Microsoft has launched the new Surface Pro, 12-inch device at a price that’s $200 cheaper than the Surface Pro 11, now called Surface Pro, 13-inch. But what are you missing out on to save that $200, and is it worth it? Let’s find out.
Display
Let’s start with the most obvious difference, the smaller display. The Surface Pro, 12-inch unsurprisingly has a 12 inch LCD display and no OLED option, unlike the 13” model, which you can optionally upgrade to OLED. The 12” display has both a lower overall resolution as well as lower pixel density at 220 PPI vs. 267 PPI for the 13” model. It’s also less bright, coming in at 400 nits vs. the 13” display’s 600 nits. There’s some other features missing including the Vivid color profile, auto color management, Dolby Vision IQ, and the “strengthened glass display” is probably not as tough as Corning Gorilla Glass 5. However, the final important difference is that the 12” display’s refresh rate defaults to 60Hz but can go up to 90Hz, while the 13” display is 120 Hz.
Chips
Heading to the heart of the machines, the Surface Pro 12” has an 9-core Snapdragon X Plus chip, which is 20% fewer cores than the 13” model’s X Plus. That means multi-core performance could be up to 20% less as well.
Memory and Storage
Both the Surface Pro 12” and 13” come with 16GB of memory by default, though the 12” can’t go any higher while the 13” can be upgraded all the way up to 64 GB.
For storage, they also both come with 256GB by default, and the 12” can go up to 512GB, while the 13” can go up to 1TB. The 13” model’s storage is also technically removeable and is faster as it uses nVME rather than UFS on the 12”, but exact speed differences would require some benchmarks.
Cameras
The front webcam on the Surface Pro 12” is only 1080p compared to the 1440p webcam with an ultrawide field of view on the Surface Pro 13”. In addition, the 12” webcam seems to be missing support for Teleprompter and portrait blur features, unless it was just an omission.
Just like the 13” omits “Enhanced Sign-in Security” here, but I doubt its actually less secure than the 12”.
The rear cameras on both models seem to be the same.
Ports
When it comes to ports, the Surface Pro 12” has only USB-C ports at 10 Gbps speeds, aka USB 3.2, while the 13” model’s 2 USB-C ports at USB 4 or 40 Gbps.
The 13” model does come with an optional 5G version with a nanoSIM slot, which is not an option for the 12” model.
More importantly, the 12” model no longer has the Surface connect charging port, which means you’ll need to use up one of the USB-C ports for charging.
Battery Life and Charging
Speaking of charging, there’s no power supply adapter included with the Surface Pro 12”, just a USB-C charging cable, and you’ll have to fork out an additional $70 if you want a 45 watt charger. Or just use any 27-watt or higher USB-C charger you may already have. In contrast, the Surface Pro 13” comes with a 39 watt power supply included in the base price.
Both models support fast charging, though the 12” achieves this at just 45 watts while the 13” does so at 65 watts.
The reason for this could be at the Surface Pro 12” has a battery size of 38 watt-hours, while the 13” LCD version has a 48 watt-hour battery, and the OLED version has a 53 watt-hour battery. That means the battery is 21% smaller on the Surface Pro 12” than the 13”, but claimed batter life is actually 2 hours, or up to 20% more) on the 12”. That’s likely due to the smaller and less bright display, among other things.
Size and Weight
When it comes to size, the Surface Pro 12-inch’s length is 4% smaller, width is 9% smaller, while the height or thickness is 19% thinner. As a result, the weight is also 24% less at only 1.5 lbs without the keyboard cover.
Add on the keyboard and the total weight for the Surface Pro 12” comes to 1.77 lbs and the 13” becomes 2.71 lbs. So the overall laptop-style weight of the 12” is actually 35% less than the 13”.
Keyboard and Pen
With the smaller size keyboard attachment, the Surface Pro 12” now supports magnetically attaching the pen to the back of the tablet instead of a cutout on the keyboard. The 12” also supports “haptic feedback” with the Surface Slim Pen instead of “tactile signals”, but I’m not sure what that means.
The keyboard itself also doesn’t seem to have the ability to partially grip the bottom of the screen to raise it up a bit and provide much better stability when used on a lap, a feature that was added all the way back with the 3rd generation Surface Pro.
Both of these changes could be considered a usability and storage downgrade, and especially the keyboard one might be a dealbreaker if you use a laptop on your lap.
Pricing and Value
The cost of the Surface Pro 12” starts at $800, while the keyboard is $150, for a total laptop price of $950.
The Surface Pro 13” starts at $1000, but Microsoft doesn’t seem to be selling that model anymore on its store, instead offering the $1200 version with storage upgraded to 512GB as the lowest cost one. This might be to differentiate it even more from the 12”, but I’ll still compare the 256GB storage price for the value comparison. With the keyboard coming in at $170 without pen storage or $180 with pen storage, the laptop price of the Surface Pro 13” is $1170.
These are the prices before sales, which seem to happen regular now, especially for the Snapdragon Surface models.
So if you pay the extra $220 for the Surface Pro 13” over the 12”, you get:
- 25% more CPU cores
- 8% larger display with 21% higher pixel density, 50% more nits of max brightness, and 120 Hz refresh rate instead of 90
- Faster, removeable nVME vs UFS storage
- 1440p front webcam instead of 1080p
- Faster 40 Gbps USB 4 ports instead of 10 Gbps USB 3.2, plus a dedicated Surface connect charging port
- 26% larger battery but 2 hours less battery life
- 39 watt power supply included instead of just a USB-C cable and no power supply
- A 53% heavier laptop-style device, or 31% heavier tablet-style device
- and a Lap-optimized, raised keyboard attachment mode for more stability when not on a flat desk
So what do you think? Personally, I think the lap-ability factor with the keyboard, dedicated charging port with included power supply, and faster USB 4 ports would push me toward the larger Surface Pro 13”.
But as always with these Snapdragon Surface devices, always wait for the frequent sales and be sure you’re ok dealing with any software compatibility issues before you buy.
