Hands on: The Surface Pro 9 looks beautiful in Sapphire and Forest

Microsoft's Surface Pro 9 is official (along with the Surface Laptop 5 and Surface Studio 2 Plus), coming in a couple of new colors and offering a 5G option. There are Intel and Arm options now, packing 12th-gen U-series chips on the Intel side and the new Microsoft SQ3 on the Qualcomm side.

At a brief glance, it might appear that not much has changed, but there are some notable differences from this product's two predecessors, the Surface Pro 8 and the Surface Pro X.

The Surface Pro 9 (Intel)

The most obvious change is that there are two new colors: Sapphire and Forest. As soon as I walked into the demo room, the Sapphire model immediately caught my eye. It's visually stunning.

I asked why Sapphire and Forest, rather than Ice Blue and Sage. The reason I was given was because Microsoft wanted bolder colors for the Surface Pro tablets, rather than the more subtle colors that it's shifted to in the Surface Laptop lineup. There's also a special Liberty editon which looks awesome.

So, why now? According to Microsoft, introducing the Surface Pro in pretty colors like this was always the plan ever since it decided to move to aluminum. When the original Surface Laptop was introduced, it was the first Surface to come in aluminum, which is easier to make in colors than magnesium was. At the time, magnesium was the signature material for everything Surface. The Surface Pro X originally launched in black with an aluminum chassis, and then last year's Surface Pro 8 arrived in aluminum.

But while the Surface Pro chassis was left relatively unchanged between the Surface Pro 3 and Surface Pro 7 Plus, this isn't the same as the Surface Pro 8. It's the same size and thickness, but the ports have been moved. Both Thunderbolt 4 ports are on the left now, and both the power button and volume rocker are on top, as they used to be before the redesign.

Frankly, while it seems minor, I think it's an improvement. The top feels like the proper place for those buttons.

There one other thing that's different. The panel to remove the storage no longer requires a pin. Instead, there's a little dimple that you can press to pop out the panel. It's a smart change, although for some reason, it's a change that wasn't made on the 5G model.

Other than those changes, the Surface Pro 9 is the same tablet we know and love. It's got a 120Hz display, it's thin, it's light, and it's a great Windows 11 tablet.

The Surface Pro 9 with 5G (Qualcomm)

The Surface Pro 9 with 5G might actually be the more interesting product. It's armed with a Microsoft SQ3 processor, which is really a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 in disguise. All models come with 5G cellular connectivity, and depending on your region, it will come with mmWave support.

Unfortunately, this one does not come in pretty colors. It comes in Platinum only, even though the Surface Pro X originally debuted in black. It obviously doesn't have Thunderbolt 4, since that's an Intel thing and would be costly to implement, but also, it doesn't have USB4 either. The two USB Type-C ports are USB 3.2.

One of the biggest upgrades on the Surface Pro 9 with 5G is the 120Hz display with Dynamic Refresh Rate. While this was present on the Surface Pro 8, it wasn't on the Pro X, so this is a major improvement. The higher refresh rate means that you'll see smoother animations, and that refresh rate will change dynamically based on what you're doing, so it won't kill battery life.

That also makes it good for playing games. Obviously, a thin tablet like this isn't great for playing native games, let alone one with an Arm processor, but cloud gaming is the angle here. There's finally an Xbox app for Windows on Arm PCs, and with 5G connectivity, you can play those games from anywhere.

But before we talk more about new features, let's talk more about the design.

As you can see, that looks a lot differently than a Surface Pro X. Indeed, since the Pro X and Pro brands are unified now, that means that Microsoft needs a unified chassis. That chassis needs to be built for the lowest common denominator, which is Intel. At 9.3mm thick, the Surface Pro 9 with 5G is about 27% thicker than the Surface Pro X was. Having the same Surface Pro 9 branding, both models need to fit the same cases and accessories.

That's also why that gap is there, which isn't a gap at all. Just like its predecessor, the Surface Pro 9 with 5G is fanless. That gap isn't even a opening for passive cooling, and I was told that it's efficient enough that passive cooling wouldn't give it a boost in performance anyway. Microsoft didn't publish the battery specs, but it did say it used the extra space for a larger battery.

One of the big questions about a device like this is, why? We have 5G PCs with Intel processors. The SQ3 comes with performance issues with emulated software. Battery life claims for Arm haven't really panned out.

What Microsoft and Qualcomm are pushing is AI tasks, such as noise cancelation, background blur, and more. In the image above, we were doing a demo where audio was recorded while making noise with a bag of chips, and then we did the same both background noise suppression on. The difference was night and day.

There was another demo with motion tracking. That's where you can move around and the field of view follows you. Gaze correction was another, where you can look at your screen, but it uses AI to make it look like you're looking at the camera. It's really good.

And here's the thing. Most of these features exist on Intel PCs, although not on the Intel Surface Pro 9. But having reviewed many of them, all of these features work a lot better on Qualcomm processors. I spent a fair amount of time testing out motion tracking, just to get a feel for the delay. I've used many webcams that wait a couple of seconds before moving the field of view, and it's distracting to other people on the call. This was more instant.

Ultimately, I'm pretty excited for both models. I'm excited for 5G, Windows on Arm, and the massive performance boost that comes with the Microsoft SQ3. I'm also excited about new colors, and the prospect of even more colors in future Surface Pro tablets.

The Surface Pro 9 arrives on October 25, with the 5G model coming a bit later. It starts at $999.