This is a 3:2 display, which leaves big borders when you watch widescreen video, and huge ones when you watch a cinema-ratio 2.35:1 movie. The Surface Pro 7’s screen shape seems much better suited to apps than entertainment, though. A powerful backlight is important for a highly portable laptop like this, particularly as it has a glossy touchscreen. It’s still a 12.3-inch IPS LCD screen that looks very sharp thanks to its high 2736 by 1824 pixel resolution.Ĭolour is excellent, and so are contrast and max brightness. Microsoft has not changed the screen this time around. There’s no fingerprint scanner here, but Microsoft does make a Surface Pro keyboard with one.

But there are some pretty good excuses for the high cost. You can buy a Chromebook good enough for basic computer jobs for around the same price as the keyboard alone if you shop around online. The Signature Pro keyboard is expensive, yes. It’s also a proper glass pad, not the plastic you’d expect to see in the average tablet accessory keyboard.

Early versions of the Surface Pro keyboard had fairly small trackpads, but this one is large enough to look and feel just like, well, a normal pad. The keyboard also has a backlight, which can be set at three different levels using one of the F-keys.Įven the trackpad is alarmingly good. No-one should want to type out a 2000 words essay on a touchscreen. You get more travel here in a MacBook, more of the feedback that lets you type with confidence. The keyboard is just about stiff enough to make typing feel like that of a 'proper' laptop, and the keys themselves are excellent. In most, less compromised, situations the Surface Pro 7 works like a dream. If it goes over, it’ll take the screen, and possibly the in-tact status of the screen glass, with it.

And if you have to work on a shallow table, make sure the kickstand doesn’t rest too near the edge. Still, having a 1mm-thick piece of aluminium resting on your knees doesn’t match the comfort of a normal laptop. It’s a sturdy mechanism that can sit at any angle you like, from near enough straight up to almost flat. The metal kickstand also keeps the Pro 7 upright away from the keyboard. Magnets keep the keyboard locked onto the screen, and a second team of magnets let the keyboard sit at a slight upward angle.

Surface 7 pro