The Surface Pro 9 sees the most significant upgrades this year. In addition to selling both ARM and Intel-based variants of the new Surface Pro model, It also gets new color options, with matching Type Cover keyboards as well. The ARM variant is powered by the Qualcomm SQ3 and it comes with support for 5G connectivity as well. Both variants will support Bluetooth 5.1 and Wi-Fi 6E, but the Qualcomm version gets plenty more connectivity including GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and Beidou positioning systems support, nanoSIM and eSIM support, Sub-6 GHz/mmWave 5G networks (mmWave is US only), as well as support for LTE.
There’s a 13-inch PixeSense Flow Display
(2880 x 1920 px; 3:2 aspect) with support for 120Hz refresh rate, compatible
with the Surface Slim Pen 2. There’s a place for the Pen to stow away (and
recharge) right between the Surface machine where it meets with a Type Cover.
The Intel-powered Surface Pro 9 can be
configured with a 12th Gen Intel Core i5-1235U or a Core i7-1255U processor.
Storage options start at 8GB RAM with 128GB storage. Meanwhile, the Snapdragon
SQ3 version features a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) which leverages some new
front camera features including Auto framing, Super Resolution enhancement, and
there’s also a new noise-reduction implementation akin to those developed by
Discord and Nvidia.
Battery life is rated a big differently
between the two models. The Intel version is rated for up to 15.5 hours of use
while the 5G Snapdragon variant is rated for up to 19 hours of battery. Another
difference is USB-C support. While the 5G variant has 2 Thunderbolt 3.2 ports,
the Intel version uses two Thunderbolt 4 ports. The Intel model uses LPDDR5
RAM: either 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB. The 5G variant comes with tiehr 8GB or 16GB of
LPDDR4X RAM. While this model can be configured with up to 512GB of storage,
the Intel model gets up to 1TB.
The Surface Pro 9 starts at US$ 999 with an
Intel i5, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage. The Intel i7 version begins at US$ 1599, and the 5G model will start at US$ 1299. If you want a Type Cover keyboard,
you’ll have to add US$ 279 to the price of the Surface Pro 9.
