Last month, Microsoft unveiled the Surace Pro 7+, which is aimed squarely at businesses. It’s not entirely clear why consumers can’t get their hands on this superior version of the Surface Pro 7, or even why it’s not called the Surface Pro 8, but it’s still great for businesses, as it maintains all of the ports and connectors that businesses have standardized around.
The big new feature is that it now includes Intel’s 11th-generation processors, codenamed ‘Tiger Lake’. For any other premium PC, Thunderbolt 4 would be a selling point of Tiger Lake, but Microsoft is still staying away from Thunderbolt, which would have added the ability to connect an external GPU, dual 4K monitors, and so on. It does, however, have Intel’s Iris Xe graphics, so you can actually do some FHD gaming on this 1.7-pound tablet when you take it home from work.
Another thing that’s new is removable storage, something that actually debuted in the Surface Pro X and the Surface Laptop 3. Interestingly, those two devices were launched at the same event as the Surface Pro 7, but Microsoft opted to leave removable storage out of that one. It’s not actually meant for DIY upgrades, but rather as more of a security feature. When your business is ready to recycle the PC, you don’t have to worry about people getting their hands on sensitive information; you can simply pull it out and destroy it.
The other big new feature is 4G LTE connectivity. The last Intel-powered Surface Pro with cellular connectivity was the fifth-generation model, and since then, it’s been up to the Qualcomm-powered Surface Pro X if you want 4G. With cellular, it’s also about security, as employees in the field don’t have to worry about unsecured public Wi-Fi networks.
Check out the unboxing video below:
