This model managed to clock an impressive 15 hours and 25 minutes, though that’s two hours less than Microsoft claims. That machine only reached seven hours and 50 minutes in our battery test, which was far less than the nearly 16 hours of uptime we saw on the 13-inch Surface Laptop 2.

Thanks to the updated hardware, Microsoft was also able to fix one of the Surface Laptop 3's biggest flaws: Battery life. The Laptop 4's SSD could be faster too, but at least that's something you can replace down the line. I only wish Microsoft was able to include AMD's newer 5000-series chips, which would have been an even bigger performance leap. The Laptop 4 remained snappy even when I bogged it down with dozens of browser tabs, 4K videos and huge game downloads. You can thank the built-in Radeon graphics for that. I was able to play Overwatch in 1080p with high graphical settings smoothly over 60FPS, whereas the Surface Laptop 3 could only do that with medium settings. What really turned me around was seeing just how much AMD's Ryzen 7 4980U sped things up. Take all of that together with a genuinely sturdy and premium-feeling case, and you've got an ultraportable that I could easily recommend to anyone. You've also got the choice between Intel and AMD processors on both the 13-inch and 15-inch models.

It's noticeably faster and has longer battery life than the previous model, and it still has one of the best keyboards on the market. But after using the 15-inch Surface Laptop 4 for the past week, I've warmed up to it. So, if you haven't guessed, I was a bit disappointed that Microsoft decided to keep coasting with this same look.

Microsoft surface laptop 4 amd ryzen 5