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Used for: Less than a month
Touch, pen and keyboard in one continuous job
A hub is compulsory if you own anything older than USB-C
Coming back to Windows after six years on a MacBook was the part I dreaded and it took about a day. What sold it was the touch and the pen together. Marking up a PDF with a finger and a stylus, then dropping it into the folio and typing the covering email, is one continuous thing rather than two devices and a transfer. The screen shape is better for documents than any laptop I have used, and a terabyte means the whole archive came across with room to spare. Two things to know before buying: it wants a hub if you own anything older than USB-C, and on an actual lap the kickstand is a compromise. Neither has changed my mind, but neither was obvious in the shop!
Used for: Less than a month
A day of meetings without reaching for the charger
Reflections under office lights are a nuisance
The pen has been out every day since it arrived, through a diary of back-to-back meetings, and it still has not asked for the charger before six, which the laptop it displaced could never claim.
Used for: 3–6 months
Marking with the pen is quicker than paper ever was
Reflections in a bright classroom
Marking a class set of essays with the pen has saved me an evening every week, easily!
Used for: 1–3 months
Colour on screen that matches the prints
Warm and audible during a long export
Photography is what it was bought for, and on colour it is honest: prints have come back matching what the screen showed, which is not something I could say for the laptop before it. The terabyte matters more than the speed. A shoot of eight hundred raw files sits on the device while I cull it on the train, and nothing needs shuffling onto a drive first. A single lead at the desk picks up the monitor, the drive and the power, so it becomes a desktop in about three seconds. Against all that: it warms up during a long export, the fan is audible in a quiet room, and holding it as a tablet for an hour is more of a workout than the iPad it sits beside. Four stars, comfortably.
Used for: Less than a month
Two things on the screen at once, both readable
Homework on one half, a video call with a tutor on the other, and a fourteen year old who has stopped asking to borrow the laptop!
Used for: More than a year
It has done two years of school runs, kitchen tables and hotel desks. The screen has one scratch that I put there myself with a set of keys, and everything else works exactly as it did
Used for: 1–3 months
Camera sits at eye level on a call
Speakers are thin without headphones
The webcam sits at the right height for calls, which no laptop of mine has ever managed, though it picks up the whole room as well
Used for: 3–6 months
It drops charge overnight if you only put it to sleep
Does the job of a laptop and then folds flat for reading
Used for: Less than a month
Runs the programs an iPad never will
Wobbles on a lap when you type
We already have an iPad in the house, so the question was whether a Windows tablet earns its place, and after a fortnight the answer is yes for anyone whose work involves a program that will never be an app. The accounts software, the old survey program, the VPN, all of them run without a fuss. On the iPad they simply do not exist. Typing on the folio is fine on a desk and awkward on a lap, where the whole thing wobbles. The screen is superb, bright enough for a garden table, and the pen has become the way I sign things. Four stars because the keyboard, the pen and the hub are all extra, and none of them are optional in practice.