USB-C is a new highlight, but the laptop does not support Thunderbolt 3 and there’s only one of them. New for the Surface Laptop 3 is a fast charge feature, that will see it hit 80% from flat in about an hour, which is extremely handy for quick top-ups but only works when the machine is off. That’s about 90 minutes less than the Surface Laptop 2 under similar working conditions, but about in line with others of a similar design. It lasts through an eight-hour work day with the brightness set to 70%, and recommended battery settings, using Chrome, Windows Mail, Evernote, NextGen Reader, Typora and several messaging apps open, plus some image editing in Affinity Photo, finishing with under 10% battery left. It won’t match a workstation for computing power, such as the new 16in Apple MacBook Pro, but compares favourably to Apple’s smaller 13in MacBook Pro and Dell’s XPS 13.īattery life is good, but not class-leading. It handled general computing with no slowdown at all and with the fans barely audible, even with 10 applications open with lots of tabs in Chrome and several large images open and being worked on in Affinity Photo. The Surface Laptop 3 is therefore a top performer in the premium laptop market, offering a good balance of power and portability. The 13.5in Surface Laptop 3 ships with one of Intel’s latest 10th-generation Core i5 or Core i7 processors, which are faster on paper and support improved RAM and the next generation of wifi 6. Processor: quad-core Intel Core i5 or i7 (10th generation)Ĭonnectivity: wifi 6 (ax), Bluetooth 5, USB-A, USB-C, headphones, Surface Connect TPMĪlong with faster processors, the 10th-generation Intel chips bring with them support for the new wifi 6 standard and Bluetooth 5.0. The keys are solid, well spaced, have a nice silk-like texture to them, a satisfying amount of travel and are relatively quiet. There is simply not a finer typing experience to be had on any other laptop. The trackpad is large, smooth and responsive arguably one of the best fitted to any Windows laptop, but it’s still not quite as fantastic as that fitted to Apple’s MacBooks. It’s likely it won’t mark in the same way the fabric does, but it feels somewhat generic.

The aluminium deck is smooth and well finished, but isn’t as unique or characterful as the Alcantara alternative. The keyboard continues to offer arguably the best typing experience on a laptop.

Surface pro 3 i7