced erratic performance on the Pro 7 like this. Likewise, Spotify can be atrocious to use initially until it settles devour and stops pegging the CPU on the Pro X .









This settling down process feels like a constant experience on the Surface Pro X. I ’ five hundred often have to wait for the Pro X to catch its breath, and then it would feel barely like I was working on a Pro 7 for a few minutes until it got bogged down again. A batch of this is clearly because of the app emulation, and I ’ d hope that native ARM64 apps would perform much better. unfortunately, most of the apps I use on a daily footing haven ’ metric ton been recompiled for ARM and probably never will be, so I can ’ metric ton see this experience improving in the approximate future .
There ’ s a beam of hope here, though : if third-party app developers decide to compile for ARM64, things will decidedly get better. I managed to obtain an unreleased ARM64 version of Microsoft ’ sulfur Edge Chromium browser, and the performance improvements were immediately obvious. Everything from tab key management to browsing feels snappier than the emulate 32-bit versions of Chrome and the Edge Chromium beta. It in truth felt comparable to the browsing performance on the Surface Pro 7, which is a boastfully remainder to running Chrome right now on the Pro X. This is a good indication that native apps will run well, but that will require app developers to invest fourth dimension and money into bringing their apps to ARM .
Docking to an official Surface Dock was besides troublesome with the Pro X. Windows 10 doesn ’ metric ton constantly gracefully handle a switch in state from laptop to a junior-grade proctor, but the Pro X would take far longer than a professional 7 for apps to resize and be functional. The Pro X besides kept forgetting my multiple monitor preferences, and it would turn on its display even though I ’ vitamin d set it to explicitly display all contented only on my monitor .
I found that I ’ five hundred experience less lag and fewer issues when I used the Surface Pro X for hours at a time. short bursts of work and then straight into standby seemed to generate the laggy and slow experiences. This is besides reflected in the battery biography I ’ ve experienced on the Surface Pro X. On average, it was between six and seven hours if you go in and out of standby a draw. One day, I was glued to the Pro X working for a full day without tied going into standby, and it managed to go for closely eight and a half hours. I ’ ve noticed that battery animation takes a hit initially when you ’ re spinning up all your apps in the dawn, but then it drains at a more reasonable rate as the day goes on .
I haven ’ triiodothyronine experienced these types of issues on the Surface Pro 7. Battery life is naturally dependent on what tasks and apps you ’ ra hunt, but it ’ south reasonably reproducible on the Pro 7 at around six hours with a set of blend custom. I was expecting battery life of at least 10 hours on the Pro X, so I ’ megabyte disappoint it ’ s barely any better than the Pro 7 .
much like the Pro 7, the Pro X has a immediate sum up sport, which means it just goes into standby when you close the cover or hit the world power button. I stopped working one night at 11:15PM with 63 percentage and resumed again at 11:15AM the following day to 59 percentage. That ’ s a small less than the drain I ’ ve seen on the Pro 7, but the differences aren ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate meaning. It ’ second capital to have a flying resume on both. You besides get a agile charge feature on both the Pro X and Pro 7, and it takes around an hour to get to 80 percentage on both devices .



As it stands, it feels like the Surface Pro X was released excessively early. not equitable because third-party apps aren ’ metric ton ready, but because tied Microsoft ’ s own apps — like Edge Chromium and Office — haven ’ t been in full ported over to ARM64 .
Microsoft obviously had a purpose in thinker for the future of the Surface Pro, and it couldn ’ t achieve that with Intel just so far. Microsoft ’ randomness calculated risk now relies on third-party apps, but it besides means the Pro X just showcases a hardware design that we desperately want an Intel chip to fit into. It besides doesn ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate hand over on the battery life promises ARM is supposed to achieve. The keyboard, app compatibility, and performance are perceptibly worse than the Surface Pro 7, besides. Those are things I barely take for granted on the Pro 7, and it ’ s eldritch to have to worry about any of them again .

Given the $ 999 get down price of the Surface Pro X, it ’ s a address rival to the Surface Pro 7. I think you get far more for your money with the Pro 7 right now and the dependability you ’ d expect from this type of calculator. I have a Surface Pro 7 in my base while I write this Surface Pro X revue, merely because if I need to do some demanding work, like Photoshop, I know the Pro X will slow me down.

As person who uses Windows on a casual basis, I rely on it to be productive and get my ferment done promptly. The Surface Pro X is great to look at, but once you in truth start pushing it, the feel starts to fall apart. This hardware design might be the future for the Surface Pro note, but if it ’ s a “ pro ” machine, then it has to do more than deliver the basics — and the Pro X often can ’ t do that .
At the end of the day, I equitable wish that the Surface Pro X had an Intel chip inside .
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Category : Reviews