When a device reaches its eighth generation, it can be easy to assume you’re getting more of the same: faster chips, a thinner, lighter design and some aesthetic tweaks. But, in the case of Microsoft’s Surface Pro 8, which arrives today alongside Windows 11, you’re getting the biggest redesign the tablet has seen in years. And actually, it’s heavier than the Pro 7.

In exchange for a 15 percent weight gain, you get up to 52 percent better battery life and Thunderbolt 4 support, plus a larger display with skinnier bezels and a 120Hz refresh rate — something rarely seen outside gaming machines. It looks different, too, taking style cues from the ARM-based Surface Pro X. Other upgrades include newer 11th-gen Core i5 and i7 processors and a slightly higher-resolution rear camera.

On paper, it addresses two of our three main complaints about the Pro 7 (the detachable keyboard is still sold separately, though). But before we declare the Pro 8 a slam dunk, it’s worth noting that the starting price is now $1,100, up significantly from $749 on the Surface Pro 7. (Microsoft both eliminated its lowest-end sku for non-business customers and raised the price for its remaining configurations.) Given that, it’s worth considering whether the improvements are worth the price hike — and how the Pro 8 compares to traditional laptops now that it costs just as much.

Hardware

The display

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Microsoft has always offered lovely displays on its Surface devices. Even with the original Surface, which debuted in 2012, the bright, high-res, low-glare panel was a standout on an otherwise confused seeming device. The Surface Pro 8 is no exception. The touchscreen here is 11 percent larger than before — 13 inches, up from 12.3 — with a 2,880 x 1,920 resolution that’s nearly 11 percent sharper than the Pro 7. It’s also 12.5 percent brighter, according to Microsoft. (OK, that’s the last time I’ll use the word “percent” for a while.)

In short, it’s bright, colorful and I never struggled with the viewing angles, regardless of where I was sitting in the house or how much sun was streaming in from outside. On a roof deck, however, the 450-nit screen didn’t feel quite bright enough at max settings — something to keep in mind if you intend to use this on the go.

Most important is the 120Hz refresh rate. This is a relatively new addition to the world of notebooks. Even so, it’s already something of a meme for reviewers like us to say something like “you don’t know what you’re missing until you experience it.” I’m annoyed to say that is 100 percent true. So, here’s me repeating a tired cliche: You will likely be happy with the 60Hz mode that’s enabled by default, but once you switch to 120Hz in the settings, you won’t want to revert back.

I noticed the difference immediately, even with the sort of mundane tasks I do hundreds of times a day: launching apps and minimizing windows. It all happens faster. It’s worth noting, however, you’re unlikely to notice much of a difference in movie playback, as Microsoft did some software work specifically to lower the refresh rate for that use case.

Everything else

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That bigger display comes at the expense of the surrounding bezels, which: good riddance. This is, of course, not a new design tactic. For years, laptop makers have been trimming the fat around their screens. Microsoft did this with the ARM-based Surface Pro X and, sure enough, the Surface Pro 8 looks a lot like the X. Its enclosure is aluminum, while the Pro 7’s was a magnesium alloy, but the effect is similar. This is a good thing, considering the dated design was one of only a few complaints in our Surface Pro 7 review.

In addition to having a larger screen, the Pro 8 is also heavier: 1.96 pounds without the keyboard, up from 1.7. (The keyboard adds 0.62 pounds.) Of course, “heavy” is a relative term. I would be less inclined than ever to use the detached tablet the way I would my smartphone. But my shoulder bag feels appreciably lighter now that I’ve swapped in the roughly two-pound Pro 8 for my three-pound MacBook Pro. Even the power brick is lighter.

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Besides — and I can’t emphasize this enough — the Surface Pro 8 isn’t a mobile device. It looks and acts like a laptop, even if the keyboard folio isn’t included. It has a thin railroad track of vents along the top and sides, a necessity given the Core i5/i7 processor inside.

Meanwhile, the two USB-C ports now support Thunderbolt 4. Users have been requesting this for a while, and it means that people can now plug in high-speed drives, multiple 4K displays and eGPUs.

The built-in kickstand also suggests Microsoft knows people are going to spend more time docking the device than holding it. The kickstand in this year’s model is at once gorgeous and slightly annoying. The weighty aluminum helps the Pro 8 feel like the high-end device it is. Even the “snap” it makes when you pop it into place somehow sounds premium. On the other hand, even after using the Pro 8 for a few days, I still find the kickstand awkward to pull out; the narrow divots make it tough to grab onto.

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Once you get it open, though, you’ll enjoy flexible viewing angles and a sturdy design that makes it comfortable to use the Pro 8 in your lap. I even used it on my outstretched legs while propped up in bed, though I don’t necessarily recommend that for extended use.

Finishing up our hardware tour, the rear camera now shoots at 10 megapixels, up from 8MP, and can record in 4K. The images are… fine. But certainly not worth the embarrassment of shooting photos in public with a 13-inch tablet, nor the inconvenience of having to hold a two-pound device steady. Just use your smartphone.

I’m more impressed by the webcam, the same 5-megapixel/1080p sensor used in the Pro 7+ and Pro X. It’s just so much more capable in mixed lighting than my MacBook Pro. A coworker who I regularly see on video calls remarked on the “night and day” difference from my normal setup. Not only was the image sharper, but it did a better job lighting my face.

In use

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To test the Surface Pro is also to test its accessories. And this year, it also meant getting acquainted with Windows 11, which is available for everyone starting today.

As part of its reviewer package, Microsoft included the Surface Pro Signature Keyboard ($180) and the new $130 Slim Pen 2, which uses a haptic motor, and promises lower latency, a sharper tip and improved precision. That pen docks inside a charging cradle on the Signature Keyboard, which was also designed to be used with the Surface Pro X.

Like earlier Surface keyboards, the Signature is covered in Microsoft’s soft Alcantara material, which feels like either suede or felt, depending on how I touch it. All told, there are two ways to use the keyboard: you can allow it to lie flat on your desk, with the pen cradle exposed above the Function row. Or, you can fold up the pen-dock piece so that it magnetically attaches to the tablet’s lower bezel. This lifts the keyboard at a more ergonomic angle.

There are pros and cons to each method: I find the ergonomic lift more comfortable, but felt distracted by the flimsiness of the panel under my furious typing. On the other hand, as insubstantial as the panel feels, the buttons themselves are spacious and springy. The wobble might sometimes annoy me, but I rarely miss when touch-typing on this.

Dana Wollman/Engadget

The trackpad, meanwhile, is decently sized. Two-finger scrolling feels smooth. (And thanks to the screen’s relatively tall 3:2 aspect ratio, I do slightly less of that on webpages.) For extended use, I preferred using a Bluetooth mouse (in this case, the $30 Ocean Plastic Mouse that Microsoft included with my Surface Pro 8 loaner). But you don’t need a standalone mouse, especially if you’re on the go.

For whatever quibbles I have about the keyboard (including the fact that it’s sold separately), I love the Slim Pen 2. The haptic motor is a small but delightful touch, vibrating when you flip over the pen to erase something. I used the pen to write in Windows 11 text entry fields and Windows mostly recognized my sloppy handwriting. In the Microsoft Store I had to try twice to get it to decipher “Evernote”; it initially thought I typed “everyone.” But other than that it generally understood what I was trying to write.

Aside from Evernote, I tried the pen in other apps including OneNote and the recently redesigned Whiteboard, the latter of which I found particularly enjoyable. (What can I say? I’m a sucker for rainbow and glitter pens.) I also sometimes found myself just scrolling with the pen, even though it’s just as easy to use my fingers. By the end of my testing period, I felt about the Slim Pen 2 the way I did in my iPad Air review last year: Most people don’t need a stylus, but they’re more fun to use than you might think.

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In both laptop and tablet mode, I felt charmed by Windows 11. The OS makes a good first impression with a fast and efficient setup, including the Windows Hello facial recognition enrollment process, which only took a few seconds. I admittedly felt disoriented seeing the center-aligned Taskbar, but you can move it back to its proper place on the left.

Additionally, I appreciated the redesigned Microsoft Store, where it was easy for me to quickly find and download all of my favorites. And in tablet mode, the elements get subtly larger when you unplug the keyboard, making it easier to select what you want using a combination of finger taps and the large on-screen keyboard.

Perhaps most impressive of all is the feature that allows you to hover over a window’s maximize icon to see different layout options, including half-and-half, a two-to-one ratio and a couple types of quadrants. It’s just so much more convenient than dragging a window toward the side of the screen, hoping it snaps into place and then tinkering (using a possibly finicky touchpad) to get the window sized the way you want. Frankly, I always found the split-view experience kludgy across Windows, macOS and iPadOS, but with this change I think Microsoft clearly has the more elegant solution.

Performance and battery life

For the record, I did not test the entry-level $1,100 model but rather, a more expensive $1,900 configuration with a quad-core 3GHz Intel Core i7-1185G7 processor, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.

Though the benchmarks indicate a laptop whose performance equals or slightly trails other Core i5/i7 machines with integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics, for all intents and purposes it felt like a fast machine in everyday use. As I said, too, all of this mundane stuff feels that much zippier when you switch to 120Hz mode.

As for battery life, Microsoft claims the Surface Pro 8 can last up to 16 hours on a charge, up from 10.5 on the last generation. Battery performance was one of my colleague Cherlynn Low’s main complaints about the Pro 7; it actually performed worse than the model that preceded it. I’m happy to report that the battery life here is much improved: I logged 13 hours and six minutes in our standard test, up from seven hours and 50 minutes on the Pro 7. That was with the default 60Hz screen refresh rate, of course; with the 120Hz option enabled, the machine lasted seven hours and 36 minutes under the same conditions.

It’s worth noting that, while Engadget has tested laptops this year that lasted even longer in the same battery test (think: 15, almost 17 hours), those systems either packed a less-powerful ARM processor or were significantly larger and heavier. Considering the Surface Pro 8’s chip and relatively light weight, the battery life is pretty good.

Configuration options

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The Surface Pro 8 starts at $1,100 with a quad-core Core i5-1135G7 processor, 8GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD. The base-model Surface Pro 7 cost $749, but that was with a Core i3 chip and half the RAM, just four gigs. (If you don’t mind aging, lower-powered hardware and would rather save money, Microsoft sells the Surface Pro 7+ for $800 with a Core i3 CPU.)

Even with that caveat about the discontinued Core i3 sku, if you wanted a Core i5 machine last year with 8GB of memory and 128 gigs of storage, the price was $900 then, not $1,100. So, while calling it a $350 price hike feels imprecise, it’s definitely a $200 increase even if you stick to direct comparisons.

But I digress. If you’re happy with the Core i5 CPU and 8GB of RAM on this year’s base model but want more storage, you can buy an otherwise identical machine with a 256GB or 512GB SSD for $1,200 or $1,400, respectively. A Core i5 machine with 16GB of RAM costs $1,400 with 256GB of storage.

Meanwhile, the least expensive Core i7 model costs $1,600. (That, too, has 16GB of RAM and a 256GB drive.) From there, you can step up to Core i7 with 512GB of storage ($1,900) or a terabyte ($2,200). If you really wanted, you could have Core i7, a 1TB SSD and 32GB of RAM, all for a cool $2,600. Oh, and you’d still have to pay extra if you wanted the keyboard and pen.

There’s also an LTE-equipped model. Just know that that variant maxes out at 512GB of storage and won’t be available until “a later date.” They will start at $1,100 with a Core i3 processor.

The competition

To recap, the base $1,100 configuration with the $180 keyboard costs $1,280, and let’s be real: You definitely want the keyboard. That puts it squarely in ultraportable-laptop territory.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

Perhaps its most obvious competitor is the Dell XPS 13, a longtime Engadget favorite that we described as “tweaked to near perfection” in our most recent review. It currently starts at $967 on Dell’s website with a Core i3 processor. You can get a Core i5 machine with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for $1,170, whereas the Surface Pro 8 costs $1,100 with 128GB of storage and no keyboard. However, a touchscreen brings the XPS 13 to $1,269, which is similar to what the Surface Pro 8 costs with the keyboard. At that point, it depends on your priorities: You get a more optimal typing experience with the XPS 13, but pen support and more flexibility with the Surface Pro 8.

Another easy comparison: HP’s Spectre 13 x360. It’s a convertible laptop with a Core i5 CPU, Iris Xe graphics, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for $900. In our review we awarded it a high score of 94 and listed barely any cons, one of which was the webcam.

It’s also worth comparing the Surface Pro 8 to the most similarly specced Apple products, though my thesis about the Pro 8 is that the likeliest shoppers are already committed Windows users. If you want a proper laptop, the best comparison is the 2.8-pound MacBook Air with Apple’s M1 chip, which costs $1,000 with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. (Versus $1,380 for the Surface Pro 8 and keyboard with the same amount of memory and storage.) Obviously, there’s no touchscreen, though.

Chris Velazco/Engadget

Perhaps the better comparison is the iPad Pro, which starts at $799 with 128GB of storage and a smaller 11-inch screen. (The 12.9-inch model starts at $1,099). Like the Surface Pro, it doesn’t come with a keyboard or stylus (in this case, the similarly priced $129 Apple Pencil). Apple’s first-party Magic Keyboard costs $299, but you can pay less if you choose a third-party brand. Brydge, for instance, lists its keyboards between $150 and $170 depending on the size of the iPad Pro.

All of this is to say that if you opted for the smaller 11-inch model and went with Apple’s own keyboard, you’d be paying a similar total price as you would for the Surface Pro 8 and keyboard. The 12.9-inch iPad Pro is more similar in size to the Pro 8 but is more expensive once you factor in the keyboard.

More than hardware, the choice there comes down to the user experience. iPadOS will feel more familiar to iOS and macOS users, and it has a better selection of touch-specific apps, but it just isn’t as good at multitasking as Windows 11.

Wrap-up

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The Surface Pro is incrementally better in its eighth generation, with a fast-refreshing screen, much-requested Thunderbolt 4 support and a return to long battery life. But it’s also more expensive than ever, with a $350 higher starting price that effectively wipes out any price advantage it once had over premium ultraportable laptops. The pricier the Surface Pro gets, the more caveats I have to append to my recommendation.

The pen-on-tablet experience is lovely, but the most persuasive reason for me to recommend the Surface Pro is the 120Hz display. It truly makes a difference in everyday use. Microsoft needs to do a better job communicating the benefits to would-be buyers, though. I understand why it’s disabled out of the box (battery life, duh), but how will average users find it if they’re not in the know? And as of this writing, the 120Hz refresh rate doesn’t get a prominent mention on Microsoft’s product page.

Meanwhile, as good as the typing experience and battery life are, they’re not necessarily superior to a comparably priced notebook. If you only have money for one high-end laptop-like device, then, the bar seems higher for choosing the Surface Pro over an ultraportable.

Special thanks to senior editor Devindra Hardawar and reviews editor Cherlynn Low.

Amazon is getting into buy-now-pay-later. The company just announced a partnership with Affirm, a major player in the BNPL space. Starting soon, customers at checkout will see the option to pay in a series of monthly installments on purchases of $50 or more. In a statement, the companies said they have already begun testing the feature with "select customers." It's unclear how many people might see this option early, or in what markets. 

That press release was otherwise light on details. It is unclear when this feature will roll out more widely. And, as CNBC notes, the the companies haven't said whether the payments will carry interest. The statement promises: "As always, when choosing Affirm, consumers will not be charged any late or hidden fees."

The move makes sense for Amazon, and is arguably a belated one. Many other brands and retailers already offer buy-now-pay-later options, with CNBC noting that Affirm already serves more than 12,000 retailers, including Walmart. Just recently, too, Square paid $29 billion to acquire Afterpay, another giant in this growing space.

Four days into the Tokyo Paralympic Games, Toyota removed its self-driving e-Palette vehicles from the event following a collision with a pedestrian. The automaker made the decision Friday, according to Reuters, a day after one of the pods hit a visually impaired athlete who was walking nearby. 

According to a video statement from Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda, reported in English by Reuters, the vehicle had stopped at a junction and was about to turn under manual control from an onboard operator when it hit the pedestrian at one or two kilometers-per-hour. The identity of the athlete has not been released to the public.

Toyota first announced its plans to deploy e-Palettes at the games in October 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic forced the organizers of the Olympics to delay the 2020 games by a year. The plan was to issue a fleet of 20 vehicles, each of which could run at up to 12 miles an hour on a designated loop. Notably, the plan also called for a human safety attendant on board in case something went wrong. 

Toyota also said at the time that the vehicles were adapted for the Paralympic Games, with an electric ramp on each vehicle and room for up to four wheelchairs. Additionally, Toyota adjusted some of the e-Palette's interior elements to accommodate color-blind passengers.

The injured person appears to not have been seriously hurt. After receiving medical attention, they reportedly walked back to their lodgings. The athlete is now expected to compete Saturday at 10:30am local time.

To say that Facebook's Project Aria AR glasses were never meant for consumers would be an understatement. Facebook does not even consider them a prototype. And they are not, and may never be, available for purchase. Rather, Facebook has always described them as a way for its employees to study and test augmented reality tech. 

Though Facebook's announcement at the time made clear the company's intentions, it was light on details about how the glasses would actually work. Now, nearly a year after the initial launch, a series of regulatory documents are giving us a belated first peek inside. In a user manual first reported by Protocol, we learn that this specific device goes by the codename Gemini EVT, with EVT being an abbreviation for "engineering valuation test." 

As you might expect, given the stated purpose of the device, there is no visual AR component. Meaning, there's no built-in display for viewing 3D image overlays. Again, the glasses in their early form really do exist just for this small team of engineers to collect data.

Not that you can buy one but if you could, the glasses would also support prescription lenses, the manual reveals.

Additionally, the manual indicates there's a proximity sensor on the inner temple, along with four cameras that can capture both video and still photos. Interestingly, Facebook used the same camera sensors here that it did on the Oculus Quest 2 headset, our review of which we published the same day in September last year that Facebook announced Project Aria. Given the timing, it may just be those sensors were the most readily available to Facebook.

Also inside is a Qualcomm chipset, with a modified version of Android powering the software experience. Charging happens via a USB cable, which attached magnetically to the glasses.

The user experience seems simple, as far as we can tell. There are shutter and power buttons, plus a mute switch that "toggles privacy mode on/off." When a recording is in progress, a series of LEDs help passerby understand that the camera is on. Meanwhile, there's a companion iOS app called Ariane that handles the basics: device setup, scanning for WiFi networks, showing the battery status and uploading what data the sensors have collected. It's unclear, however, if there is also an Android version of the app that exists, or is in the works. Again, not that you'd be able to download it either way.

We're not sure who or how many people use Microsoft Office on a Chromebook but if that's you, you're in for a downgraded experience. Microsoft will soon kill its Office app for Android on Chrome OS, the company confirmed Wednesday to About Chromebooks. The app will leave the Google Play Store on September 18th, at which point users will need to sign in through the web via Office.com or Outlook.com. As 9to5Google notes, the Office app will still be available on Android phones, even as it vanishes from Chrome OS.

Though signing in via the web app should work in a pinch, it's clearly an inferior experience to what the Android app has offered until now, not to mention what Google's G Suite can do on its native Google-controlled platform. In particular, be warned that the web app offers almost no offline access, something users have enjoyed on the Google Play Store version. 

It's unclear why Microsoft is making this change, except that the company described the move in a statement to About Chromebooks as an "effort to provide the most optimized experience for Chrome OS/Chromebook customers." Whatever the intention, this is likely to give Chromebook users another reason to give the G Suite a try, if they haven't already. Or hey, perhaps they'll ditch their Chromebooks and download the Android app on Windows 11.

Facebook is considering forming a commission to advise on thorny issues related to global elections, according to a report Wednesday from The New York Times. The company has begun to approach academics and policy experts, who The Times says could potentially weigh in on issues ranging from political ads to election misinformation. What's more, it is not just US elections where a commission could find itself weighing complicated election issues; the commission would also likely have a mandate to weigh in on closely watched elections in Hungary, Germany, Brazil and the Philippines.

Engadget has asked Facebook for comment.

On its face, the commission sounds a lot like Facebook's Oversight Board, an independent panel of journalists, academics and activists often described as a "Supreme Court" that's tasked with reviewing Facebook's policies. The Oversight Board is perhaps best known for upholding Facebook's decision to ban Donald Trump, though since its formation last year it has also agreed to weigh in on doxing; hate speech; how politicians at large should be treated; content moderation in coup-torn Myanmar; moderation by algorithms; and the appropriate treatment of satire content.

But though the makeup of the election commission sounds like the Oversight Board — and could similarly let Facebook side-step ownership of controversial decisions — there could be an important difference, according to The Times. Whereas the Oversight Board weighs in on decisions that Facebook has already made (much like the Supreme Court considers contested court rulings), the election commission would have the latitude to proactively offer advice, even on matters where Facebook had not yet taken a public stance.

If Facebook goes ahead with outsourcing election-related decisions to an advisory committee, it would be a departure from its previous attempts to counter election misinformation, which have been largely reactive, and almost always imperfect. Even after a temporary ban on political ads ahead of the 2020 US election, some ads were still showing as active in Facebook's ad library. Facebook last year also endeavored to label ads from politically connected publications, and earlier this year moved to show users less political content altogether.

Though Facebook reportedly hopes to launch the commission ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, The Times also describes the outreach as preliminary, with no guarantee that Facebook will move forward on this.

Well, some of us need a nap. Gamescom's Opening Night Live 2021 event kicked off at 2pm ET today, and what ensued was a rapid-fire parade of game trailers and teasers. It was quite an eclectic selection, too, including a new Saints Row game, Lego Star Wars, a turn-based RPG, kung-fu battles, dinosaur building, something called a "season 0 beta," and confirmed launch dates for Halo Infinite and Horizon Forbidden West. Oh, and there was some hardware as well — always a good time. The Engadget staff is admittedly feeling some whiplash, but for our readers this means there's almost surely something for everyone. Check out the highlights in the (relatively) brief video below.

Well, this is awkward. Just one day after Ford-owned Spin announced that its e-bike and scooter rentals are now findable on Google Maps, its competitor Bird has, well, exactly the same news to share. In a blog post of its own, Bird said that its electric bike and scooter rentals would start showing up in Google Maps today, with would-be riders able to see an approximate price, estimated trip duration and optimized route. The feature, available on both Google Maps' iOS and Android apps, will ultimately still send the rider to the Bird app if they decide to go ahead and rent a vehicle. 

All told, this sounds very similar to the announcement Spin made yesterday, including the fact that you need to open a separate app to actually pay for and unlock the rental. One interesting difference, though, is that Spin will show you the estimated battery range.

A Bird spokesperson told Engadget that the Google Maps feature will be available for users in all US cities where Bird scooters are available. The company also says it intends to roll out to additional countries following the US launch. Bird did not reveal any additional details as to when the rollout would continue or which regions would next see a Google Maps integration.

Regardless of which company was first to launch this week, these sort of Google Maps integrations are hardly new — Maps has been showing listings for Lime's rentable scooters and bikes since 2018, to name one of Bird's biggest and most established competitors.