The fifth-generation Surface Pro (marketed as the Surface Pro,

colloquially Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom normally employed in conversa ...

referred to as the Surface Pro 2017 or Surface Pro 5) is a

Surface A surface, as the term is most generally used, is the outermost or uppermost layer of a physical object or space. It is the portion or region of the object that can first be perceived by an observer using the senses of sight and touch, and is ...

-series 2-in-1 detachable hybrid

notebook computer A laptop, laptop computer, or notebook computer is a small, portable personal computer (PC) with a screen and alphanumeric keyboard. Laptops typically have a clam shell form factor with the screen mounted on the inside of the upper li ...

, designed, developed, marketed, and produced by Microsoft. The Surface Pro was announced in May 2017 at a public event held in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four Direct-administered municipalities of China, direct-administered municipalities of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

. The device launched in 26 different markets on June 15.

Configuration

Hardware

All Surface Pro models feature 7th-generation Intel

Kaby Lake Kaby Lake is Intel's codename for its seventh generation Core microprocessor family announced on August 30, 2016. Like the preceding Skylake, Kaby Lake is produced using a 14 nanometer manufacturing process technology. Breaking with Intel's ...

Core processors – m3, i5, or i7 – which feature higher clock speeds over the Intel Skylake processors found in its predecessor. The new Kaby Lake chips also feature improved Speed Shift technology, allowing the processor to transition between CPU states quicker. For the first time, both the Core m3 and the Core i5 models are fanless.

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...

options are 4, 8, and 16 GB, and

SSD A solid-state drive (SSD) is a solid-state storage device that uses integrated circuit assemblies to store data persistently, typically using flash memory, and functioning as secondary storage in the hierarchy of computer storage. It is a ...

options are 128, 256, and 512 GB and 1 TB. These are the same tiers that were available with Surface Pro 4. (Note, however, that not all RAM options are available with all SSD options.) In addition, the new Surface Pro features an enhanced kickstand which now opens to 165 degrees, allowing the device to lay flatter – a mode that Microsoft calls ''Studio Mode''. Alongside the 802.11a/b/g/n/ac

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio waves ...

radio,

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...

4.1 Low Energy, there will now also be the option to purchase the Surface Pro with an

LTE Advanced LTE Advanced (LTE+) is a mobile communication standard and a major enhancement of the Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard. It was formally submitted as a candidate 4G to ITU-T in late 2009 as meeting the requirements of the IMT-Advanced standar ...

modem for cellular connectivity. There is also a full-size

USB 3.0 USB 3.0, released in November 2008, is the third major version of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) standard for interfacing computers and electronic devices. Among other improvements, USB 3.0 adds the new transfer rate referred to as '' ...

port,

microSD Secure Digital, officially abbreviated as SD, is a proprietary non-volatile flash memory card format developed by the SD Association (SDA) for use in portable devices. The standard was introduced in August 1999 by joint efforts between SanDi ...

card reader, headset jack,

Mini DisplayPort The Mini DisplayPort (MiniDP or mDP) is a miniaturized and less common version of the DisplayPort audio-visual digital interface. It was announced by Apple in October 2008, and by early 2013 all new Apple Macintosh computers had Mini DisplayP ...

, Cover Port, and the ''SurfaceConnect'' port to connect a wall charger, Docking Station or Surface Dock accessories.

Software

All Surface Pro models (except in mainland China and Japan) come with a 64-bit version of

Windows 10 Pro Windows 10 has several editions, all with varying feature sets, use cases, or intended devices. Certain editions are distributed only on devices directly from an original equipment manufacturer (OEM), while editions such as ''Enterprise'' and ''E ...

and a

Microsoft Office 365 Microsoft 365 is a product family of productivity software, collaboration and cloud-based services owned by Microsoft. It encompasses online services such as Outlook.com, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, programs formerly marketed under the name ...

30-day trial. Windows 10 comes pre-installed with Mail, Calendar, People, Xbox (app), Photos, Movies and TV, Groove, and

Microsoft Edge Microsoft Edge is a proprietary, cross-platform web browser created by Microsoft. It was first released in 2015 as part of Windows 10 and Xbox One and later ported to other platforms as a fork of Google's Chromium open-source project: Android ...

. With Windows 10, a "Tablet mode" is available when the Type Cover is detached from the device. In this mode, all windows are opened full-screen and the interface becomes more touch-centric. In mainland China, all Surface Pro models come with a 64-bit version of Windows 10 Home and a Microsoft Office 2016 Home & Student edition. Devices with Windows 10 Pro are only available for enterprise. In Japan, all Surface Pro models come with a 64-bit version of

and a Microsoft Office Home & Business 2016. The device also has a Windows Hello-compatible camera. It combines the use of a regular and infrared cameras to authenticate the user.

Accessories

Microsoft introduced a collection of new Type Covers, which employs the same

Alcantara Alcantara, Alcântara (Portuguese language, Portuguese), Alcántara (Spanish language, Spanish), Alcàntara, Alcàntera, El-Qantarah and (El) Kantara are all transliterations of the Arabic language, Arabic word ''al qantara'' (القنطرة), mean ...

material as the ''Surface Signature Type Cover'' used in the Surface Laptop and Surface Pro 4 and is available in four different color options. An updated version of the

Surface Pen The Surface Pen is an active stylus and digital pen developed by Microsoft for its series of Surface computing devices. It is designed to showcase the pen computing capabilities of Microsoft's Windows 8/8.1 and Windows 10 operating systems. ...

has also been introduced, including up to 4096 levels of pressure and tilt support. Microsoft claims it is the "fastest pen in the world", with only 21

milliseconds A millisecond (from ''milli-'' and second; symbol: ms) is a unit of time in the International System of Units (SI) equal to one thousandth (0.001 or 10−3 or 1/1000) of a second and to 1000 microseconds. A unit of 10 milliseconds may be called ...

of latency. Unlike previous models, this new version of the "Surface Pen" does not come included with the new Surface Pro. The new Surface Pro is

backward-compatible Backward compatibility (sometimes known as backwards compatibility) is a property of an operating system, product, or technology that allows for interoperability with an older legacy system, or with input designed for such a system, especially in ...

with all accessories of its predecessor models, such as the

Surface Dial The Microsoft Surface touchscreen Microsoft Windows, Windows Personal computer, computers and interactive whiteboards designed and developed by Microsoft. Since its release in 2012, there have been various Surface accessories over the years. Mos ...

. The new Surface Type Cover and Surface Pen are also being made backward-compatible with older models such as the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Pro 3.

Known issues

There was a Surface Pro issue where it had been prone to randomly hibernate and resume shortly afterwards without warning. This issue is mentioned o
answers.microsoft.com
and can be fixed by installing the latest Windows updates. Additionally, users have noted a significant and widespread "backlight bleed" in which the backlight from the Surface Pro's screen is visible on solid-colored backgrounds.

Reception

Ryan Shrout of

PC Perspective PC Perspective (often shortened to PCPer) is a web site dedicated to news and reviews of personal computing and gaming hardware.
PCPer's ...

wrote that "from a flexibility perspective, there is no denying the Windows 10 advantage for consumers, students, and business users" over iOS.Microsoft Surface Pro (2017) vs. Apple iPad Pro (2017): Best Productivity Tablet
PC Perspective, Retrieved July 31, 2017.

Timeline

References

External links

* * {{Microsoft Microsoft Surface Tablet computers introduced in 2017 2-in-1 PCs