On paper, the new Surface Pro X unveiled today sounds perfect. Larger screen, thinner and lighter, better battery life, rapid charging, removable storage, new slim pen: what more could you ask for?
To achieve these advances, the Surface Pro X will run on a custom Microsoft-Qualcomm Snapdragon processor named the SQ1. And that’s where things begin to become complicated.
To demonstrate the power of the Pro X, Microsoft trotted out Adobe to its stage and demonstrated a beta of Adobe Fresco running on the device. Fresco was recently released on the iPad and runs well as a lightweight sketching and painting app. Let’s just say it’s not a Photoshop killer.
Does the Surface Pro X run real Windows desktop apps like Photoshop? And if so, does it run them well? I’ve been scouring other tech sites following this morning’s announcement and I can’t say.
In the early days of this blog, I featured a Surface Pro compatibility chart to identify software that had been verified to run or that had issues with the hardware. We may have to revive that feature for the Pro X.
The new flattened Surface Pro X Pen looks like a carpenter’s pencil but there’s no word whether it performs better than the current gen pen.
Ranging between $999 to $1799, the Surface Pro X is an interesting addition to the Surface family. The Pro X is clearly a direct iPad Pro competitor, but while the value proposition of that device has improved dramatically over the years, it’s too early to tell if Microsoft’s new tablet is worth the investment. It’s possible that the Pro X could end up being this year’s Surface RT (at twice the price).
And, sadly, the keyboard and pen are still sold separately.
At 8 GB, the base model should be sufficient for most users. Although the 256 GB SSD is preferable, you can probably live with 128 GB, knowing it can always be upgraded at a future date. Due to compatibility you won’t be loading as many programs onto this device as you might the Surface Pro 7.
Will I be buying the Surface Pro X? Probably not until more of these questions are answered.
But what do you think of the Surface Pro X? Will you be pre-ordering one? What specs hit your sweet spot? Let’s discuss below.
