The webcam performance is also fantastic. Since we're in the age of Zoom, LTE means I can take classes from anywhere without worrying about plugging in, and the Active Pen support makes taking notes a breeze. I'm honestly impressed by what Microsoft did.Īs a student, this has been my go-to machine in recent weeks, thanks largely to the stellar battery life. Microsoft's Surface hardware is also very well-designed with excellent cooling. It has all the features of Windows you know and love with the hardware benefits of ARM.

This is one of the most enjoyable Windows computing experiences I've had in many years in spite of the ARM limitations.

Should you buy it? Rating 7.5/10 Surface Pro X (2020) Microsoft has added 64-bit emulation to Windows 10 on ARM Insider builds, but according to my loan agreement for the device, I can't install it on the machine to test. Luckily, the fast charging tops up the battery pretty quickly-Microsoft doesn't give a figure to the wattage, but it has a 65W charger in the box. Emulation also drains the battery much faster than it otherwise would, so the 15 hour Microsoft battery life guesstimate turns into 6 or 7 hours. These programs are actually quite buggy and noticeably slower than ARM-compiled programs. So, basic things like Google Chrome, Slack, and even more complex games like Portal 2 will run, but not at the full performance of the chip.

Microsoft didn't want to launch a computer that can't run most programs, so they do offer emulation of x86 32-bit programs to run on the ARM chip. This means some x86 programs just won't work. It connects reliably, gets timely notifications, and setup is pretty simple.īecause the Microsoft SQ2 chip from Qualcomm is based on ARM instead of x86, programs need to be built specifically to run on the ARM architecture. I’m not sure if it’s Microsoft’s recent app updates or something with the ARM version of Windows, but I don’t have any major complaints. Plus, the Your Phone app has been working much better for me lately. As an Android guy, having access to all my Android apps and data inside Windows is a killer feature.

Surface pro x 2 review