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The original was posted on /r/surface by /u/felix_dagrouch on 2024-08-15 04:27:16+00:00.

Hi All,

I would like to my experience with the Surface Pro 11 (SP11), specifically the X Elite model featuring 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD. My assessment focuses on two critical aspects: performance and battery life.

Battery Life: Transitioning from the Surface Pro 5 (SP5) to the Surface Pro 9 (SP9), I consistently faced challenges with battery longevity. Initially, the SP9 would provide approximately 5 to 6 hours of usage after installing essential applications and employing it as my primary device. Over time, this duration diminished to a mere 4 hours. Furthermore, the device’s standby mode proved inefficient, draining significant battery life within hours.

In contrast, the SP11’s Snapdragon processor has delivered an exceptional battery performance that merits recognition. On a typical day, a full charge at 8 AM would sustain through intensive usage, including Visual Studio, VS Code, Microsoft 365, emulators, email correspondence, web browsing, network diagnostics, and x86 data recovery tasks. By 1 PM, the battery level would be at 80%, and by 6 PM, after intermittent use, it would only deplete to 67%. Evening activities such as streaming and gaming over WiFi 7 only reduced the battery to 44% by 11 PM. Remarkably, after leaving the device idle overnight, it retained 43% charge, allowing for continued use until mid-morning the following day. This was on no way match the intel SP9.

Performance: The SP11’s performance is on par with, if not superior to, the Intel i7-powered SP9. Notably, the SP11 demonstrates seamless responsiveness in touch gestures, screen rotation, and wake-from-sleep operations. In comparison, the SP9 exhibited sluggishness in these areas, with delays in login screen appearance, multi-touch gestures, and screen orientation changes.

With the SP11, nearly 97% of my applications, particularly those native to Arm64, operate smoothly. Even x86 applications, running via emulation, match the performance of their Intel counterparts. The only notable challenges have been with specific printer drivers, compatibility with certain applications like Apple TV, and virtual machine configurations. However, recent updates have addressed issues with Windows Sandbox and provided beta versions of Windows 11 for Hyper-V.

In conclusion, the SP11 has significantly outperformed my previous devices, offering remarkable improvements in both battery life and overall user experience. Once again, this is based on my personal experience, and as they mention on YouTube, I am not endorsed by Microsoft or any sponsors. :)