OPINION : When we look back at the big computing news of 2024 , Microsoft ’s vast annunciation this hebdomad will surely stomach as one of the biggest events .
I was in Seattle for both the Surface event that kick off the workweek and the Build Developer Conference that took home afterwards . There was an airwave of positivity around the seat that show just how important the proceeding announcements were .
During the event many were ask the news to be the consumer versions of the business - focussed Surface gadget Microsoft announced a couple of months ago . This certainly was n’t the case .
Instead we got a new category of PC ( theCopilot Plus PC ) , and the promise of Windows 11 machine that could pop the question Brobdingnagian battery life improvement and performance ahead of Apple ’s M3 family .
All these co-pilot Plus personal computer go on theQualcomm Snapdragon Xseries of chips , be it the Plus or flagship Elite versions . Like Apple ’s M - series , these are build on theArmarchitecture . Whether you plump for a machine with the Plus or elect stigmatization , theNPU(neural outgrowth unit ) stay the same and enables the various AI features in Windows 11 , let in the clever ( if slightly controversial)Recall . As we ’ve seen with Arm chips on the Mac and iPad compass , they also have striking effects on battery life and cosmopolitan carrying into action .
While myriad better half include Asus , Acer and HP , launched machine around the event , the flagship ware were the couple of new Surface devices .
TheSurface Laptop Copilot Plus PC(or Surface Laptop 7 ) and theSurface Pro Copilot Plus PC(or Surface Pro 11 ) both feel like notable upgrades , and for the first time in about a decade I am seriously conceive about moving across to Windows for one of these raw simple machine .
Big battery claims
The high spot of the Surface Laptop 7 is the claimed 22 hour of battery life , although the 86 % performance rise over the Intel i5 version of the older Surface Laptop 5 should generate a lot of involvement too .
I was also taken with the design , which has thinner bezel around the blind compared to the previous rendering and comes in four refined colours . It ’s slim and light up too , all the ingredients required for a laptop computer like this to be successful .
The Surface Pro 11 is a delight too . Here , Microsoft swop the LCD for a wonderful OLED jury that really ups the caliber of the screen . I am also a huge rooter of the new Flex keyboard , which can be used independently of the tablet for more versatility . It ’s just a pity neither a keyboard nor a pen is included in the box .
I get to spend a few hour with each machine after the initial annunciation , however questions remain that will only be answered by have these machines into our laboratory and putting them through our review process .
Are those performance claim right ? 22 hours of battery life might be achievable when observe offline video recording , but what ’s the survival like across a regular workday ? My biggest question is around app compatibility , and how the biggest serving shape on this Arm hardware .
Microsoft did treat this during the launch , claim that apps like Spotify , Disney Plus and Chrome would all be natively build up for the computer hardware . legion apps in the Adobe Creative Cloud suite are native too , with others – like Premiere Pro – come presently . Finally , the Prism emulator will be on hired hand for apps not natively design for Arm and Microsoft said 90 % of apps will work fine on Clarence Shepard Day Jr. one .
The other side of the software disputation is focalise on AI . Microsoft has made it clear that Windows 11 is build with AI at the center , and these PCs have that focus too thanks to the dedicated on - equipment AI computer hardware . During the Copilot Plus PC launch , Microsoft also announced Recall – a new fashion of finding everything from Teams messages to demonstration slides – and a Photos app with generative AI features . The NPUs inside these Qualcomm chips are capable of performing 40 + trillion operations per second , so carry these AI sport to be very fast .
The combination of excellent hardware , capable chipsets that predict vast boost to both battery aliveness and performance , plus the selection of genuinely exciting AI advancements in Windows 11 make this the most tempting Microsoft computing product I can think back .
