Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 (15-Inch) Review

Microsoft's Surface Laptop 5 follows up 2021’s Laptop 4, bringing Intel’s 12th Generation “Alder Lake” processors to the same sleek design. The Laptop 5 comes in two sizes, but we’re focusing here on the larger 15-inch model (which starts at $1,299.99; $1,799.99 as tested) for this review. The U-series version of these Intel CPUs are capable for everyday tasks but have a limited performance ceiling, and the price jumps to add memory and storage to the base model are steep.

Combined with the excellent build and long battery life, this makes the Laptop 5 best suited for mobility-first users, while like-priced competitors offer superior CPUs, OLED screen options, and even dedicated graphics. Power users should look to the Lenovo Slim 7 Pro X or the Dell XPS 15. However, anyone chiefly seeking a light, long-lasting, and well-built 15-inch laptop with a big screen will enjoy the Surface Laptop 5. For that, it earns an “excellent” 4-star rating but not quite an Editors' Choice nod for neglecting to address some key pain points, like the dated webcam and its relative lack of ports for a 15-incher.

The Same Sleek Surface Laptop

Like the Surface Pro 9, the new Surface Laptop did not change the build from its previous edition. It comes in two screen sizes, 13.5 inches and 15 inches, and we have the larger model here. Thus, the chassis is the same size as the Laptop 4 we reviewed in 2021 at 0.58 by 13.4 by 9.6 inches (HWD) and 3.4 pounds.

As with the Pro 9, keeping the same design is fine by us, as this premium laptop doesn’t need to be any thinner or lighter. The body is entirely aluminum that, when combined with the slim design, results in a high-quality look and feel. It’s quite minimalist with no flourishes other than the lid logo, very much in the Apple MacBook style.

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Microsoft offers a few color options for the Laptop 5 release, including an especially nice green, but unfortunately they’re restricted to the 13.5-inch model. This bigger model is stuck with only the platinum and black colors (our review unit is the former), same as before. The 13.5-inch Laptop 4 and 5 have more of the color options, but the choices are less fun and a little disappointing for the 15-inch unit.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Without any major design changes, there isn’t much new to say about the build—you can refer back to the Laptop 4 review for in-depth takes. Still, if you’re unfamiliar, here’s a quick rundown: The high-end build quality is continued with a comfortable keyboard, and a nice, responsive touchpad. If I'm being picky, the keyboard is perhaps a touch small for a 15-inch system, and the keys are a little on the mushy side, but the pair is otherwise sound.

Microsoft's Surface Laptop display, too, is unchanged. Like the build, it’s justifiable to not fix what isn’t broken here—the picture quality is crisp, the panel is bright, and it’s touch enabled. The screen is a squarer 3:2 aspect ratio (like all Surface devices), with a sharp 2,496 by 1,664 resolution.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Extras and Ports, or Lack Thereof

Now, for the supporting features. A major disappointment is the 720p webcam. The video quality is serviceable, but with the prevalence of video calls in 2022, we’re seeing more 1080p cameras in premium laptops. Those are much sharper, and usually better able to handle less-than-ideal lighting conditions, so in comparison this 720p camera is middling. The Laptop 5 15-inch is a flagship product, and a larger one at that, so we expect it to replicate a higher-quality desktop experience.

The connectivity options here are more varied than on the Surface Pro 9, though still not any more than the Surface Laptop has offered before, which is increasingly tough to tolerate at this size class. Even the Dell XPS 15 triples the available USB-C ports (though it lacks USB-A support). The XPS 15 offers three USB-C connections exclusively where the Laptop 5 includes one USB-C (Thunderbolt 4) and one USB-A port. It also lacks the XPS 15’s SD card slot, and while USB-A is probably more useful to more users, there is room enough on a 15-inch laptop for a few more ports.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

There’s also a headphone jack, which was previously a given, but (troublingly) has started to disappear from a few high-profile laptops. That includes Microsoft’s own Surface Pro 9, and the latest Dell XPS 13. Outside of that, the laptop supports Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth, Windows Hello for face sign-in, and TPM 2.0.

Components and Configurations: Core i7 Only

While Microsoft offers a similar set of options for the 13.5-inch Laptop 5 (you can easily see them in Microsoft’s online store configurator when ordering), we’ll focus on the options for the 15-incher. The leap to 12th Generation Intel “Alder Lake” processors is comfortably the single biggest upgrade from the Laptop 4, and should provide noticeably more speed in most tasks—we’ll put that to the test in a moment.

For starters, Microsoft interestingly offers no Core i5 options for the Laptop 5—even the base model starts with Core i7, leaving the i5 options to the smaller laptop. However, these are still U-series i7 chips, which are meant for thinner and lighter laptops than Intel's more powerful H-series counterparts. That means, even though it’s Core i7 and should represent decent power, the performance ceiling is limited.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Thus, the base model is priced at $1,299.99 for a Core i7-1255U CPU, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. This specific model is also locked to the platinum color option. From there, the options bump up the storage, then the storage and RAM, culminating in a top SKU with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD for $2,399.99. That one comes only in black.

Our review model is one of those middle SKUs, with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD for $1,799.99. While a good combination, it’s pretty pricey to reach this point; much of the cost is from the design and build of the laptop itself, because I’d normally expect these specs at roughly the price of the base model. Conversely, the $1,499.99 model is pricey for 8GB of memory, and the base model is a bit light on both memory and storage. So there is certainly a premium here across the board.

Testing the Surface Laptop 5: Alder Lake U-Series Performance Limitations

To gauge the performance of these components, we put them through our usual suite of benchmark tests. The test descriptions and results can be found below, but first take a look at the laptops we’ll compare against the Surface Laptop 5…

These are all slim and portable laptops roughly in the same price range as the Laptop 5. This includes the Surface Laptop 4 of course, as well as the flagship Dell XPS 15. The latter is a slightly pricier OLED configuration, so it doesn’t have to be that expensive, but since it packs an H-series processor, it’s here illustrating the performance difference. The HP Spectre x360 13.5 is a smaller but premium convertible option, while the Lenovo Slim 7 Pro X is in between size-wise, but represents one of the best values we’ve seen in recent times.

Productivity Tests

Our main performance benchmark is UL's PCMark 10, which simulates a variety of real-world productivity and content-creation workflows to measure overall performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheet work, web browsing, and videoconferencing. We also run PCMark 10's Full System Drive test to assess the load time and throughput of a laptop's boot drive.

Three other benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon's Cinebench R23 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Primate Labs' Geekbench 5.4 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).

Like the Laptop 4, the Laptop 5 is competent, but not a performance leader in this size class. The trim, premium design is prioritized over the power in comparison with these systems: The Laptop 5 clears the 4,000-point baseline in PCMark 10 for daily effectiveness, but its CPU cant push as much power as the others.

If you’re only concerned with everyday basic use like web browsing, viewing media, and the Microsoft Office suite, the Laptop 5 is plenty capable. Heavy multitasking and particularly media creation and editing, though, will start to tax the system. The XPS 15 and Slim 7 Pro X show what their higher-tier H-series processors can do in comparison.

Graphics and Gaming Tests

We test Windows PCs' graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark: Night Raid (more modest, suitable for laptops with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). We also try two OpenGL benchmarks from the cross-platform GFXBench, run offscreen to accommodate different display resolutions.

The Laptop 5 uses Iris Xe integrated graphics, which is to say the graphics workload is handled by the processor's included GPU cores—there’s no dedicated GPU. In especially slim systems, this is the norm, and they don’t offer nearly as much power as a discrete GPU. You can see the difference by looking at the scores of the XPS 15 and Slim 7 Pro, which include entry-level RTX 3050 GPUs.

This means that the Laptop 5 isn’t good for more than light gaming and very simple graphics workloads. If you’re a pro media editor or creator, you’ll want an alternative with a dedicated GPU.

Battery and Display Tests

We test laptops' battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100% until the system quits. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.

To test the display, we use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Windows software to measure a laptop screen's color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the panel can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).

Battery life is a big win for the Surface Laptop 5, coming in at just over 15 hours. That’s solid, all-day battery life for doing work off the charger, watching some videos, and staying alive on standby in your bag while you travel. It’s also the longest time among these systems, if you’re keeping track.

As for display testing, the brightness is quite high, but the color coverage is middling at best. 403 nits at maximum is the brightest screen here, but for those concerned with color accuracy, the spectrum coverage will not be up to snuff for media and print design professionals.

Verdict: A Long-Lasting Laptop That Needs More Attention

Microsoft's Surface Laptop 5 is, like its predecessor, a well-built laptop that prioritizes portability and a modern feature set. The construction looks and feels high quality, the screen looks nice, and the battery is long lasting.

This build comes at a premium, though, and it's lacking in key areas by comparison. For a similar price—less in the case of the Slim 7 Pro X, more for the XPS 15—competitors with matching amounts of RAM and storage offer some combination of better CPUs, discrete GPUs, OLED displays, better webcams, and more ports. The cost of bumping up the memory and storage in Laptop 5 configurations is pretty high, without those added benefits, and a lightweight CPU as the only option.

All of that is to say that the Surface Laptop 5 is a nice all-rounder laptop, but it’s better suited to mobility-first users who appreciate a sleek design over power. The same philosophy guides the SQ3-based Surface Pro 9 and the Dell XPS 13, so you could well call this a trend. The high price, lacking features, and low power ceiling limits the upside, but there’s still a lot here to like as long as you don’t need higher-end power and value style. If you need more, the Dell XPS 15 OLED is much better suited to pro users, while the Lenovo Slim 7 Pro X is the best deal.