Is Surface Pro Good For Drawing

Expert Rating: Nosotros rate this 9 out of x
Price When Reviewed: From £799 | Model reviewed £1,449
Pros: The best tablet/laptop hybrid that can run full Windows apps. Impressive operation for its size. Fashionable accessories.
Cons: Screen needs improving.

Retailer	Price	Delivery
Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide

The Surface Pro 7 is the creative hardware of pick for the Illustrator – and by this nosotros mean professional vector artists and graphic designers whose principal tool is Adobe Illustrator. It's as well a cracking tool for creative directors and designers for whom easy portability and the ability to draw are more important than the performance of a high-spec laptop such as Apple's 16-inch MacBook Pro.

Microsoft'south tablet computer is as well becoming an option for artists whose digital mark-making follows the process of traditional drawing and painting – artists who would currently be drawn to Apple's iPad and apps such as Procreate – though this has less to do with the upgraded hardware but that Adobe has released a Windows version of its new painting app Fresco that's only available for Surface tablets and Wacom's MobileStudio Pro (as well as the iPad).

And then what'south new about the Surface Pro 7? There are new chips and ports, just from the exterior, not a lot. It looks identical to the Surface Pro 6. Information technology'south an A4-ish tablet that runs Windows 10 with a thin bezel around a 12.three-inch screen. Attach a Type Comprehend keyboard-with-trackpad to the bottom and button out the kick stand from the dorsum and it becomes a moderately comfortable laptop. Pull off the keyboard and go out the boot-stand out and it balances nicely for binging on Abstract or Drag Race on Netflix.

Flatten it down and pull out the Surface Pen and you're ready for sketching, drawing or painting. The Pen attaches to the side of the Surface magnetically, but as with the iPad Pro it falls off hands in your pocketbook or even when conveying the tablet to meetings unless you lot go along a firm hold on the pen as well equally the tablet – and I by and large establish myself putting the Pen in my jacket or a split up pocket in my bag when travelling anywhere. This is something Microsoft has attempted to address with its 'concept machine' reinvention of the Surface, the Surface Pro X – which has a slot inside the keyboard to concord a baste pen-style flattened stylus besides as a mobile phone processor to slim it down even further. You lot tin read my hands-on with the Surface Pro 10, and we should accept a review unit before long.

Unlike the iPad Pro, the Pen doesn't charge wirelessly – it uses an AAAA battery instead (like AAA but smaller). These are cheap and readily available from the likes of Amazon – simply tricky to find from local stores if it runs out at the wrong time.

The Surface Pen has been ane of the most criticised elements of the Microsoft's Surface offering over the years – including past me. The current pen is much improved over previous generations, heavier and better balanced than the one-time biro-similar stylus. If y'all're used to a Wacom pen, it'll even so feel a flake lightweight – though the same is true of the Apple tree Pencil.

Apple tree'due south second-generation Pencil is withal the best tablet stylus on the market – both in terms of balance and style – just the Surface Pen is a worthy competitor.

How skillful is the Surface Pro 7 for drawing?

Drawing on the screen is a like feel to that on the iPad Pro – pressure and tilt touch on your stroke every bit you'd expect, though there's no rotation support as you get with Wacom tablets. The level of pressure sensitivity is the same equally the Apple tree Pencil – 4,096 levels – but half that of Wacom'south latest pens (8,192).

The Surface Pro 7's screen is one of its weakest features. It's not the resolution – at 2,736 x 1,824 information technology'southward a smidge less dense than the 12.ix-inch iPad Pro at 2,732 10 2,048 – nor the shape; the 3:2 attribute ratio is less restrictive to draw on than a widescreen display. It's the colour gamut and accuracy that'south the issue.

Testing with a DataColor SpyderX Elite calibrator, we found that the Surface Pro seven could output 98% of the sRGB colour space but only 79% of AdobeRGB, so you'll see less subtle shading in gradients and the like than on the iPad, MacBook Pro or a high-end Windows laptop such as the Dell XPS 15 or Razer Blade fifteen. This is disappointing as this is the same as the previous two generations – going dorsum to 2017's singularly named Surface Pro (which nosotros'd probably refer to equally the Surface Pro five, as it came between the Surface Pro 4 and 6). For a device aimed at artistic professionals, we'd await at to the lowest degree 90% – and 100% should be possible.

The fundamental difference between the Surface Pro vii and the iPad, of form, is that Microsoft'southward tablet runs Windows. Whether you lot meet this equally a merit or flaw is a personal preference – though it's worth setting out what those differences are in reality. The iPad offers a more than focussed experience – with apps specifically designed for the platform and, despite iPadOS's promise of multi-tasking, it's relatively tricky to utilize more than one application at a time.

The Surface Pro 7 gives you the full desktop experience and a much wider range of apps and tools – but not all work brilliantly on a 12.3-inch touchscreen display or the modestly powered processor. Photoshop (below), Illustrator and Premiere Pro reconfigure their interfaces for touch on in ways that work well – and the truly tailored Fresco feels very much at home – but InDesign is practically unusable. Adobe XD worked perfectly fine, though felt a petty cramped at times. Even so, despite upgraded processor options based around Intel's new tenth-gen Cadre platform, After Effects and Cinema 4D creak – and we wouldn't recommend the Surface Pro 7 for either.

To make Adobe'due south art, design and video editing apps run well, you lot'll need a high-spec Surface Pro. If yous want to use the Surface Pro vii as your main calculator, we'd recommend equally a minimum the £1,399 quad-cadre Cadre i5 model with 16GB of RAM – though you'll come across definite performance benefits if you upgrade to the £1,449 Core i7 model that nosotros had for review. Both of these have 256GB of storage, and while Microsoft offers 512GB and 1TB options, these are pricy and you're probably better off investing in external storage on your desk-bound or network.

If yous're looking for a device just to accept to meetings and sketch on and exercise function tasks while travelling – and take a powerful desktop equally your main machine – the £899/$899 Core i5 8GB model with 128GB of storage is probably enough.

Microsoft Surface Pro 7 benchmarks

Below nosotros've benchmarked our review unit against one of the elevation xiii-inch laptops on the market – Dell's XPS 13 – and our highest-rated 15-ish-inch model, Apple's 16-inch MacBook Pro. While we'd nor ordinarily recommend a 13-inch laptop for creatives, nosotros're using the XPS 13 to wait at the Surface Pro 7 against something of a similar size – and while of class the sixteen-inch MBP is more powerful than the diddy Surface, what we want to plant hither is the difference to help y'all decide if the advantages of the tablet blueprint is worth the performance drop.

(Dell has just announced a new XPS 13 at CES 2020. Read our sister site Tech Counselor's hands-on review here.)

The details are below, simply in short, what they show is that a high-spec Surface Pro seven is more than powerful enough to utilise your mainstay artistic apps on – though it'due south clearly no MacBook Pro.

The 16-inch MacBook Pro tested here is what we'd consider to be the base configuration for a creative pro. It has a 16-inch, 3,072 x 1,920 LCD screen; a ninth-generation Core i9 2.3GHz processor with eight cores, 16GB DDR4 RAM, AMD Radeon Pro 5500M graphics with 4GB RAM, a 1TB SSD and macOS Catalina. Information technology costs £ii,799/The states$ii,799.

The Dell XPS 13 has a xiii-inch, 1,920 10 i,080 LCD screen; an 8th-generation Cadre i7 ane.8GHz quad-core processor, 8GB RAM, Intel UHD Graphics 620 graphics, a 256GB SSD and Windows 10 Home. At fourth dimension of review it cost £1,379/$i,309.

The Microsoft Surface Pro vii has a 12.3-inch, two,736 x one,824; a 10th-generation Cadre i7 i.3GHz quad-core processor, 16GB, Intel Iris Plus Graphics, a 256SSD and Windows ten Home. Information technology costs £1,449/$1,499 without the keyboard or pen.

Photoshop CC 2019 criterion

Cinebench R20

Keyboard

The Blazon Comprehend keyboard-&-trackpad combo could best exist described as 'usable'. You wouldn't want to write something as long as this review on it – just the same's true for Apple's iPad keyboard. Different most tablet keyboards, it'due south raised to a slight angle, which does make typing more comfortable and the keys feel like they take more 'travel' to them.

For long periods at your desk though, y'all'd desire to connect a keyboard, mouse and monitor – I'd recommend Logitech'south MX Master keyboard and mouse and 1 of these displays from our guide to the best monitor for art and design.

To assistance connect such peripherals, the new Surface Pro seven has gained a USB-C port. While not the Thunderbolt 3 port you lot discover one many pro-form laptops, it'southward a welcome upgrade.

Colour options

The Type Cover is available in a diversity of colours and textures from uncomplicated black plastic to gray, red or bluish suede-like Alacantra that feels soft and warm to rest your hands on. The Pen is also available with blue and carmine options.

Our review unit came with a Embrace and Pen both in the rather fetching Poppy Ruby – also as a colour-matched Arc Mouse – and as a set it's very pleasing to the middle.

The black power brick is smaller than what yous get with nearly laptops.

The Surface itself has 2 colour options. The screen bezel is always black, but the back and sides can be Platinum (ie argent) or Matte Black.

The accessories do make the Surface Pro seven more expensive than you might initially think. The bare minimum you'd desire to spend on a Surface Pro vii to make it capable of running Illustrator or Photoshop is £1,399/$xxxx – and then y'all'll need the £150 Blazon Cover and £100 Pen. However, unless the Surface Pro X is really the future of the Surface platform, in that location's a adept chance y'all'll exist able to use today's accessories with a hereafter Surface upgrade.

Verdict

There are circumstances where the near-unique nature of the Surface Pro vii means that it really is the best creative device on the market. If you're a creative director running between customer meetings and need a combination of a digital Moleskine and a way to proceed your admin and email nether command. If you want the thinnest, lightest device you tin run the total version of Photoshop or Illustrator or XD on, it's a no-brainer. Artists looking for the best drawing and painting feel are still better off with an iPad Pro and Procreate – but if y'all demand to create vector art besides, and so Illustrator on the Surface Pro covers both bases much better (deplorable Affinity Publisher).

Then it's not the best tablet, nor the best laptop – merely if a hybrid suits you best, this is where y'all should spend your coin.