Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 (2021) Review: A Missed Opportunity

Introduction

Note: This review was first published on 25 June 2021.

Spec bump Surface Laptop

Don’t fix what ain’t broken. Last year’s Surface Laptop 3 was one of the most portable and aesthetically pleasing Windows notebooks you could buy. So for 2021, Microsoft has wisely decided to leave its design untouched and instead upgrade only the internals.

The latest generation Surface Laptop 4 still comes in two sizes: 13.5 and 15 inches. The model we are looking at today is the 15-inch one. The design is, as I mentioned, unchanged. The footprint and thickness (14.7mm) is the same, and so is the weight (1.54kg). It’s one of the most portable 15-inch notebooks available now. Build quality remains faultless. The edges are immaculately finished and the aluminium body feels immovable.

The 15-inch touchscreen PixelSense display has a 3:2 aspect ratio. Unusual it may be but newcomers will soon find that the extra vertical space offered by this aspect ratio is beneficial for viewing documents and spreadsheets. The downside, however, is that there are unsightly thick black bars when watching videos in full-screen.

The display itself is quite excellent. It’s mighty sharp. A resolution of 2496 x 1664 pixels gives us a pixel density count of around 200 pixels per inch. Colours look great too – vibrant, punchy, and natural-looking. Viewing angles are also good, but because of its glossy finish, glare and reflections could be a problem. My only complaint is that the display doesn’t get quite bright enough for my taste.

Ports are unchanged and that’s a massive disappointment. The only ports on offer are the same single USB-A and USB-C ports, and they both only support the old USB 3.2 Gen 1 standard. That means transfer speeds of just 5Gbps. Opposite the USB ports is a Surface Connect port, but it’s practically useless unless you have a Surface Dock. Really what Microsoft should have done is update the USB-C port to include Thunderbolt support.

Fortunately, there are big changes inside. The Surface Laptop 4 comes with a choice of either Intel’s latest 11th generation Tiger Lake processors or AMD’s Ryzen 4000 series mobile processors.

The finish and amount of memory and storage varies but broadly speaking, customers of the 15-inch Surface Laptop 4 will be able to choose configurations that feature either the Intel Core i7-1185G7 or Ryzen 7 Microsoft Surface Edition (Ryzen 7 4980U). The Intel processor comes with Intel's new Iris Xe integrated graphics while the AMD processor comes with AMD's Radeon RX Vega 8 integrated graphics.

Here are the configurations available:

Surface Laptop 4 configurations

Processor	Memory	Storage	Finish	Price
AMD Ryzen 7 Surface Edition	8GB	256GB SSD	Platinum	S$1,949
AMD Ryzen 7 Surface Edition	8GB	512GB SSD	Platinum, Matte Black	S$2,199
AMD Ryzen 7 Surface Edition	16GB	512GB SSD	Matte Black	S$2,399
Intel Core i7-1185G7	16GB	512GB SSD	Platinum, Matte Black	S$2,599

The unit I'm testing is the top-of-the-line Ryzen 7 version with 16GB of memory and a 512GB SSD. It costs S$2,399.

The keyboard and trackpad are also unaltered and that’s no bad thing. The decision to forego a numpad should be applauded because that gives us larger and better positioned keys. In my opinion, there’s no point on insisting on a numpad if it compromises the rest of the typing experience. Key feel is decent. There’s a distinct point at which it actuates and it doesn’t feel mushy, but there isn’t much in the way of actual travel. The trackpad is quite large but it looks like it could have been larger. Just look at the amount of space around it. But it is super responsive and accurate – easily a step up on other Windows notebooks.