Review: Microsoft Surface Pro 7

For a long while I doubted whether you could actually get functioning and secure computers off of the second hand market. Especially online might be a bit risky one might think.

However, I gave it a chance and bought a complete kit.

My purchase was a platinum colored Microsoft Surface Pro 7, a surface pen of the older model and a wine red keyboard, all for 8500 SEK.

The specs are as follows:

Windows 11 pro

256 GB of storage

16 GB of RAM 

i7 processor

Having had it for about a month I can safely say that the computer was in good condition. One of the first steps as usual was to set it up with my personal details. Something that occurred was that my username in the filepaths of the explorer had an extra symbol in it. Probably from my email address. 

The computer handles World of Warcraft at lower graphical settings, it still gets hot but there are fans hard at work as well.The computer has no dedicated graphics card so everything goes through the processor.

Web browsing, speakers and cameras are all decent for being a 2-in-1 computer, they perform at a level that works just fine. I'm usually using 3 external screens, the USB-C port goes to the middle one while the Surface Dock 2 is connected to the other two on the sides. One issue I had was that the ones on the side was blinking and looked compressed. I put down the refresh rate from 60 to 59,5hz and the problem went away.

What I like the most with the computer is the touch screen, the detachable keyboard and just the overall looks. Compared to the laptop version the computer usually performs just as well, it's a bit smaller and a bit heavier from my experience.

The surface pen is handy especially when you write on your snippets by hand. That being said, if you do not have the pen and have other expenses it shouldn't be your first priority as you can draw with your finger as well.

Startup advice:

Set up your Windows Hello login for easy login, it even works in the dark.

If you know how to, set a UEFI password on your computer to prevent easily fixed security breaches. Simply hold volume up while starting up the computer until you enter the UEFI menu (a graphical version of BIOS basically)

Create an local admin account (and demote your everyday account to a regular user).