back to article Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio: Too edgy for comfort?

My 20-year-old son is an aspiring athlete who spends a lot of time in the gym and thinks nothing of lifting 100 kilograms in various directions. So I was a little surprised when I handed him Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Studio and he declared it uncomfortably heavy. At 1.8kg it's certainly not among today's lighter laptops. That …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    iPad + Magic keyboard/stand

    I am far from an Apple fanbois, but having seen this combo when my visually impaired wife (for whom it's a lifeline) I was immediately impressed.

    1. Cederic Silver badge

      Re: iPad + Magic keyboard/stand

      The MS Surface tablets are a Windows based alternative that I've been using for a few years; their detachable keyboards are very functional.

      I was contemplating the MS Surface Laptop Studio but the comments on sharp edges and weight have successfully deterred me - it's not 1.8kg, it's 'over a kg more than I'm already toting'.

      1. Sandgrounder

        Re: iPad + Magic keyboard/stand

        Let me fix this for you:

        iPad + Magic keyboard/stand are an expensive and inferior copy of Microsoft Surface devices. Whilst the iPad hardware is great, the fisher price OS that the vendor insists on inflicting on its users is a crime (and will remain so whilst touch screen and macOS remain isolated from each other) .

        If you are happy with the surface pro format, why change? If you like Microsoft hardware but need some more oomph including a graphics card or prefer more of a traditional laptop whilst keeping a pen for writing/drawing, then this is a decent, if pricey upgrade.

    2. J. Cook Silver badge

      Re: iPad + Magic keyboard/stand

      Yeah. Despite the quirks of iPadOS, my iPad Pro with it's fancy-pants keyboard/stand gives me a very good experience, nearly as good as a traditional clamshell laptop.

  2. Neil Brown

    SurfaceBook 2

    At a shade under 2kg - more once you factor in a power supply - the 15" SurfaceBook 2 is heavier than I would like too, but it runs Debian well, has a great screen, and is a pleasure to use, so I consider it one of the (significant) compromises.

  3. hammarbtyp

    User: I would rather cut my wrists than use a surface laptop

    Microsoft Design team: hmmmmm, lets help you with that

    1. David 132 Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Well played, Sir/Madam.

      Shades of the old National Lampoon car-buying gag when the salesman tells Clark "You think you hate it now, but wait 'till you drive it..."

  4. Fursty Ferret

    Has Simon tried any other computers designed in the last decade? The MacBook Pro has sharp edges. So does the Razer Blade, and the Dell XPS 13 Plus. HP gets it right, though. Same situation with USB-A. It's going, consigned to the same place as a parallel ports and PS/2.

    As for the power connector pulling out - that's literally what it's designed to do when you trip over it. MagSafe is OK, sorta, but sticks like glue and damages the computer every time you connect it because the tolerances are small and the magnets too strong.

    If you have to be within 30cm for Windows Hello to recognise you then your machine is faulty; you're exaggerating; or you set it up in the wrong conditions (eg with the sun behind you).

    Sometimes the need for The Register to Microsoft-bash is frustrating. Traditionally their hardware has always been pretty good, it's Windows (11) that sucks.

    1. TimMaher Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Razr Blade

      Well, with a name like that....

    2. Cederic Silver badge

      Sitting with the sun behind you is not user error.

  5. WilliamBurke
    Stop

    Moving pictures in article

    Can you stop that? It's irritating!

  6. lglethal Silver badge
    Go

    1.8kg is heavy?

    My old Asus (and we are only talking 12 years ago) came in at a whopping 4,8kg, and sounded like a jet engine in operation. And it still got lugged around university campuses and other locations for a number of years!

    Kids these days...

    (Pro Tip: If you have a loud laptop, just make sure you're the first one in and have it running already, and everyone will just think its something wrong with the air conditioning. Oh and dont turn it off half way through a lesson, or people will think something has gone wrong with the Air Con...)

    1. Triggerfish

      Re: 1.8kg is heavy?

      Weight as a laptop is fine, weight when trying to use it as a tablet its unwieldy.

    2. katrinab Silver badge
      Paris Hilton

      Re: 1.8kg is heavy?

      There is a difference between using a laptop on your desk and carrying it around in a bag, and using it while holding it, which you would do with a tablet.

      My 16" MacBook Pro is absolutely fine to carry around in a bag, but trying to hold it with one hand while prodding it with the other, then it would be too heavy.

  7. elsergiovolador Silver badge

    Fan fare

    So old generation CPU and no mention of the heat and fan noise?

    I think the clue may be in its name - "Studio" to be used in a studio flat, so you don't bother others with the noise it is making?

    1. Sandgrounder

      Re: Fan fare

      Have you ever set eyes (ears?) on this laptop or is your expert opinion based on your intuitive understanding from the spec sheet?

      In days gone by, manufacturers considered thermal properties and heat dissipation when building PCs, be they full size towers or laptops. Even the choice of fan made a difference on whether your device ran quietly or sounded like a jumbo jet taking off. Days before the cult of thin swept all before it.

      As an actual owner and daily user of the Surface Laptop studio, I would like to share my experiences

      - in my normal daily activities the laptop is virtually silent and the fans remain off. These activities include software development and running various simulators and emulators when testing mobile apps.

      - on the rare times the fans do come on, they are an order of magnitude quieter than the typical laptop fans I've heard from other devices. Certainly no worse than using an average business grade desktop PC.

      As to other points in the article:

      - I've never cut my wrists on its edges. They are no sharper than any other device I have used and I can use it to work on all day with no ill effects when away from my usual desktop environment.

      - The battery lasted for a full 8 hour workshop yesterday, where OneNote was used constantly, with Teams and Outlook running in the background. I've never tried hours of video rendering or continual code compilation tasks whilst waiting for it to die. I also doubt it will get close to an Apple M1/2 powered laptop. However, in [my] normal usage, I am never concerned that the battery won't last a half day at a customer's office plus a few hours on the train home. It beats my previous Surface Book 2 comfortably.

      - I love the form factor for taking notes, drawing architecture diagrams, annotating documents. To borrow a phrase, it just works.

      1. elsergiovolador Silver badge

        Re: Fan fare

        Every single Intel laptop I had, regardless of manufacturer, had the same problem - poor performance, overheating and fan noise.

        Typical scenario is - browsing Facebook or Teams makes fans spin like laptop is going to take off. If you forgot to plug in, then after an hour or two battery is dead. Oh and random throttling or locking - suddenly laptop switches to 800MHz and only hard reboot makes it go back to "normal".

        1. Sandgrounder

          Re: Fan fare

          Do all your machines come from the $100 bargain bucket, do you deliberately buy crap or are you the unluckiest user on the planet?

          Are the rest of world really that dumb to keep buying Intel? OK, the answer to that is obviously yes but that's not the point.

          You say Facebook, Teams? Problem solved, it's a software issue.

  8. keith_w

    I use windows 11 on my surface pro in tablet mode constantly with out problems touching screen top icons or other issues. In fact, my biggest problem with it is using the touch keyboard. I often hit the b, n, or m instead of the space bar.

    1. Smirnov

      Same here, I've been using Windows 11 on two Dell tablets (a Venue 11 Pro 7140 and a Lattitude 11) and (aside from the Windows/Microsoft specific annoyances) it works fine as tablet OS and certainly much better than the abomination that was the UX mess in Windows 10's "touch" UI mode.

      Even the touch keyboard works fine (but I still prefer the physical keyboards I have for both tablets).

  9. pavel.petrman

    I wonder what the U in USB stands for...

    ... I remeber times when USB really was universal (up to version 2.0).

    Nowadays it seems that USB plays a sinister role more often than not: a devilish vessel for Windows updates (system hub not working with older versions), Dell's x86_64 tablets freezing out on Linux upon attaching periferies, Thinkpads can't be bothered to work with any USB-C docks beside their own (which can't be ordered because of chip shortages) and so on and on.

    It's nice to have one connector for displayport, hdmi, charging both ways, network, usb, lng, petrol and garden hose. But one feels sometimes as if we were back in the times of flatbed scanners to work reliably over SCSI: words like alchemy and lottery spring to mind.

    In this respect it is not surprising at all that Microsoft produced a laptop whose USB refuses to work with preexisting periferies.

    1. WolfFan Silver badge

      Re: I wonder what the U in USB stands for...

      ‘Unloved’.

      ‘Unable to connect.’

      ‘Unavailable.’

      ‘Utterly borked.’

      1. ITMA Silver badge
        Devil

        Re: I wonder what the U in USB stands for...

        You missed out:

        'Uuugghhhhh'

        1. Gene Cash Silver badge

          Re: I wonder what the U in USB stands for...

          And

          "Upside-down"

      2. katrinab Silver badge
        Windows

        Re: I wonder what the U in USB stands for...

        When it first came it, it was called "Useless Serial Bus".

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I wonder what the U in USB stands for...

          And then the iMac came out, back in 1998. As usual, Apple to the rescue of the poor Windoze idiots.

      3. elsergiovolador Silver badge

        Re: I wonder what the U in USB stands for...

        Usual Suspect's Borehole

  10. Throgmorton Horatio III

    Deja vu?

    This looks and sounds tremendously like a version 1 Unibody Macbook.

    Sharp edges? Check.

    Short battery life? Check.

    Denser than expected? Check.

    Previous gen Intel CPU? Check.

    Hello 2009.

    It sounds like a potentially good tool that just needed refining/completion of design.

  11. Fuzznet

    Just Edgy Enough for this User...

    I've been using this model for well over 6 months on a daily basis: No wrist cut issues; is this a posture or ergonomics difference?

    And IMO, its screen re-design, pen stowage re-location, and resultant tablet-ness are a significant improvement over the previous detachable version...so the right kind of edgy for this user.

    Finally, as far as weight, everyone is entitled to their opinions. Worse: You are making an judgement call without illuminating the trade space: smaller batteries, less durable hinges and design, smaller / less functional screens, and less computational power can all lead to less weight. Please compare not-Apples to not-Apples.

    Bottom line: After using a version of the Surface Laptop for four years running due to its combination of writeability-convertibility-portability-power...I think that if you want the capabilities that this machine offers, the Studio is the best iteration that Microsoft has provided and the best-in-class.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like