may be a better “Air” than MacBook Air, XPS 13, still a form over function meaningless “thin & light” “ultra” (it is pointless like “full” screen phone with notch/holes and small non-removable battery category) class laptop, get a slightly “heavier, thicker” (relative speaking) no compromise workhorse for real work instead (Surface Book with 28W Tiger Lake and Nvidia GPU imminent?)
Reviews
Cons:
screen does not fold flat like Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon
limited ports (no Ethernet (at least mini, which would require adapter)
battery life
expensive
no 32GB RAM
no Thunderbolt 3
no 4K
buggy sometimes (according to some reviews)
poor “enhanced” mode (pretend to be DCI-P3)
no anti-glare
no OLED
no HDR Dolby Vision 10-bit
no SD/microSD slot
soldered memory
no camera physical shutter
no security lock slot
no garaged (charging) pen
no fingerprint scanner
no vPro (yet, waiting for Intel chip?)
no 4G/5G
no TrackPoint (only matters if you can take advantages of it on Lenovo ThinkPads (or some Dell, HP enterprise boxes) before)
the new smaller (2230) drive may not be as fast as Samsung “bigger” (still small 2280) M.2 drive like 970 [mentioned in some review, don’t have one to test]?)
only
CDM 7.0.0g
SEQ1M-Q8T1/Q1T1, RND4K-Q32T16/Q1T1
MB/s
vs. Samsung MZVLB512HBJQ-000L7 PM981a
read
1973.50/823.01/540.01/17.20
vs.
3449.01/1331.27/1142.26/48.87
write
708.9/548.88/268.32/92.5
vs.
2773.24/2096.83/2126.60/149.59
Pros :
good keyboard
touchpad
screen
only one row of vent in back
one piece bottom (but that means no drain holes for spill, no easy access to SSD. RAM, WLAN)
Mixed concerns:
firmware update via Windows Update (also bad if you don’t want it right away, like to wait till others tested it)
after seen hot chocolate, ice tea, chips, chicken soup etc. on/in laptops, Alcantara may be soft to touch, sounds like a bad idea.
References
https://www.cnet.com/reviews/microsoft-surface-laptop-3-13-5-inch-review/
https://www.windowscentral.com/surface-laptop-3-13-review
https://www.trustedreviews.com/reviews/surface-laptop-3-13
https://www.itpro.co.uk/laptops/34636/microsoft-surface-laptop-3-hands-on-review-powerfully-tempting
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/microsoft-surface-laptop-3-review
https://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/review/microsoft/surface-laptop-3/668268/
https://laptopmedia.com/laptop-specs/microsoft-surface-laptop-3-13-5-41/
https://www.laptopmag.com/news/the-latest-surface-devices-fall-short-heres-how-microsoft-can-fix-it
Announcement
event 2019/10/02 1:37:48
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/surface-laptop-3/8vfggh1r94tm?activetab=overview
Specifications
13.5″ 2256 x 1504 (201 PPI) 3:2 PixelSense glossy IPS 364cd/m2 (405 max.?) 97.5% (90%?) sRGB SHP14B3 (Sharp LQ135P1JX51 21700 Hz 8.7 PWM 1250:1 dE 2.0 – >0.8?)
10th Gen Quad-core 10th Gen Ice Lake Intel Core i5-1035G7 (1.20GHz 3.70 GHz turbo 6MB cache) i7-1065G7 ( 1.30GHz 3.90 GHz 8MB cache) 10nm 15W Processor
Intel Iris Plus 950? G7 64 EU
Wi-Fi 6 Gig+ 802.11ax, Intel AX201 Bluetooth 5, hidden antenna lines
Removable (by service centers) solid-state drive SSD: 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB – SK Hynix NVMe HFM256GDGTNG-87A0A 2230 drive (some models with Toshiba BG4?)
8GB or 16GB LPDDR4x RAM (3733 MHz?)
$999 i5 8/128 platinum
$1299 i5 8/256 sandstone/black/blue/platinum (model 1867:1868)
$1599 i7 16/256 sandstone/black/blue /platinum
$1999 i7 16/512 sandstone/black/blue /platinum
$2399 i7 16/1TB black
Surface Pen enabled $99.99 Ice Blue/Poppy Red – Slim Pen $144.99
Surface Dock $199.99
Compatible with Surface Dial off-screen interaction $99.99
AC fast charge, Surface Power Supple 102W $99.99 44W $89.99
up to 11.5 hours, project athena Instant-On?
sandstone|matte black/metal Aluminum 2.84 lb 1,288 g
cobalt blue|platinum/Alcantara 2.79 lb (1,265 g)
https://www.windowscentral.com/what-is-alcantara-microsoft-surface
Polyester (about 68 percent) and polyurethane (about 32 percent)
USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 (power delivery PD charging, displayport 1.4 two 4K 60Hz, but no Thunderbolt 3), USB-A, 3.5mm headphone jack (TRRS?), Surface Connect port
10 point multi-touch Touchscreen
dual far-field studio mic (Realtek High Definition Audio(SST))
Omnisonic Speakers with Dolby Audio
Windows Hello face authentication IR camera
720p HD f2.0 camera
Firmware TPM 2.0 (Nuvoton)
Ambient light sensor
12.1” x 8.8” x .57” (308 mm x 223 mm x 14.5 mm)