The large keyboard, touchpad and palm rest area are a joy to use. The lid is strong, and it has hinges that allow it to be opened with one hand without lifting the base off the table. The build quality is high, with the robust aluminium body exhibiting no creaking sounds when being carried or opened. The design is the same as previous versions of the Surface Laptop, though this model is the bigger version with a dark finish. In our performance testing, we didn't notice any excessive heat from the base, nor any intrusive noise even under full processing loads, though it's always advisable to keep any laptop on a hard, flat surface for intensive work. The main CPU is supported by AMD Radeon graphics. And despite the processing power, it's cool and quiet.

The special AMD 'Surface edition' chip is very fast This 'Surface edition' chip is very fast, producing performance scores among the highest we've seen in our benchmarking software. The 2GHz AMD Ryzen 7 4980U CPU has eight cores and is a second-generation chip produced exclusively for Microsoft.

Our test laptop, courtesy of Microsoft, had 16GB (gigabytes) of RAM (memory) and a 512GB SSD (solid-state drive) for storage. How does the Surface Laptop 4 rate for performance?

The Surface Laptop 4 comes in 13-inch and 15-inch versions with a choice of Intel or AMD chips in some models.

Microsoft surface thunderbolt 4