Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 (15-inch, AMD) review

Our Verdict

Microsoft's xv-inch AMD-powered Surface Laptop 4 offers skillful performance, bully audio, and respectable battery life in a slim, unobtrusive design.

For

Corking speakers
Respectable battery life
Good keyboard
Large 3:2 display is dandy for getting work done

Confronting

Needs more ports and a better webcam
Unsightly thick bezels
Underwhelming file transfer speeds

Tom's Guide Verdict

Microsoft'due south 15-inch AMD-powered Surface Laptop 4 offers skillful performance, great audio, and respectable battery life in a slim, unobtrusive pattern.

Pros

+
Peachy speakers
+
Respectable battery life
+
Proficient keyboard
+
Big 3:2 display is nifty for getting work done

Cons

-
Needs more than ports and a ameliorate webcam
-
Unsightly thick bezels
-
Underwhelming file transfer speeds
-

Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 (15-inch, AMD): Specs

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 4980U (4680U too available)
RAM: 16GB (8GB, 32GB also available)
Brandish: fifteen-inch touchscreen, 2496 x 1664 (201 PPI) Storage: 512GB SSD (256GB, 1TB also available)
Ports: 1x USB-C, 1x USB-A, Surface Connect port, headphone jack
Battery life: 12:04 (tested, spider web surfing) | Up to 17.5 hours (Microsoft's claim)
Wireless: Wi-Fi 6/Bluetooth 5.0
Dimensions: 13.iv x 9.6 ten 0.58 inches
Weight: 3.4 pounds
Price: $1,699 every bit configured, $999 (13.5-inch) | $i,299 (15-inch) starting

With the Surface Laptop four Microsoft has delivered a straightforward Windows laptop that'due south advertised to concluding longer and deliver more power than its predecessors, while maintaining the Surface Laptop line's sleek — though somewhat dated — design.

In our 13-inch Surface Laptop 4 review, I found a corking deal to like about Microsoft's latest laptop, though our contained testing poked some holes in the visitor'south marketing claims. Now I've had some time to review the xv-inch model sporting i of AMD's Ryzen vii 4000 series CPUs, and while it has some notable flaws (as you'll read in the following 15-inch Surface Laptop 4 review), I call up it'south a solid investment if yous need a productivity-focused laptop for getting work washed on the get.

Editor's Note: Microsoft unveiled a bumper crop of new Windows eleven -fix Surface devices at its September 2021 Surface outcome, including a new device bearing the Surface Laptop proper name: the Surface Studio-like Surface Laptop Studio , which has a cool hinged display. Cheque out our total Microsoft Surface event recap for all the details.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 (15-inch, AMD) review: Price and availability

Starts at $999 for xiii-inch, $one,299 for fifteen-inch
Our unit of measurement with AMD Ryzen 7 4980U/16GB/512GB is $i,699

The Surface Laptop 4 went on sale in the United states and the UK in April, and if you social club one directly from Microsoft you can expect to pay at least $999 for the 13.5-inch model and $i,299 for the fifteen-inch. Those entry-level models ship with AMD Ryzen v/vii 4000-serial fries, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD.

Those in need of more than ability can beefiness upwardly the Surface Laptop 4 by paying for more than powerful components, potentially equally much as $two,299 and $2,399 (respectively) for the two models if you kit them out with the top-tier ingredients. Dissimilar the preceding Surface Laptops, both sizes of the Surface Laptop iv tin can be configured with your option of an Intel 11th Gen Core i5/i7 CPU or an AMD Ryzen 5/7 4000-series processor, though the 15-inch model is limited to the higher-stop Core i7/Ryzen seven chips.

Our 15-inch Surface Laptop 4 review unit of measurement arrived packing an AMD Ryzen seven 4980U CPU, 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD, a configuration which retails for $i,699. Our review unit of measurement came in matte black, but you tin can too get the 15-inch in platinum if yous choose.

Microsoft Surface Laptop four (15-inch, AMD) review: Design

Thick bezels are distracting
Thinner and lighter than many 15-inch laptops

Microsoft'south latest Surface Laptop has a sleek, simple design that'south correct in line with the minimalist design of earlier Surface devices. Personally I would've liked to see Microsoft attempt something a footling more interesting with this new model, merely what's here is graceful and professional.

I'd also accept loved to see a little less bezel framing my screen whenever I looked at it. On the matte blackness model we reviewed, the thick black bezels on all sides are about-invisible when the brandish is off, but once you power information technology on, it tin can exist hard not to find the black confined framing your screen. Perhaps nosotros've been spoiled by the thin, nigh nonexistent bezels on gimmicky notebooks of similar size like the Dell XPS xv (2020) and 16-inch MacBook Pro (2019), but given that this is a flagship laptop from one of the biggest calculating companies on the planet, it'd be dainty to come across Microsoft catch up to the competition.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 (15-inch, AMD) review — (Prototype credit: Futurity)

The 15-inch Surface Laptop four clocks in at xiii.4 10 9.vi x 0.58 inches and weighs 3.4 pounds, significant information technology's effectively identical to (okay, information technology's 0.02 inches thinner than) the fifteen-inch Surface Laptop three. That also ways it'southward lighter and thinner than a lot of laptops of comparable size, including the Dell XPS 15 (2020) and the 16-inch MacBook Pro (2019).

The matte black pigment job makes the fifteen-inch Surface Laptop 4 somehow both subtle and imposing. From a distance it looks similar a normal laptop, only when y'all get up close and see information technology next the gray and silver casings of virtually computers in that location'due south a real richness and depth to the black that I didn't wait. The Microsoft logo is embossed in reflective silver on the dorsum of the screen, and when yous look down into information technology you can run across yourself staring dorsum.

Microsoft Surface Laptop four (15-inch, AMD) review: Ports

USB-A, USB-C and headphone jack
No Thunderbolt 4

Like its predecessor and its smaller sibling, the xv-inch Surface Laptop iv but sports four ports: 1 USB-C, 1 USB-A, a headphone jack and a Surface Connector port for charging.

That'south enough to let yous hook up a mouse and keyboard, plus some headphones for getting work washed at the coffee shop (though delight don't exist the person who breaks out a mechanical keyboard at the java shop), but it'south far from generous. I would have loved to see a Thunderbolt four choice, or even a microSD carte reader built into the side, just no dice.

It's disappointing to encounter Microsoft unable or unwilling to discover room for more than ports in the Surface Laptop four, peculiarly on the larger 15-inch chassis; nosotros said the aforementioned thing about the Surface Laptop 3, making Microsoft's continued, almost Apple-similar refusal to afford customers more options even more frustrating.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 (15-inch, AMD) review: Display

iii:2 aspect ratio really shines on the fifteen-inch screen, great for productivity
Too reflective, fifty-fifty at maximum brightness

Surface Laptops are known for the distinctive 3:2 aspect ratio of their displays, and on the large 15-inch Surface Laptop four that gives you a lot of vertical screen infinite to play with. The xv-inch, 2496 x 1664 screen is great for reading and working with documents, and if writing and editing was all I did on this display it would be almost-unbeatable.

But when the work was done and information technology was time to relax, some flaws came into view. The fifteen-inch Surface Laptop 4 has a very glossy screen, simply similar its smaller sibling, and while using it I kept catching sight of myself and my surroundings reflected in the display. This is far from a deal-billow but it is distracting, peculiarly when you're trying to get engrossed in a picture show or Tv set show.

Whatsoever you're watching should await pretty good on the larger Surface Laptop 4, and in my feel, reds and yellows pop out especially well. While watching Dredd, the reds and golds came through clear and vibrant, as did all the neon signs and yellow-green lighting filling the film's irksome gray and dark-green interiors. However, I had a harder time picking out detail in groundwork elements that were dark blue or green and lacked meaning red/yellow tones, like the landscapes and cityscapes that normally crop upward in The Boys.

In our lab testing, the 15-inch Surface Laptop 4 brandish was able to achieve 109.viii% of the sRGB color spectrum, better than both its predecessor (the Intel-equipped Surface Laptop 3 produced 104.5%) and the smaller 13-inch Surface Laptop 4 (108.3%). All the same, this Surface Laptop model pales in comparison to similarly-sized competing laptops like the XPS 15 (2020) and the 16-inch MacBook Pro (2019), which delivered 132.2% and 113.ix%, respectively.

Our light gun tests revealed the screen tin can hit an average effulgence level of 334.4 nits, which is reasonable and enough bright enough for daily utilise, but far from impressive. Information technology's outclassed by both the smaller Surface Laptop 4 (which averaged 348.vi nits) and the 15-inch Surface Laptop 3, the Intel and AMD versions of which achieved 366 and 380 nits, respectively. Meanwhile, the gorgeous screens of the Dell XPS fifteen (2020) and sixteen-inch MacBook Pro (2019) blow the Surface Laptop 4 out of the water in terms of brightness, delivering 434.2 nits and 429 nits of brightness (respectively).

The touchscreen on the 15-inch Surface Laptop 4 feels accurate and responsive. I never had a problem tapping and swiping my way around Windows, though fingerprints seem to testify up peculiarly well on the laptop's glossy screen.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 (15-inch, AMD) review: Keyboard and touchpad

Smoothen and accurate touchpad
Keyboard is plenty comfortable enough, just it could exist bigger

Typing on the 15-inch Surface Laptop four feels skillful, and I was able to reliably striking my average words per minute in typing tests using the laptop's keyboard. The keys afford you enough travel to know you've activated i earlier you bottom out, and there'due south enough of room surrounding the keyboard for yous to residuum your hands and wrists on the deck.

In fact, there's so much room that I wish Microsoft had found a way to make the keyboard a little bigger. Admittedly I have larger hands than the boilerplate person, but a larger keyboard on a laptop similar this might accept helped reduce cramping and mitt strain for many. Instead, you've got a lot of make clean metal flanking the keyboard and touchpad.

The touchpad itself is so reliable and easy to utilise that I never thought twice near it, which seems like exactly what you want out of an input device. Borer and scrolling always felt natural, and the device reliably picked up all the Windows gestures I cared to employ.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 (15-inch, AMD) review: Audio

Loud, precipitous sound for a laptop
Small size belies the strong bass

This latest edition of the Surface Laptop features integrated Dolby Atmos engineering and a design which is intended to evangelize deeper, richer sound by emitting it from below the keyboard and bouncing it off the screen.

I tin't tell you for certain how constructive that blueprint is, merely I tin say that music and audio furnishings sound great coming out of the fifteen-inch Surface Laptop four. The drums and vocals of the Talking Heads' "Called-for Down the House" were crisp and articulate when pumping out of the laptop'southward speakers, and I could pick them out easily even when I walked downwardly the hallway and put two rooms' worth of distance between me and the device.

Bill Withers' vocals on "Ain't No Sunshine" sounded as warm equally they ought to, and the drums on Massive Set on's "Angel" sound loud and punchy coming through the Surface Laptop 4'due south speakers. Anecdotally, I call back music — especially bass-heavy tracks -- sound a chip better coming out of the fifteen-inch Surface Laptop four compared to the xiii-inch, which could be a matter of taste or but a matter of the 15-inch being larger.

Microsoft Surface Laptop four (15-inch, AMD) review: Performance

Very solid performance from AMD Ryzen 7 CPU and 16GB of RAM
Respectable graphics performance can handle many mid-range games
SSD's file transfer speed significantly behind Dell XPS 15 and sixteen-inch MacBook Pro

The 15-inch Surface Laptop 4 we reviewed arrived packing an AMD Ryzen seven Microsoft Surface Edition CPU and 16GB of RAM, giving information technology more than than enough power to tackle every bit many basic tasks as yous tin can throw at it. It as well delivered decent performance when gaming, running less demanding games (like Fights in Tight Spaces and Disco Elysium) with no trouble and hitting a respectable twenty to 30 frames per second in more graphically demanding games like Battletech.

You won't be playing Assassinator's Creed Valhalla or Cyberpunk 2077 at anything approaching a decent framerate on this laptop, merely most PC games that are a few years one-time and/or not terribly graphically intensive should run reasonably well.

Let's talk raw numbers: the fifteen-inch Surface Laptop 4 nosotros reviewed earned a very skilful score of 6,748 in our Geekbench v performance test, outperforming the 10th Gen Intel Core i7-powered XPS xv (6,174) but falling just a chip short of the 9th Gen Core i9-powered 16-inch MacBook Pro (7,250). That'due south still some not bad performance out of the AMD Ryzen 7 CPU, and with 16GB of RAM, it should be more capable of handling as many simultaneous windows, documents, browser tabs, and multimedia apps y'all intendance to run at whatsoever ane time.

However, the onboard 512GB SSD wasn't terribly speedy in our file transfer tests, which measure how speedily a drive tin can duplicate 25GB of multimedia files. The xv-inch Surface Laptop 4 transferred them at a rate of 372.49 MBps, which is better than the 287.2 MBps of its predecessor only still quite a chip below the 500 MBps average we usually come across in premium laptops of this size. The 512GB SSD in the Dell XPS 15 (2020) put upwards a transfer rate of 708.ix MBps, for example, and it'southward a fleck disappointing to see Microsoft hasn't been able to significantly amend the Surface Laptop's SSD speeds.

In contrast, video editing should be reasonably efficient on the 15-inch Surface Laptop four, given that our review unit was able to convert a 4K video to 1080p in viii minutes 21 seconds, which is faster than the Dell XPS xv (10:06) only slower than the eight minutes flat it took the 16-inch MacBook Pro to complete the aforementioned task.

Microsoft Surface Laptop four (15-inch, AMD) review: Webcam

Quick logins via Windows Hi facial recognition
720p webcam delivers decent images, but 1080p would be ideal

This latest Surface Laptop carries on the line's tradition of sporting 720p webcams built into the bezel above the screen, and there'south not much to say about information technology except that it's completely functional.

However, at this stage in the Surface Laptop's evolution — and at this late phase in the Zoom call smorgasbord that is the global COVID-19 pandemic — I'd really have liked to see Microsoft find a way to integrate a 1080p webcam into the device. Every bit it stands, you'll accept to spring for 1 of the best webcams if you desire to look your best in a video chat.

The IR sensor alongside the webcam is pretty quick and responsive when it comes time to log into your laptop with your face via Windows Hullo biometric authentication. I occasionally had trouble getting it to recognize me if I had my confront within two feet of the screen, but that's more of a PEBCAK problem that always worked itself out once I backed a foot or so away.

Microsoft Surface Laptop four (fifteen-inch, AMD) review: Battery life

fifteen-inch AMD-powered Surface Laptop 4 lasted 12 hours on our web surfing test
Though good, that's all the same nowhere near near Microsoft's 17.5-hour claim

Microsoft promised this new edition of the Surface Laptop would last longer on battery than its predecessors, upwardly to 17.5 hours on a unmarried charge for the 15-inch AMD Ryzen vii configuration. After testing that configuration, I can say Microsoft has delivered on the first function of that promise, but fallen short on the latter half. In our battery tests, which put the laptop to work endlessly browsing web pages over Wi-Fi with the screen prepare to 150 nits' brightness, the 15-inch AMD-equipped Surface Laptop 4 lasted a petty more than 12 hours.

That'south still very good battery functioning, and it should requite yous enough juice to become through a full solar day of use without having to worry near conveying a charger. Information technology's also significantly better than the prior model, every bit the xv-inch AMD-equipped Surface Laptop iii managed to last just eight hours in our battery tests.

The Surface Laptop 4 also outperformed a number of similarly-sized laptops in our battery tests, among them the Dell XPS fifteen (2020), which just endured virtually 8 hours, and the sixteen-inch MacBook Pro (2019), which managed to last for x hours and 55 minutes. However, there are some important caveats to that comparison: the XPS fifteen we tested doesn't take the latest Tiger Lake CPUs, which are more battery-efficient, and it had a gorgeous power-draining 4K display. Meanwhile, the 16-inch MacBook Pro still hasn't been refreshed with the latest ability-sipping Apple Silicon, though that's expected to happen in the latter one-half of 2021.

Microsoft Surface Laptop iv (fifteen-inch, AMD) review: Heat

Laptop stays comfortably warm — unless you're playing intense games
Quiet fans

In our rut tests (which involve streaming 15 minutes of HD video), our oestrus gun found the underside of the Surface Laptop 4 hit an average temperature of 94 degrees, topping out at 98 near the eye (roughly contrary from the F6 key).

But while your lap might get warm while doing heavy-duty computing on this machine, your hands should stay cool — in our testing the deck of the 15-inch Surface Laptop iv never got hotter than 82.five degrees.

In my experience, the xv-inch Surface Laptop 4 gets warm under heavy use — peculiarly while trying to play graphically-demanding games — just it never gets hot enough to be uncomfortable in your lap. I never noticed much fan noise, either.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 (15-inch, AMD) review: Verdict

The AMD-powered xv-inch Surface Laptop 4 is a stiff ultraportable for the productivity-minded, offering skilful performance and battery life in a slim, bloatware-gratuitous bundle.

The 3:2 brandish ratio really shines on the 15-inch screen, making it great for working through documents and browsing the web. Information technology'southward a strong contender for one of the all-time laptops y'all can purchase if you need to go piece of work washed, especially when you factor in the great sound quality, respectable bombardment life, and decent game performance.

Of course, in that location's withal plenty of room for improvement. I'd love to run across a Surface Laptop with thinner bezels, a more diverse selection of ports, and a better webcam. Information technology would accept been bully to see Microsoft figure out a way to include the latest Ryzen 5000-serial mobile CPUs, as well.

Still, the 15-inch Surface Laptop four's spacious screen, subtle blueprint, and solid combination of performance and longevity ensure it will serve you lot well while y'all're working at home or on the go.

Alex Wawro is a lifelong tech and games enthusiast with more than a decade of experience covering both for outlets like Game Programmer, Black Chapeau, and PC World magazine. He currently serves every bit a senior editor at Tom's Guide covering all things computing, from laptops and desktops to keyboards and mice.