Disappointed with the stale Surface Pro 7? Microsoft’s more innovative Surface Pro X is now on sale

News
By Darren Allan
published

Pick one up starting from $999

Surface Pro X
(Image credit: Future)

Microsoft’s Surface Pro X is now on sale at the company’s online store, giving folks who were disappointed with the Surface Pro 7 – and its lack of any real advancements – a new much fresher-seeming option for a tablet with a detachable keyboard.

You can bag yourself a Surface Pro X starting from $999, but it’s not available in other regions like Australia or the UK yet. They will get the hybrid on November 18 and November 19 respectively (priced starting at £999 / AU$1,699).

Back at the big Surface launch event, for us it almost felt like Microsoft was too busy concentrating on the Surface Pro X (and Surface Neo) to really bother with the Surface Pro 7, which didn’t get much attention at all – aside from a CPU upgrade and a long overdue USB-C port – and is now starting to look pretty dated with those thick bezels.

The Surface Pro X, on the other hand, has the appearance of a contemporary hybrid with a really smart and refined design, along with a suitably thin profile (with equally slim bezels around the screen). It’s highly portable, has (optional) LTE connectivity, and boasts better battery life than the Surface Pro 7.

That said, the battery life is somewhat disappointing compared to other ARM-powered Windows 10 machines, and indeed isn’t up to the same level as the predecessor Surface Pro 6. And, we did have concerns on the performance front in our review, so everything isn’t rosy with the Surface Pro X by any means.

X hits the spot?

Still, if you have a hankering for a truly portable Surface Pro device with enough power to tackle your everyday computing tasks, then you can now get a piece of the action.

The entry-level $999 asking price gets you a hybrid with 8GB of system memory and 128GB storage.

Doubling the storage to 256GB will set you back $1,299 (yes, ouch), and for the top-end Surface Pro X with 16GB of RAM and 512GB storage, your wallet will be lightened to the tune of $1,799.

Also, these prices don't even include the $269 (£259, AU$429) Type Cover that includes the Surface Pen Slim that stows and charges inside – double ouch.

Darren Allan

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).