Microsoft announces Surface Pro 8 with larger 13-inch screen at 120Hz and Thunderbolt

Microsoft is announcing the Surface Pro 8 today, the biggest upgrade to its Intel-based Surface Pro line since the Surface Pro 3 in 2014. Although we’ve seen some design changes to the Surface Pro in the past seven years , the Surface Pro 8 jumps to a 120Hz display with thinner bezels, support for Thunderbolt 4, and a new keyboard that perfectly houses an improved Surface Slim Pen 2.

Microsoft’s Surface Pro 8 took most of the best parts of the Surface Pro X and paired them with an Intel chip. It’s the Surface Pro we’ve been waiting for for years.

Image: Microsoft

The 13-inch PixelSense Flow display, as Microsoft calls it, is larger than the 12.3-inch display found on most other Surface Pro devices, and it also has a higher resolution. The display also supports Dolby Vision and Adaptive Color Technology.

The larger screen helps reduce the edges on the sides of the Surface Pro 8, making it closer to the Surface Pro X. But the most important part of the Pro 8’s screen is the fact that it’s now at 120Hz. While it will operate at 60Hz by default, the display will dynamically jump up to 120Hz for touch or pen tasks.

Surface Pro 8 will use the new dynamic refresh rate feature of Windows 11. The dynamic refresh rate works similarly to Apple’s high refresh rate ProMotion displays, allowing the screen to fluctuate between different refresh rates as it moves. depending on the tasks. Microsoft primarily uses this new Surface Pro 8 display to improve inking performance on the device and make touch scrolling much smoother.

Image: Microsoft

The separate Surface Pro Signature keyboard now also includes a new Surface Slim Pen 2 which is similar to the keyboard and stylus combo found on the Surface Pro X. The stylus loads into the base of the keyboard and includes a built-in haptic engine that attempts to mimic the keyboard. feeling of writing on paper. This new stylus also has reduced latency and better accuracy thanks to a redesigned tip.

It’s inside that the Surface Pro 8 gets even more interesting. Microsoft is finally supporting Thunderbolt 4 here and ditching the aging USB-A port. The Pro 8 will ship with two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports and the usual Surface Connect port for charging. That means you can connect the Surface Pro 8 to multiple 4K displays, use high-speed external storage, or even connect to an external GPU to turn that tablet into a gaming PC.

The Surface Pro 8 will also ship with Intel 11th generation quad-core processors and up to 32GB of RAM. Microsoft has yet to announce pricing or availability, but Windows 11 will ship on October 5, so it’s likely to arrive very soon.

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