So I bought my Surface Pro X with the intent of having a light and portable laptop that I could easily carry around the house during the week-end or when travelling (when whenever that would be possible (omg I need to travel)). I remember seeing the Pro X when it launched, I was in awe with the design, but definitely knew it would be a bad idea to get one, especially with the price. But with Windows 11 beta now there, it became enticing to try Windows on ARM.
I tried hard to convince to go for a Surface Go 2 instead, being lighter and more one-handful. However being an ARM computer, it offers a kind of challenge that was attractive to me, being stuck in “project mode” since the beginning of the pandemic. So at the end I found one used at a good price and got it, and here’s my experience and my thoughts with it up to now. I intent to update occasionally this review with new discovery if relevant, or answer any question you might have. So hey, feel free to ask any questions (I could always even try Linux with the old ssd…).
Also, I must specify I only used it with the beta Windows 11, so I have no clue how the Pro X fare normally with Windows 10, and some stuff I encountered might be more related to the beta nature of the software I’m using.
Specs:
SQ1, 8GB ram, 128GB SSD (Sk Hynix), upgraded to a 512 GB SSD (Samsung PM991a)
Signature Keyboard with Slim Pen
I was able to get that whole package for shy of $1K CAD.
Design:
As I mentioned, I fell in love with small bezel design of the tablet, form factor and thinness of the device. Yes, with the Pro 8 is now boasting the same design now, but it was no there when I bought it, and I don’t want to spend the money that comes with a new device. However, I would have really liked more it in the Platinum variant, but no way I will spend that kind of money.
Something I noticed while using the Pro X is the rounded nature of the sides make it a little bit difficult to use with one hand. The roundness make it hard to have a good grip, with the body being a little bit slippery. For comparison, the tablet part of the Surface Book, with its squared sides, is much more easier to hold with one or two hands. The rounded nature of the sides make it also a little bit awkward when plugging something in the usb c ports, as those ones are recessed behind the edge of the device, with no visual on them.
To make it more one handed friendly, but without making it bulky and cumbersome with a case, I installed a skin and an adhesive handle. The grip is way better and it’s way more comfortable and secure while holding with one hand. This obsession with the one handedness of the device may make you wonder why I didn’t just bought a Surface Go instead, but hey the 13" screen and ARM nature of the device made me go on the dark side.
Also, I find the placement of the volume button a little bit awkward, but I don’t know exactly why, and the power button can be easily mispressed. Happenned to me three time that I took my Pro X with its battery battery depleated, as I might have accidentally pressed the power button by placing it on a table, cover close.
Social media and graphic crashes
On the device, I’m using two browsers: Firefox ARM build and scarcely Edge ARM build (as there is no Chrome ARM build available). Works as expected 90% of the time, as fast as on x64.
However, and I’m not sure what is going on here, but sometime when I go on social media websites (Facebook and Instagram), and Amazon, I encounter sometime graphic crashes (elements dissapearing from the website, momentary black window, or bungled up mess of words and missing characters). Even while using remote desktop I strangely encountered these graphic crashes on the remote desktop browser. However, it does not happen with other websites. I have no clue if it’s ARM related, or Windows 11 beta related.
Apps and x64 emulation
On the subject of the ARM nature of the device, I installed most of the app with their ARM version when available. And aside of the absence of Chrome, replaced with Edge, the sole x64 apps I have on my laptop is Steam, and my music player of choice, Dopamine.
Didn’t encountered any issue while using Steam, was a little bit slower to launch, but aside of that, no problem. However, using Dopamine is significantly slower, and chug a little bit when loading artwork. I do think that this is related to app behavior, as Dopamine must constantly fetch data about the music files (specifically artwork) while you scroll down. With the constant translation of that fetching from x64 to ARM, that might explain the slow behavior of the app on the Pro X.
Unrelated to x64, the Pro X seems to overheat and have problems with the camera, with long freezes of the frame, when using Teams for a long period of time, and even when using the ARM version of the app. However, I noticed this was behavior was not always present, but I don’t know why (probably bad optimization of Teams?)
Gaming
Didn’t use it a lot for gaming for the moment. I still didn’t try to install any actual game, but more to stream from my PC games on steam. However, I might try Minecraft if you’re interested to see how it will fare.
On the streaming side, the small test I did was flawless. I used Steam Remote Play to play Dirt 3 on my desktop, and with the Surface Pro X right in the front of the screen, I didn’t notice any delay between the two machine. Sure didn’t try with other game, but it was surprisingly smooth, I was expecting maybe some hiccup because of the ARM nature of the device but nope.
Swapping the SSD
One place where you place where you really feel you’re not with a x64 device is when doing a clean install of Windows. Swapping the physical SSD is really easy. I like that new serviceability on recent Surface devices. I upgraded from a 128GB to 512GB 2213 SSD without any hiccup.
However, I found it was more difficult installing Windows on the new SSD. It’s only easy when you forget usual behaviors, as you need to work with a recovery drive. Format the usb drive to FAT32, download the recovery image from the Microsoft website by entering the serial number of the device, extract the downloaded zip on a USB (no Rufus involved at all), plugged it to you Surface, select recover from drive and voila. Simple, right?
However, I took me a embarrassing amount of time to really understand it, because I was just trying to do it the way I was used to do with x64. First I tried to create a recovery drive with the option in the Windows parameters. That was awfully slow, maybe in part because my usb drive was thermal throttling. But also, I was running Windows 11 beta, so apparently that didn’t play nicely as the recovery always failed around 50% when installing Windows. Decided then to just downloads an Windows 11 arm ISO from uudump, mount it on a usb key with rufus, but that just froze directly on the language menu. Discovered later that Windows ARM ISOs are bare, as Windows is expecting the users (developers) to customize it in order to make it work on a peculiar device.
At the end, I understood I had to download the Windows 10 recovery image, install it, and then just upgrade to Windows 11 again. But, at least I installed Windows 11 straight with a local account, no Microsoft account involved.
Final words
That’s about it about my main thoughts on the device after two months of use. Despite its flaws, I do like the device, and it has that build quality that I know of Surface devices that I appreciate a lot. Now as I’m using less my Pro X as I received a work laptop (a lowly HP), I will see how the device fits with my needs of simple and on-the-go computation, or if at some point I would be tempted to try a Surface Go 3 instead.
