Surface Pro 11 Reddit Verdict: Great Hardware, Know What You're Buying

TLDR: He loves the hardware, but as a long time macOS he hates Windows.

More like a biased review from someone who loves MacOS and hates Windows. Microsoft is doing their best to make us hate Windows, but personally I can stand MacOS even less... And of course the snapdragon haters jump at the chance to hate on Windows on Arm, while he said virtually nothing about it specifically...

The oled version is overpriced by 200-300 imo but we've already seen it sell 200 on sale. So come nov and whatever sells it's a great deal to grab either.

Sold my Surface X for a Galaxy Tab Ultra last year and have never looked back. It's better at being a tablet and a drawing device. What it lacks as a desktop, I fulfill with my work machine anyway. It does 100% of what I need in my personal life and 90% of what I would need in my professional life.

Work bought me a surface pro 7+ 4 years ago and I daily'd it hard (data and analytics, power bi, sql server, modeling, etc) with no issues, had both the 16GB and then a 32GB. I just got them to upgrade me to the new SP11 with 32GB and I liked it so much I went and bought myself the 64GB for my personal work to replace my X360 I had for 6 years. It's been a great run.

I travel a lot, and in planes in particular, working with the type cover is not that great. The kickstand pushing the device easily 10cm closer to my belly. A real laptop is more stable.

I love mine. Great battery life, I don't use this for gaming. But I hope it supports eGPUs.

I just returned my pro keyboard with pen to get the flex keyboard without pen. I never used the pen for the week I had the device and wanted the 'better' keyboard instead. That being said, the trackpad haptics aren't as exciting as reviews make it out to be and I don't know that I'll be using the keyboard disconnected too often.

In all fairness, if the SP11 (snapdragon) existed when I purchased my Apple devices in 2020, I would've went with the SP11 as my MacBook costs $2k and iPad was like $1k. The camera is amazing. My MacBook camera is a joke in comparison.

I have that spec for work in the Surface Laptop 7 and while I really love it for web development it isn't the best for gaming. It doesn't include a good discrete GPU like you may find in a Razer laptop. Gaming is definitely its weak point but it flies for everything else.

I'm not sure what I'm missing out on by not using the core 12. The Snapdragon plus is holding its own quite easily for me.

I just got mine, Professional artist here, I don't really draw digital art anymore but I use it to create my reference images. some Adobe apps run natively (photoshop is native, Illustrator is in beta, light room is emulated...), I love the drawing experience, I use to own a Cintiq and I prefer drawing on the Surface, the device is snappy, extremely responsive, I'm planning on pushing it to the limit with some 3D modeling (CAD), let's see how it goes.

I really want to like my SP11, but it seems like every time I open it up there is some troubleshooting involved. Either it has shutdown entirely and needs to be booted, or it's stuck in portrait until turned off/on again, or the keyboard isn't responding and needs to be disconnected/connected again. It's pretty annoying tbh, especially in comparison to my MBP which can sleep on battery for like a month and still wake up and get back to work instantly.

I saw the video earlier and i totally agree. The hardware is awesome. Microsoft has to get 3rd party devs to step it up. Windows even on arm still stutters like on x86, not as much but it's a constant. The graphics performance is subpar like we saw in lightroom and even the pen input lag. Granted that's on adobe, but to market this to creatives is a reach. The biggest thing going for these devices is battery life, other than that it's tough to recommend.

I was one of the ones affected by 14th gen Intel bullshit. I've been on the platform since 4th gen, which was like 2013. I love my SP11 and I'll never buy another Intel.

Both discord and google drive works flawlessly on sp11.

I think specifically on their workflow, Windows ain't as smooth as it is in macOS. The wife had a hard time editing the photo because of random lags and glitches (button doesn't pop up for some reason). And the guy had random crashes in his workflow as well. We're just used to it already lmao.

the screen is good enough to be noticeably better than the sp8's. the battery life is actually better than any of the surface line before it.

I have a surface pro 11 with OLED, 16gb RAM, and picked up the flex keyboard and pen. This is my first surface device and I absolutely love it. I got my unit on sale from Buydig with the basic keyboard included for $1100.00. This is the best 2 in 1 device I've ever used. I love the screen, snappy performance, and great battery life. The flex keyboard and pen really add to the overall experience.

I have the exact same Pro 11 (16GB/512/core 10) with Flex keyboard. Three months in, I'm still loving it.

I've really enjoyed using mine in tablet mode on planes.

The surface pro 11 is without a doubt the single most useless piece of shit I have had the displeasure of owning. In a business environment it is hopeless. There are no drivers available for most all peripherals such as printers and barcode scanners etc due to the use of the proprietary microsoft processor, it is full of unnecessary windows 11 bloatware and there are no useful connection ports.

I have the same specs. Although it can game I would not suggest it. Get a cheap gaming PC for that.

BG3 is supposed to run on it but you have to use Auto Super Resolution upscaling from 720p or 800p. MSFS supposedly doesn't run on it.

Adding to this: I've had the Flex Keyboard since launch and it feels underbaked considering the high cost. Mine will intermittently not charge and drop to 0% and then I have to do this song and dance of shutting it off + disconnecting/reconnecting to get it to charge again. Only for it to happen again a week later.

The 2024 model is the 11th edition with snapdragon x elite - huge battery life bump but some software quirks. The newer one from last year is basically a spec bump with intel core ultra. For your specs, the best buy deal is legit. That's a solid price for oled+1tb. Just know the snapdragon version runs some apps emulated, but if you're mostly doing office/web, you'll barely notice.

If you're planning to focus mostly on office tasks and web browsing, the Snapdragon model might be more than enough, especially with that awesome battery life. But if you're worried about compatibility, leaning towards the Intel model could save you some headaches.

Careful on the ARM architecture vs x86/64 version. If you setup VMs & need the compatibility, the ARM based Surface won't be quite what you need.

Microsoft is specifically targeting users like you with the Surface Pro - the fact that it failed, and you're returning to the warm embrace of Tim Apple is far from a positive review. $1600 is stupid pricing for a mobile computing experience in 2024.

Upgraded my old reliable, the macbook air 2014. Served me 10 years. Came home with the Surface Pro 11th edition with ARM chip and was blown away. The speed, efficiency, and portability were game-changing. Using it as a wireless second monitor at work then plugging into my 40" ultrawide at home created unmatched workflow.

The opinions on Snapdragon chips are mixed, however those who used it and x64 both for non graphical and gaming tasks pretty well know how big of a game changer the Snapdragon X series is.

App compatibility can be an issue, but I haven't run into an app since the last update of Windows that won't install and run. I even got HPTuners to work without any customization to the OS or drivers. It just worked. I was shocked by this as it is said to 'Not be supported on ARM'. I would go for it. Get 16GB of RAM.

I'd say get it. I don't have experience with Illustrator, but Premiere Pro emulated works great for me. There's a native Arm version in Beta. If you get any compatibility issues (which I doubt) you could always stream your main workstation to your SP11 using Moonlight. It works like a charm.

After the first day, I instantly came across some caveats. The biggest complaint is the fact that you cannot download bluestacks or any android emulator. So apps and services such as Youtube, Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ etc will run off your browser. No downloads, no offline content.

While I really like the hardware, I'm not truly convinced by the arm processor yet. It mostly makes me excited for the next iteration. I kinda wish I had another year to wait. Hoping it lasts half as long as my SP4.

I bought one 2nd hand online for 1k. Otherwise their products Pro 11 is expensive.

I did take a look at the 12" model and even measured it out on paper but it felt a bit small with the bezels. That's the one place where the iPad is better, thinner bezels. I placed the order and we'll go get it on Sunday. I've been reading up on it and it seems most apps will run fine, at least all the ones I can think of that I'll use.

I'm glad your experience is tolerable, but mine was absolutely horrendous, my school Chromebook from 2017 is infinitely better in every way. After using it for less than a year the hinge broke, the webcam broke, and most importantly the keyboard broke. With the keyboard broken, it went from steaming garbage to just unusable.

I got a surface pro 11 12 core oled with keyboard and pen from Costco for 999, 1200 after taxes and extended warranty.

I returned my Surface Pro 11 because Windows ARM is rubbish compared to Windows x64. Too many missing features from first party software for the same software. Software support isn't great even Windows has missing features on ARM in comparison to x64. I returned it and bought an AMD Ryzen 9 laptop which is much better.

That's my biggest problem with the SP line now. It's too big for me to have any use as a tablet and the footprint with keyboard is that of a 13 inch laptop but has a worse laptop experience. So it ends up being mostly downside with no upside.