Surface Laptop 3 15-Inch Review

Surface Laptop 3 15-Inch Review

Microsoft has you covered with the new surface laptop 3 15-inch now with AMD processors was it really worth all the hype and their cost well today in this post we'll review the Surface Laptop 3. Alright now before we get started let's put to context about this device so it is effectively a surface laptop 3 13 inch but yeah with the bigger display now there's a lot of hype around this device because it's the first to feature AMD chipsets on board including the rise in in Vegas system and I did an editorial recently talking about AMD and why I didn't think was a big deal putting it in a laptop and I did get a lot of uh let's just say fan response to that but I'm not entirely wrong here so effectively I'm just gonna give you a response here about what this laptop is this is just a 13-inch Ultrabook with a 15 inch display I don't want to make it any more than that it is not an XPS 15 nor is it anywhere near as powerful as a surface book to so that's what you're expecting you're probably going to be disappointed now I'll go to a little bit more details about that turn the benchmarks but overall it's a pretty standard ultrabook that's not a bad thing though there are a lot of 15-inch ultrabooks with this kind of design on the market I believe Samsung has one LG makes a few of them as well but if you're looking for a thin fast device that's also just looks really excellent and has that three by two aspect ratio well maybe this will be your laptop or just going to the product tour and show you what's new with this hardware.

Display

Turning to the display you get that awesome three by two aspect ratio let's be clear that's a lot of reason why people buy this laptop or will be buying this laptop because it's taller than most sixteen by nine displays out there it just gives you a better vertical it looks really awesome and the display is 24 96 by 16 64 resolution for 201 PPI that matches this surface laptop 3 13-inch but of course it's still below what the surface pro does which has a smaller twelve point three inch display so it's a little bit tighter still it's a really good display regarding color accuracy it's a very good display so it gets pretty good sRGB ready really high but not the highest out there Adobe RGB and PCI 3 is also pretty good as well but I won't talk again compared to surface pro this display is alright they do have enhanced mode this year which is nice so there's srgb color setting but you also have enhanced which makes things a little bit more contrast see but again following what other manufacturers are doing in this space I feel like the surface line is falling a little bit behind specifically regarding HDR 400 which this does not have so does it support Tobi vision it's also not an anti-glare display Manta glare is really interesting because it's still a glossy display just doesn't reflect light as much and so it's not like a matte display it so companies like Dell and HP are using this technology and it looks really nice because it helps with eye fatigue you can stare at the screen a lot longer not be distracted by things behind you reflected from the lights above and this doesn't have it I'm a little bit disappointed there there's also OLED which everybody is doing and all LEDs a little bit controversial I get it some people prefer OLED some people don't I wouldn't mind seeing all that here but I'm ok with using the LCD panel still I would have preferred to have HDR 400 in an anti-glare layer you don't get that here you do get a full touch screen hitting yeah you can use a surface pen with it but it's more of an afterthought box ops not really selling this device as that kind but if you need to occasionally sign a document it's a nice feature to have brightness is okay as well so you talked a little bit over 400 nits which is you know above average but it's also not as crazy as to 500 nits a lot of manufacturers are hitting these days so it's a bright screen now and you should be able to use it in most situations without an issue.

Front Facing Camera

Front-facing camera it's a 720p it's pretty solid Microsoft has always done some the best webcams here and you get that experience as well it also has windows full facial unlock recognition which is really good and again this is the subtle stuff you appreciate with surface mic self is really tuned this hardware so when you open that lid which yes you do with one hand this thing is like instant on an instant face recognition it is so fast it's just one of those little things you appreciate and I bring it up because HP Dell they all have kind of fast systems but this is the fastest there's something about what Microsoft does with the hardware here which just really makes experience exceptional I just want to point it out because on the surface pardon the pun when you see this device you may not think it's a special but it's all those little things that matter and it adds up here for that front-facing camera well.

Keyboard and TrackPad

Now turning to the keyboard deck things get a little bit interesting so previously on surface laptop 2 does this Alcantara now you still can get Alcantara on a 13-inch version which hopefully Microsoft will send us for a review so stay tuned for that but it's an option so some models have it some models do not when it comes to into 15-inch well you don't get an option it is all metal I think it's gonna actually make a lot of people happy and I kind of get the understanding there at Alcantara gets a little bit dirty that said I'm team Alcantara I love the feel of it especially the dark or black version if they had for last year which actually hid dirt pretty well and didn't get really discolored it was just an exceptional feeling device it really felt nice for resting your palms on now I have to worry about my watch bands scratching the metal here and this is behind that metal that will scratch and you really don't want to do that so be careful with your watch but hey for a lot of people like these is probably the better decision this keyboard is also very good as all surface laptops aren't very good travel very good three-stage backlighting this well it's a really nice the trackpad is also bigger for the surface laptop 313 inch and it's a good size here not as big as Apple's but I think most people will be happy with it again very good trackpad.

Speaker

Lets talk about the audio this is always interesting so one thing you have to appreciate out this surface laptop series is the fact that they hide the speaker's you can't see them and it's just one of those things you don't appreciate unless you really focus on it but that's kind of the point so speakers are actually below the keyboard and it hides them well which is really good now I've actually always been a huge fan of surface laptop twos audio I thought it was some of the best audio in the market again it was those fundamentals that made that laptops so exceptional it's good here don't get me wrong and because it's a bigger laptop you get a little bit more of a richer base eerie sound but I also found out they sacrifice a little bit of the high so I compared it to surface laptop to side-by-side the laptop to sounded better to me just was crisper had higher audio and just worked a little bit better this is still really good I think out of the box when he carried us you'll think it's pretty but they could do better now the good news is I think they could tune the software here if they want to so they may be able to do that down the road it's very loud too but then again that's also negative if you start to go above 50 you will start to hear a little bit crackling once in a while or a little bit rumbling from the speakers so any higher than that it will only increase that some of the speakers get quite loud they can be a little bit distracting if they peak at higher volume.

Ports

It's kind of interesting being a bigger laptop they sure to have more ports but no they don't it's exact same port setup as these surface on top three which I think it's kind of a missed opportunity depending on how you use these things actually for my own usage it doesn't matter but I get if you do so what you get is a USB type-c 3.1 port which is really nice now again not Thunderbolt 3 / that's because Thunderbolt 3 is technically an Intel technology although you can do its AMD but I think max I just wanted to keep its entire line Thunderbolt 3 free to be more consistent which I know sounds weird but you don't have to worry about which laptop has it which doesn't cuz none of them have it that said it's a really good type C port this is basically what people want Universal you can recharge the device you can throw in 245 6500 watt charge with - that's type C port it'll recharge the laptop you can also use it for display out to power - 4k displays at 60 Hertz so it's pretty powerful you can also use it for just data or a hub if you want to as well so all that stuff works that's kind of what most people want you can't use an external GPU which you know for a 15-inch actually would have been nice to have but that's just something I have to live with you also get a USB type a for your thumb drives and other older accessories like mice and you get a service connect for and the plus is interesting because it now rapid charges around 0 to 80% in an hour that said I tested it it was around 0 to 70% in about an hour but and it's still pretty close that's still a really good charge for a 15-inch laptop and finally you also get a headphone jack but that should be expected although some laptops these days aren't shipping with those either so nice to have it here.

Power and Performance

I don't want to be like mean here I mean it's a good chipset put it into perspective here this is gonna be definitely faster than the Intel's Core i5 in some situations the GPU though is okay so you're certain to look at something again it sits between Irish Pro and an MX 150 which isn't like huge to brag about right this is not a gaming laptop you're not gonna be able to really game on it yeah you can play crackdown 3 if you jack down all the graphics a lot because it's a PC and it can do that it's also good for arcade games if you like doing side scrollers but you're looking to do real first-person shooter stuff you have to look at the surface book or I would say something you like the blade stealth which now actually has a real GTX 16:50 GPU in it making it actually a real gaming laptop that's still 13 inches this however it's just a it's an ultrabook what can I say it's just gonna get basic performance like you would expect now we're using the rides and five version here there is a rise in seven which you know will be faster but I don't expect anything huge there when you comparing it to Intel's attention ten nanometer series those are actually really good chips and the AMD rise ins here they're okay I know Microsoft talked a lot on stage about tweaking them and customized and all this kind of stuff but you don't really see it the results here I think they did that because the rise ins as is weren't performing quite as well as they wanted to but if you're just using this as an ultrabook for productivity for web browsing videoconferencing occasional light gaming and yeah even occasional video editing or photo editing you'll be ok with this just don't go into buying the same thing it's a full-on gaming laptop cuz it's definitely not like said you have to look elsewhere for that.

Heat and Thermals

Heat and thermals very good job hears we expect from surface laptop so it never gets too hot or uncomfortable to use in fact it's just really nice the fans rarely kick on you and when they do they're pretty whisper quiet so this is great for our library or quiet environment and that keyboard is also very quiet for typing on it won't draw up traction like say a MacBook with it's butterfly keys which are very loud

Battery

Battery life here it's pretty good so we didn't have enough time to actually do it ourselves and give you a real feel on what it is but and that's how it seemed okay to me we did however run PC mark 10 which has a battery rundown test specifically one called modern office so it's meant to simulate basically working in it this what does is it runs word and a browser and videoconferencing on a loop with occasional pauses in between to simulate idle time and it goes through that and that results actually pretty good it's eight hours in 42 minutes that's a little bit below what Microsoft is rating isn't which is like 10 or 11 hours but 8 hours and 42 minutes of real productivity work on this laptop with occasional GPU usage it's actually pretty solid that is basically all-day battery life for most people and if you do need to recharge like I said you can do zero to 80% or zero up to 70% and about an hour so just 15 minutes or 20 min total top you off for a day so pretty good battery life out in here not exceptional but you know not bad either I think for most people it'll be okay.

SSD

SSD well this falls in line with every surface pro device out there which is it's okay so you're talking about 2008 104 it read and write speeds which is definitely not the fastest especially those right ones now there are much faster laptops out there that are doing three thousand and two thousand or even three thousand three thousand for read and writes and that really bothers you you'll probably want that but for read speeds is actually pretty solid and that's what most people use every day when you're watching apps and just going about your day you and get those fast read speeds so pretty solid now you can upgrade the SSD here in theory obviously you can't do it yourself you need to bring it to an authorized retailer we can then pop off this lid and replace the SSD to put in a bigger one maybe a faster one we actually don't know but it's more made for enterprising businesses who are going to keep these things for many years versus the consumer I guess in theory you can do it now it's a nice feature if they have this whole keyboard deck basically pops off it can even replace the battery that was a big problem deep old surface laptops that goes heard a surface laptop 3 13 inch by the way 2 it has the same feature where the keyboard deck pops off now it's good because the old surface laptop it was glued together and you just couldn't take it apart and replace anything so it was just do a now it's been a fortune they fixed that this year but again this meant for businesses not really consumers.

Surface Laptop 3 full review

Surface laptop 3 15-inch, it's kind of in between to be honest I'm a little bit disappointed so let's talk about a few of those reasons first of all to display I already told you it doesn't have HDR 400 and Dolby vision or antique Claire those are things other competitors are doing today and no mic stuff you used to lead on the display stuff and don't get me wrong it's a good display especially because of that aspect ratio but I would have really liked to see each year 400 or anti-glare or both of those because HP and Dell are doing them why can't we have it here the processor is also ok I hate to break it to you but the AMD system on here is just a basic Ultrabook it doesn't do anything crazy battery life is alright at 8 hours and 42 minutes it's all day usage that's actually all I want and a laptop but for this size this device why could they have put in say an Intel Core i7 will it be for your processor along with an MX 150 GPU I mean MX 150 s have gone to 13 inch laptops razor is now putting a gtx 1652 a 13 inch laptop so it seems weird to have sort of an underperforming GPU into this size of the device now if you just want an ultrabook with a nice display well this is actually one of the few choices you have on the market so it succeeds there the other thing that kind of bothers me is port selection now personally speaking I'm actually ok with the ports here it's what I need I like the type see I can use my portable external display with this and plugs in I could throw in two hub in there as well I like the fast charge and I have a USB a so that's kind of all I want but if you expect and want and a 15-inch laptop to have more ports I totally get it especially we want to say an SD card reader on this that would have been nice to have so if that bothers you I'm kind of on your side especially for the pricing of this device which also brings that up this is an 8 gigabytes 256 gigs of storage with a rise in five it's $1500 that's those are surface prices but for a little bit below that just over 1400 you can buy an XPS 15 with a gtx 1650 and a core i7 45 watt processor which it's gonna be a much more powerful device out there you also have the option for a 4k OLED panel which will bump up the price but that's a really nice panel to have and I feel like if you're looking for a much more powerful laptop that's in the same price range that's a better bet don't get me wrong there's also about a pound heavier so it's not all free either but that's the trade-off you're going to get here with this ice this is just a really nice-looking ultrabook laptop the AMD chips are there are okay but they're not exceptional and it's just kind of a bigger surface laptop 313 inch which many of you expect it now I should point out the Wi-Fi on here is pretty good as well you get Wi-Fi six on board and it's not using Marvell so that's nice and Microsoft overall made a really nice design but it's on its league of its own I'll just say that it's fun using it I think there may be some better options out there especially if you're trying to stretch your dollar or so there's a quick look at the surface laptop 315 inch now with AMD chips.