The Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 15-Inch Review: Refreshing Ryzen
by Brett Howse on May 6, 2021 8:00 AM ESTWireless
For years, Microsoft leveraged the Marvel AVASTAR wireless adapters, which were reasonable quick, but unreliable, and were really one of the most disappointing areas of any Surface device. Thankfully, they started to deviate away from Marvel last year, mostly thanks to the introduction of Wi-Fi 6, and Intel’s semi-integrated AX200 solution. But, on the previous generation AMD powered Surface Laptop 3, they instead chose a Qualcomm networking solution which was underwhelming, to say the least. The good news for 2021 and the Surface Laptop 4 is that Microsoft has righted this wrong and are now leveraging the Intel AX200 Wi-FI 6 solution even in the AMD powered Laptop 4.
Performance is excellent. The Intel Ice Lake / Tiger Lake powered notebooks have the CVNi connected AX201, which does offer a slightly higher maximum transfer rates, but even the more traditional AX200 does very well over Wi-Fi 6. As is usual for Intel network adapters, reliability was top-notch.
Audio / Video
Microsoft offers Omnisonic speakers with Dolby Atmos support, and they conveniently locate the speakers underneath the keyboard. This faces the speakers towards the listener, and the result is surprisingly good.
Audio separation is quite good for a laptop computer, and while they lack the low-end performance of all notebooks, the speakers sound good in the mid and high ranges, and get plenty loud, with 84-85 dB(A) measured an inch over the trackpad.
On the camera front, the Surface Laptop 4 offers just a 720p webcam, although it does include Windows Hello IR support for fast logins. The laptop includes dual far-field microphones as well.
Thermals
Packing in eight cores, sixteen threads, and 8 CUs of Vega integrated graphics, the Surface Laptop 4 is the most powerful Renoir powered laptop in its class. The Ryzen 7 4980U offers the highest peak frequency, at 4.4 GHz, of the Renoir U lineup, which is the 15-Watt range.
Sadly, the performance monitoring tools we use were not able to poll the processor for power usage data, so we can’t get a proper feel on what kind of sustained power draw the laptop achieves, but Renoir has been quite power efficient, so it is likely in the 15-20 Watt range. We were able to poll sustained frequencies though. The Surface Laptop 4, under 100% load, quickly hit its 4.4 GHz peak, and then ran at a sustained 3 GHz for the rest of the run. There was no frequency degradation over time which would indicate the laptop was overheating.
Cooling was also very impressive. Despite the performance, Microsoft has been able to tune the fans to keep very quiet. Under most conditions, the fans are not even active, but under full load, the fans only registered 44 dB(A) even after over an hour of sustained load. That is very impressive.
Software
One of the most refreshing points in Surface ownership is that the Surface team does not install any extra software on the notebook. You don’t need to worry about browser plug-ins, antivirus trials, or the like. The only app that is installed is the Surface App, where you can get information about the device, and configure accessories such as the pen.
The Surface App works well, but it would be nice to see Microsoft give it some love. It has not really changed much in the last several years. Some additional functionality would be appreciated. It offers only the most basic functionality and support access.
One such feature that would be appreciated is the ability to set the maximum battery charge level. If you are a person that normally docks the device, being able to set the maximum battery level to something other than 100% can help prolong the life of the battery, and is functionality that other manufacturers do add. The Surface device offers two color profiles, with sRGB and Enhanced, and would it not be nice to be able to choose that in the Surface app, where the Surface app could explain what the settings do, rather than just a drop-down in the display settings with no explanation? It feels like there is a lot more than can be done here to enhance ownership. The Surface app is easy to use, it looks great, and it could use a bit more functionality.
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Eletriarnation - Thursday, May 6, 2021 - link
It really is. You don't actually need any at all, this little company called Apple was the first to figure it out.hanselltc - Thursday, May 6, 2021 - link
They've also figured out how to make touchpads that makes everything else feel like compressed trash dug up from an abandoned landfill, so there's that.Gam3r01 - Thursday, May 6, 2021 - link
Having purchased a 2nd hand Surface Laptop 3 last week, in my experience one USB-A was limiting. I do not own a single USB-C device and re-installing Windows and installing Linux from a USB stick without the use of the built-in keyboard and trackpad was annoying. As was backing up the system with a USB bootable recovery program (that also lacked the wifi driver).To install Windows, rather than use the latest image, I resorted to the official MS SL3 recovery USB, which included the drivers during setup, but incurred hours of Windows updates. For Linux I used the Grub ‘toram’ option and fumbled with swapping keyboard and mouse in and out of the single port, as well as using the onscreen accessibility keyboard. Then for a backup/recovery (lacking input drivers and a wifi driver), I repartitioned the drive and backed up to a spare partition.
Easy when you know how, but it was frustrating, especially as I sold by only USB hub (built into a monitor) last month.
Be Safe, peace.
Alistair - Thursday, May 6, 2021 - link
Well said, that's an example of the kind of problem I've had also.Dug - Thursday, May 6, 2021 - link
So what you are saying, is you didn't prepare. You used the wrong software, and you don't have a usb hub that 99% of the population has.Holliday75 - Monday, May 10, 2021 - link
He also explained a situation in which 99% of computer users would not even understand let alone run into. Been in IT 20+ years and rarely have to work like that. If vendors considered these things they would probably be throwing away millions in profit.dontlistentome - Friday, May 7, 2021 - link
That's why Apple give you none.This is a premium device. People who can afford it buy a bluetooth mouse or a mouse with a usb C dongle.
I've had thinkpad laptops with thunderbolt for 4 years now. I use a TB3 dock at home and work, have usbc charging cables for my Android and ipad and have multiple usb drives that have dual a/c connectors. Heck, my car is all USB-C now for Android auto.
Linustechtips12#6900xt - Friday, May 7, 2021 - link
I have an HP x360 2in1 with a ryzen 4700u and 8GB of ram that I will upgrade to 16-32GB here soon but besides the point, it has a power dc jack, USB-c with HDMI, DisplayPort, power and data transfer, an HDMI port and a headphone jack, ohh and an sd card slot that I basically never use but anyway I dock it with a USB-C hub and a monitor over HDMI all connected to a usb-c hub that I have with 3 USB 3.0 and 1 HDMI and another sd card slot, I plug into power using the dc power jack and im set to go with 2 cables to plug in. point is, on the go I maybe use a wired mouse if I game, but most of the time I use a USB port for data transfer and that about it, 1 USB port with a USB-c and another power jack is honestly perfect for me at least.ballsystemlord - Tuesday, May 11, 2021 - link
I agree. We need at least 2 USB-A ports.eastcoast_pete - Thursday, May 6, 2021 - link
Thanks Brett! Agree on most of your points. Questions, comments: Is the memory user upgradable? It doesn't seem to be, which would be a major minus for a "premium" laptop. Other Comment: Regarding your Handbrake tests, I would stay away from the "Hardware" ones unless you can add information on the size of the resulting file and the quality. One aspect where NVIDIA is (still?) far ahead of AMD's GPUs is the encoding ASIC; since Turing, NVENC has become downright usable (comparable quality to software encoding at about 1.2 x the file size, much faster) whereas AMD's solution is clearly inferior in quality. If that has changed in recent months, I'd love to know.Lastly, I didn't like AMD replacing the number of iGPU cores with cranking up the frequency (from previous Ryzen APUs), and it's now biting them in the rear. An 10- 11 core design like the older gen would have beaten Xe.