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For years, the Redmond company has refused to use Thunderbolt, citing security concerns. Microsoft has also finally changed the ports. That means you might not need to buy a new Type Cover if you upgrade, which is good because Microsoft still isn't including it in the box. This time around, though, Microsoft is sticking with the same Type Cover that launched with the Surface Pro X, and which has apparently been incredibly popular. Usually, Microsoft pairs the launch of a new Surface Pro with a whole new lineup of Surface accessories, like a new pen and Type Cover. Though, you'll still be better off with a pair of headphones. There's not really a lot of real estate available for speakers though, so they're honestly better than we'd expect. Listening to 'Comfort In The Grave' by Vision Video, the highs are perfectly clear, but the bassline kind of gets lost in the background. Sound quality isn't quite as good as what the Surface Pro 8 offers visually, but it's far from the worst sound we've heard in a laptop. It's just kind of a bonus that consuming content looks great, too. This is doubly important for a device like the Surface Pro 8, as this lineup is especially popular with artists, who will need the color accuracy to get their work done. Everything we've watched on this thing, whether it's Bob's Burgers in bed or the green text on the black background of our command prompt, has looked incredible. On The Surface Pro 8, the display hits 103% of the sRGB spectrum and has a peak brightness of 467 nits, which makes this one incredibly gorgeous display. The display is configured to 60Hz out of the box, mainly in the interest of boosting battery life, but you can enable it at any time by going into your display settings. This is definitely not a gaming device, but take it from us – once you use a high-refresh display, even for everyday computing, you're not going to want to go back. What makes this display even better is that along with the bigger size, it also has a 120Hz refresh rate. That's right in the middle of 1440p and 4K, but for a 13-inch display, it's absolutely gorgeous. The Surface Pro 8 now has a 13-inch PixelSense display with a resolution of 2,880 x 1,920. The smaller bezels do more than just look good, though: they allow for an 11% larger display. It makes the screen look so much bigger, and makes the device look more premium than ever – which is good, because it's also more expensive than ever. The chassis is also refined, with more rounded edges, that seem much more comfortable to hold for long periods of time, rather than the flat sides with sharper corners.īezels are also smaller than ever, and this is that final thing that makes the Surface Pro 8 look like an all-new device, rather than a relic from the early 2010s. While it seems like Microsoft has been focusing on lighter shades for its devices in recent years, the darker colors with this year's lineup look incredible. The easiest one to notice is the new graphite color, which simply looks incredible. The Surface Pro 8, luckily, brings some much-needed design improvements to the table. But now it needs a pretty substantial redesign, especially in the face of the new iPad Pro, which Microsoft has pretty much left alone since its introduction. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing, as four years ago, the Surface Pro was a pretty fresh device. Both the Surface Pro 6 and Surface Pro 7 were just spec updates of the Surface Pro 2017.
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The Surface Pro lineup kind of started to stagnate for the last couple iterations.
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