If you don't want a MacBook Air/Pro because of macOS, or other Windows manufacturers such as Dell/HP/Lenovo have let you down in the past, the Surface Laptop 3 (i7 1065G7, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, Matte Black) is quite the option. In my opinion it's the best premium Ultrabook on the market, especially impressive as Microsoft has only been at it for about 3 years.
As performance between 85% of Ultrabooks is relatively similar, build and design is a big deciding factor to me, and the Surface won out against worthy competitors such as the Dell XPS 13 (9300), HP Spectre x360 13, and Razer Blade Stealth. A lot of Microsoft + Intel intangibles like Instant On, smart backlighting, and adaptive brightness help this feel like a polished machine that's been innovated for over 10+ years like the XPS lineup.
The display on the Surface is excellent. The resolution is higher than standard full HD (not quite QHD because of the 3:2 aspect ratio), and doesn't sacrifice on either battery life (4K Ultrabooks make no sense) or picture quality. Apple and Microsoft seem to be the only ones who believe in making QHD+ displays for 13-14" instead of 4K. It just makes more sense for everyone.
Performance is great for a 15W laptop, although I don't need much horsepower from my laptop as I have other desktops for heavy workloads. It's good in short bursts, and at lasting long. The quad core i7-1065G7 has the highest level graphics config for Intel's Ice Lake processors, so this is as good as it gets for this generation. I would recommend 95% of buyers to just buy the 8GB RAM models, as you'll find more use in just having 4 cores than 16GB RAM.
Battery life is good, not amazing. I get about 6-7 hours of active use out of a full charge. It can top up pretty fast while in sleep mode with the included Surface Connect charger. Coming from a device that gave me 2 hours max off of battery, I'm not asking for much. There is some endurance left to be desired, but it's enough for what I need.
The touchpad and keyboard are amazing. They're both among the best that Windows Ultrabooks have to offer (although that's not saying much..)
Some minor gripes/annoyances:
-Intel's Bluetooth and Wi-Fi drivers seem to mess with reception on this device. My range with my Bluetooth headphones is unexpectedly shorter than usual. When waking the device from sleep, Wi-Fi takes a long time to reconnect properly; I sometimes have to restart the machine to get online.
- I knew that ordering a matte black metal device would be a challenge to keep clean, but yeah.. pretty hurts doesn't it?
Overall, I think this should be the default recommendation for a Windows Ultrabook. at $1299 for the i5, 8GB RAM, and 256GB SSD, value isn't the best but you have what is the best looking Ultrabook on the market other than the new XPS 13.
| Standing screen display size | 13.5 Inches |
|---|---|
| Screen Resolution | 2256 x 1504 |
| Max Screen Resolution | 2256 x 1504 |
| Processor | 1.3 GHz apple_ci7 |
| RAM | 16 GB LPDDR4 |
| Hard Drive | 256 GB SSD |
| Graphics Coprocessor | Intel Iris Plus |
| Chipset Brand | Intel |
| Card Description | Integrated |
| Wireless Type | 802.11a/b/g/n/ac |
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 2 |
