Surface Pro 8 Full Review: The Most Outstanding Update in Years

In this review, we're taking an extensive look at the Surface Pro 8, Surface Slim Pen 2, and the refreshed Surface Pro Signature Keyboards.

This is the longest review that I've ever made to date—even surpassing the length and quality of my now second longest review, which was on the Microsoft Surface Pro X. I'm super late to the party with this review, but I hope someone out there will find it useful regardless.

I'll see you guys soon—in my review of the Surface Pro 9. Stay tuned. 💖

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:59 CPU
• 9:22 Port Placements
• 14:07 Keyboard and Trackpad (Part 1)
• 16:13 Keyboard and Trackpad (Part 2)
• 20:40 Surface Slim Pen 2
• 25:39 Taking Notes
• 30:42 Drawing
• 34:19 Display
• 36:21 Cameras
• 38:00 Speakers
• 38:56 Gaming
• 45:26 Thermals
• 48:09 Fans
• 48:46 Storage
• 50:05 Battery Life
• 52:38 Charging Information
• 54:07 Final Assessment

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Highlights

• 3:08, 7:24 - 9:21 CPU Information
• 9:34 Port Selection
• 14:07 Keyboard and Trackpad (Part 1)
• 16:13 Keyboard and Trackpad (Part 2)
• 27:28 Palm Rejection
• 34:09 Surface Dial Support
• 36:53 Sample Photos from the Rear Camera
• 43:39 Gaming: Frame Rates w/ iGPU
• 44:11 Gaming: Frame Rates w/ eGPU
• 48:46 Drive Speeds
• 45:26 GeekBench 5 Benchmark (i7 / 16 GB RAM / 1 TB SSD)
• 50:30 Graph from the Battery Life Section
• 53:14 My thoughts on the Surface Connect interface

These timestamps are for jumping to specific moments in the video. For timestamps to the start of each major section of this review, please use the timestamps provided under the "Chapters" section.

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So, this review was intended to come out much earlier this year. Like, around February or March. But due to some complications, I had a lot of trouble making that happen. 😅

I've been working on this review since October of 2021—back when the Surface Pro 8 came out, believe it or not—so I didn't want to scrap all the hard work I had put into this video just because I was taking a very long time to finish it. But as a result, there are some parts of the video that are now slightly out of date. It doesn't affect the review in any way—as I still agree with all of the assessments that I've made throughout the video—but I do still think that it's important for you guys to be informed about what's changed between now and then. Here are some quick updates to my review that you should definitely be aware of:

1:22 — [Minor Update] As of November 2022, we're now on the 13th generation of Intel Core CPUs. These 13th-gen Intel CPUs were announced last month, October 2022, so please keep this in mind as the 12th-gen Intel CPUs are no longer current-gen. (Mobile 12th-gen Intel CPUs are still significantly better than the mobile 11th-gen Intel CPUs and the mobile AMD Ryzen 5000 / 6000 Series CPUs in terms of performance though.)

1:54 — [Minor Update] As of November 2022, we're now on the "7000 Series" of AMD Ryzen CPUs. AMD Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs were announced three months ago, August 2022.

1:54 — [Correction / Reminder] Please keep in mind that, around the time the Surface Pro 8 came out, the AMD Ryzen 5000 Series CPUs were AMD's equivocal generation to the 11th-gen Intel CPUs aforementioned, not the AMD Ryzen 6000 Series CPUs. The AMD Ryzen 6000 Series CPUs came out ~5 months after the Surface Pro 8 released.

13:39 — [Major Update] The Surface Pro 9 has been released.

31:42 — [Major Update] The latest version of Windows 11 is now Windows 11 Version 22H2, not OS build 22000. Version 22H2 heavily improves the usability of ARM-based Windows PCs, which means the general consensus about ARM on Windows will now be changing heavily these next few months (and surely even more in the foreseeable future).

36:44 — [Minor Update] macOS Ventura has been released as of November 2022. It was publicly released for all Mac users last month, late-October 2022. As a result, Continuity Camera is now available.

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My apologies for my occasional blurry shots and also for some bad audio during certain parts of the video. I've been gone for a while, so I'm still trying to get back into the swing of things. 😅

As always, if you have any constructive feedback for me, please don't hesitate to let me know in the comments! Your feedback is important to me!

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Special thanks to Kevin Thai and Joe Hoang for letting me film them playing Valorant for certain parts of this review!

Special thanks to Koe Bennett for creating original music for this review! ♪

Cloud Kyuro artwork made by @konvee_kou on Twitter!
  / konvee_kou  

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EJ's Website
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