Microsoft Surface Pro 8 (Intel Core i7-1185G7, Intel Iris Xe graphics) Microsoft Surface Pro 9 5G (SQ3, Adreno 8cx Gen 3) In many ways, it felt like a step down from the Surface Pro 6 I reviewed four years ago, save for the silkier 120Hz refresh rate on the Pro 9's larger screen. Does that sound like progress to you? While it performed generally fine with native apps like Spotify and Evernote, multitasking between them and emulated apps still felt noticeably sluggish. So if I wanted to work the way I'm used to on the Surface Pro 9 with 5G, I'd just have to live with an experience that's worse than a three-year-old Surface Laptop. I typically run multiple browsers at once, since it's the easiest way to separate work and personal accounts. Microsoft Edge, on the other hand, is snappier all around because it's a native ARM app. As an emulated x86 app, it's slower to launch and fairly laggy while browsing the web and juggling tabs. While a few of the company's engineers assured me in a recent interview that the performance would be comparable between the SQ3 and Intel models, I knew that was inaccurate the minute I launched Chrome. Devindra Hardawar/Engadget A better Windows on Arm experience, but not by muchĪfter using the Pro 9 with 5G for several days, I'm even more baffled by Microsoft's reckless attempt at shoving its x86 and ARM product lines together.

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