Month: September 2021

• 

  [credit: Microsoft ]

Microsoft has officially announced the Surface Pro 8, and the rumors were pretty much on the money. The new tablet includes a larger screen with a 120 Hz refresh rate, updated internal hardware, user-replaceable SSDs, and a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports that replace the USB-C and USB-A ports in the previous model. It's the most significant (and also: only) redesign that the tablet has gotten since the Surface Pro 3 back in 2014. The Surface Pro 8 is available for preorder today, and a version with a Core i5 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage will set you back $1,100 (plus the cost of a $180 Surface Pro Signature Keyboard cover and the $130 Surface Slim Pen 2, or $280 if you buy both). The first preorders will begin shipping on October 5, the day Windows 11 launches.

The Surface Pro 8 adopts most of the design tweaks Microsoft first tried out in the Surface Pro X in 2019. In fact, the two tablets now share some of the same key physical specifications, including the 13-inch 2880×1920 display size and resolution and the exact same height and width. Like most laptops released in the last few years, the screen size increase comes from shrinking the display bezels rather than dramatically changing the size of the device. The Surface Pro 8's screen does support up to a 120 Hz refresh rate for smoother scrolling, but the tablet will be configured to use the more typical 60 Hz refresh rate out of the box.

The Surface Pro 8 is about a tenth of an inch (or 2mm) thicker than the Pro X to make room for additional cooling, but the identical height and width means that the Surface Pro 8 and the Surface Pro X use the same keyboard cover, now renamed the Surface Pro Signature Keyboard. By the same token, the keyboard covers that worked with all Surface versions from 2014's Surface Pro 3 up to the Surface Pro 7 won't be compatible with the Surface Pro 8.

• 

  The Surface Laptop Studio has a flexible hinge that lets you pull the screen out over the keyboard. [credit: Microsoft ]

The Surface Pro 8 got a major update today, but the biggest reveal was the all-new Surface Laptop Studio, a high-end convertible with dedicated graphics that provides a step-up in speed from the regular Surface Laptop. The "Surface Studio" name is borrowed from the (aging, and still not updated) Surface Studio desktop, and the Laptop Studio's screen bends forward and uses the laptop's base as a stand in much the same way. Most of the time, the Laptop Studio just looks like a regular laptop, but its display can be pulled out over the keyboard into "stage mode" and tilted to whatever angle is most comfortable for what you're doing. It can also fold all the way down into "studio mode," which covers the keyboard and trackpad entirely and makes the laptop into one big tablet.

The Surface Laptop Studio starts at $1,600 and is available for preorder today. The first preorders will begin shipping on October 5, the day Windows 11 launches.

Microsoft is positioning the Laptop Studio as a replacement for the old Surface Book, and there are some similarities—the all-metal keyboard decks, the ultrabook-class Intel processors, and the low-power Nvidia GPUs in the Laptop Studio should all be familiar to current Surface Book owners. But the laptops differ significantly in form and function. The inability to completely remove the laptop's screen from its base will undoubtedly be a negative for some Surface Book owners, though using the Surface Laptop Studio's display stand to prop up the screen is its own kind of useful, and I'm not sad to see the death of the Surface Book's weird, bendy-straw hinge.

• 

  The Surface Go 3 looks a lot like the Go 2. [credit: Microsoft ]

It's not as big an upgrade as the Surface Pro 8, but Microsoft's Surface Go tablet got an update today. The Surface Go 3 retains the same 10.5-inch 1920×1280 screen, the same ports, and the same physical design as the Surface Go 2, but it upgrades the processors, adds 802.11ax Wi-Fi support, and ships with Windows 11 Home by default. The Surface Go 3 starts at the same $400 as the previous model and is available for preorder today; the cellular model will be available in "the coming months."

The Surface Go's biggest problem has always been that, especially in its cheapest configurations, its processor, RAM, and storage specs have all been dangerously close to the bare minimum it takes to run Windows comfortably. And the Surface Go 3 doesn't do much to address that. The dual-core Pentium Gold 6500Y and quad-core Core i3-10100Y processors are a significant and welcome step up from the Pentium and Core m3 chips in the Surface Go 2, but the entry-level Go 3 still includes just 4GB of RAM and 64GB of eMMC storage. That's a bit more than Microsoft's minimum system requirements for Windows 10, but they just barely meet the increased minimum RAM and storage requirements for Windows 11.

The version of the Go 3 that is available to consumers tops out at 128GB of storage, so you'll need to rely on microSD storage or cloud storage if you need more than that. There is a 256GB version of the Go 3, but it's only available to businesses. And unlike the Surface Pro 8 or Pro X, the SSD on the Surface Go 3 still isn't user-replaceable.

• 

  The Surface Duo 2. From this angle it looks identical to the Duo 1. [credit: Microsoft ]

The Surface Duo, take two. Microsoft's quirky two-screen device is back, and you can still run two apps side by side, fold the thing over for single-screen mode, or draw on it with a pen. The original device landed at the end of a messy, years-long journey that included a switch from Windows to Android and an official announcement that was a full year before the ship date. The Surface Duo 1 was a big flop and eventually hit the bargain bin for nearly $1,000 off the $1,399 MSRP (the device is still readily available for $412, by the way!). Microsoft seems undeterred by the original unit's performance, though, and it has produced this sequel. So, what's been improved?

First off, the specs look a lot better this year. Microsoft is turning in a modern device with a Snapdragon 888, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and a much bigger 4449mAh battery. The original device had a Snapdragon 855 SoC, which was 18 months old when the Duo shipped, and so this is a big improvement. There's also NFC this year, which was another odd quirk of the original device's spec sheet. The OG Duo was the thinnest Android device ever, at 4.8 mm thick, but Microsoft found room to increase the 3577mAh battery by making the phone thicker, and now each half is 5.5 mm. It's still one of the thinnest Android devices ever, and Microsoft even managed to cram mmWave support into the US version.

The phone still has two rigid, glass-covered screens that fold up like a moleskin notebook. This year the two OLED screens are a bit bigger, at 5.8-inches each, and Microsoft is again modernizing them with 90 Hz refresh rates. The resolution is close to the 4:3 aspect ratio of last year but not quite, with a weird measurement of 1892×1344. The reason for this seems to be the addition of a few extra pixels for a new spine display. The hinge-side of each display has a curve to it, just like the annoyingly curved sides of a flagship Android phone, allowing you to see a tiny sliver of the screen while the Duo 2 is closed. Microsoft is using this to display little notification chips for things like your number of missed calls or messages.

Enlarge / The Surface Pro X doesn't get a hardware refresh today, but there is a new Wi-Fi-only model, and Windows 11 will improve app compatibility. (credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft has significantly revamped and upgraded the x86-based Surface Pro and Surface Go tablets today, but the ARM-based Surface Pro X isn't getting any hardware upgrades of note. Microsoft is, however, releasing a Wi-Fi-only model that brings the tablet's entry price down to $899 (compared to $999 for the LTE base model, which also includes a Microsoft SQ1 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage).

The Surface Pro 8 has adopted most of the Surface Pro X's design improvements, but the Surface Pro X does remain slightly thinner, is totally fanless, and is about a quarter-pound lighter (1.7 lbs compared to 1.96 lbs before you add a keyboard or other accessories). Microsoft has also updated the Surface Slim Pen—the $130 Slim Pen 2 moves the pen's button from the narrow side to the flat side and adds a haptic vibration motor to recreate the "feeling you get with pen on paper." That functionality, however, apparently requires the Microsoft G6 chip in the Surface Pro 8 and Surface Laptop Studio. On other devices, including the Surface Pro X, the pen supports the same 4,096 pressure levels as the previous model and maintains compatibility with Surface devices going back to the Surface Pro 3.

The main Surface Pro X upgrade that Microsoft focused on is Windows 11 itself, which will resolve some of the Surface Pro X's software compatibility issues by supporting the emulation of 64-bit x86 code. Windows 10 can only emulate 32-bit x86 apps, though beta versions of Windows 10 have supported x86-64 code emulation since late last year. You'll still need to deal with the performance penalty of code emulation.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images)

Facebook’s oversight board is investigating claims the social media group allowed some high-profile users to break its rules and accused the company of withholding information on the matter.

The board, a "Supreme Court: style body created to oversee its content moderation processes, on Tuesday said it was looking into “the degree to which Facebook has been fully forthcoming” when responding to its previous inquiries about “cross-check,” an internal system used to review content from politicians, celebrities and journalists to ensure posts were not mistakenly removed.

According to an exposé by the Wall Street Journal published last week, the system had ballooned to include millions of users, and was sometimes used to shield some users from enforcement even if they broke Facebook’s rules, a practice known as whitelisting.