Suddenly the Surface Pro X has some similarly premium company. Now it's a whole new landscape, thanks in large part to Apple's plans to replace Intel chips in its Mac line with custom 'Apple silicon' CPUs, similar to the ones in iPhones and iPads.

In that case it was the Microsoft SQ1, a collaboration between Microsoft and Qualcomm, based on the latter's Snapdragon chips. The Surface Pro X was a bold move to ditch the usual Intel (or AMD) chips and power a high-gloss, high-price two-in-one with a more smartphone-like processor. There had been a handful of lower-cost models from HP, Asus and others, but they generally failed to impress. Last year, when Microsoft launched the original Surface Pro X, the idea of a premium Arm-based PC was a fanciful one.

Updates over the original version are very, very minor Keyboard and stylus are sold separately, and cost too much Still the best-looking Surface product designīest-in-class keyboard and clever stylus storageĪpp compatibility remains an issue, especially disappointing considering the premium price Better performance and battery life than last year's model

Surface sq1