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Meet Sigma’s first ultra-telephoto zoom lens for full-frame mirrorless cameras: the 100-400mm F5-6.3 DG DN OS Contemporary lens. I spent a few months using this lens for bird photography. This review answers every birder’s most important question about a lens. As eloquently stated by my bestfriend, Janay: “Will I be able to see these birds eyeballs from my balcony or nah?”

Design

A “Handy Tele Master” that empowers your photography vision, anytime, anywhere.

SIGMA

Before I answer that, let’s talk about the design of SIGMA’s 100-400mm Contemporary lens. It’s like goldilocks for bird photography: long reach, compact body, and light enough to comfortably lift up and down for miles. The body is weatherproofed with a dust and splash resistant structure for outdoor protection.

It has four switches on its body that offers more control over focus and image stabilization. You can switch between its smooth, high-speed autofocus (AF) or manual focus (MF). A focus limiter switch restricts the auto-focus range to a specific distance while shooting. There’s also an autofocus lock (AFL) button that locks the focus and doubles as a customizable button for custom functions of your choice.

It has two optical stabilization (OS) modes to minimize small camera shakes. The first mode is made for shooting without a tripod. The second mode gets more aggressive for action shots. It “corrects for vertical shakes” so that you can pan the camera on a moving subject and prevent the stabilization algorithms from correcting it. Combined with a camera body with built-in image stabilization, the lens will correct for pitch and yaw axis rotations as well.

The SIGMA 100-400mm Contemporary features a “dual action zoom” setup to zoom by turning the hood of the lens (straight zoom) or using the zoom ring. Both options have a smooth pull with just enough friction to avoid lens creep. Last, and the most handy switch on any lens for most birders, is a zoom lock. It keeps the lens from accidentally extending and hitting the ground when you’re not using it and moving around.

Bird Photography Performance

Focal Range: 100 — 400mm

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Paired with the Panasonic S1R, the SIGMA 100-400mm Contemporary is powerful, sharp and yes, you can see the eyeballs of these birds from a comfortable distance. Before I get into what I enjoyed, I’ll start with my biggest gripe using this setup: autofocus. I leaned heavily on autofocus because this setup was heavier and longer than my personal camera and lens (Canon T2i and 55-250mm lens). On a scale of 1-10, I’d give its autofocus capabilities a 7.

Autofocus can be quick, but easily tripped up over patterns of grass or branches. To my surprise refocusing at significantly different distances is much slower, taking just long enough to miss a shot. I lost a fair share of opportunities for this reason. Case in point: the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher pictured above.

To work around this, I focused on other objects on or near the same plane of the bird I wanted to capture. A little annoying since birds are notorious for their disappearing acts. However, once this lens locked on a bird, the experience was everything you could want from a lens for bird photography.

FOCUS: Sharpness, Clarity & Detail

Across its focal range, the SIGMA 100-400mm Contemporary is sharp and detailed. As with all cameras, things start to go downhill in lower light or using slower shutter speeds when shooting without a tripod. Fortunately, there are plenty of photography tools to help recover sharpness.

Bokeh on Point

Despite my gripe, I did eventually capture that Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, a bird notoriously difficult to photograph because it never sits still. Here, the lens struggled to capture its face in full focus. However, you can see its eyes and details in the feathers. From its tail and beyond, there’s a satisfying bokeh that puts this buddy front and center.

Knowing how difficult it is to photography small moving subjects (like kids), it’s impressive how much detail the lens captured in this fleeting moment.

That Crop

Bird photography typically requires some amount of cropping no matter what lens you use. In the picture above, you can barely see the head of the Yellow-throated Warbler hiding in the branches. In fact, it could easily be mistaken for one of the leaves lit by the sun. When cropped-in, you clearly see its eyes and famed yellow-throat.

I have to hand some of this magic to the Panasonic S1R. It’s a high resolution (47.3MP) camera with an additional 187MP setting. When cropping, you’re reducing the resolution, which you want to keep high if you plan to print your photos. Cropping also risks degrading the quality of the photo. Starting with a high resolution gives you more room to crop and keep the resolution high enough to print down the road.

A downside to high resolution photos, especially if shooting in RAW, is having to edit RAW files that are 66MBs or more per image. The bigger the file, the more space it takes up and time it takes to edit.

Flaring & Ghosting

The SIGMA 100-400mm Contemporary lens features SIGMA’s Super Multi-Layer Coating to reduce flare and ghosting. For me, this coating worked really well because I didn’t experience either while shooting under the bright Miami sun. Regardless of the lighting and weather, it held up very well.

Using Teleconverters for Bird Photography

Teleconverters are an inexpensive way to extend the reach of a lens instead of buying a new one. Unfortunately, using them comes at the cost of added noise(grain) and darker photos because they increase how long it takes light to reach the camera’s sensor. With the SIGMA 100-400mm Contemporary and SIGMA’s TC-2011 (2x) teleconverter, the tradeoff was most noticeable when photographing birds in deep shadows on a bright day, like the original image of this redheaded woodpecker.

The 2x teleconverter doubles the reach of this lens to an impressive 800mm without adding a lot of weight or mass. Because of noise removal software, the edited version gives a much clearer picture of what was captured despite how dark the original looks. The bokeh is smooth and the woodpecker is clear and detailed. I also love how well the swirl in the contrasting feathers of its wing is captured.

The final product is free of noise, but getting there is an extra step that needs a decent amount of graphics power to process quickly.

Great Everyday Lens for Bird Photography

SIGMA’s 100-400mm F5-6.3 DG DN OS Contemporary lens hits the sweet spot for bird photography. It’s light, has an impressive reach, and great image quality. Though the autofocus could be faster when refocusing at greater distances, you’ll smile with pride at most photos taken with this lens. For the best shot at seeing the eyes of birds from your balcony, invest in the TC-2011 2x teleconverter ($399). While it brings the total cost of this lens from $899 to nearly $1300, it’s cheaper, lighter and has a longer reach than its big brother: SIGMA’s 150-600mm 5-6.3 DG DN OS Sports lens. Sigma also has a 1.4x teleconverter that’s $50 cheaper, but the 2x is worth the extra bucks to get that much closer to a bird’s eye.

What’s your favorite lens for bird photography? Leave a comment sharing why you love it!

The post Bird Photography with the SIGMA 100-400mm F5-6.3 DG DN OS Contemporary Lens appeared first on SheGeeks.

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After finishing your first coding course, you’re now stuck in an endless playlist of YouTube tutorials trying to apply your newfound skills. Welcome to tutorial hell! Build your frontend development skills and breakout of tutorial hell with high quality website design mockups by Frontend Mentor.

Frontend Mentor offers professional design mockup for you to code using your Frontend development skills. A Pro subscription unlocks more advanced designs and an experience closer to a professional frontend developer workflow. With or without the subscription, you can gain real web development experience, try new frameworks, and build a professional portfolio with each challenge. As a result, I often come back to Frontend Mentor to continue building my skills and confidence as a freelance web developer.

Frontend Mentor can be broken down into two parts: challenges (design mockups) and solutions (the community).

Frontend Mentor Challenges

There are over two dozen free challenges to tackle ranging in difficulty from newbie to guru. Most templates are designed with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in mind. However, if you want to use other frameworks and languages, there’s nothing stopping you. For example, you can code a design using HTML and CSS, then try it again using a framework like SASS.

Once you choose a challenge, you can download its starter files that include:

• image files for desktop and mobile views
• an HTML file with the challenge text and a boilerplate HTML header
• a barebones “style guide” of font styles and colors
• README templates for your Github repo
• Pro subscription only: access to Figma and Sketch files

Without the Figma or Sketch design files you’ll have to eye-ball designs. While this does take longer, it’s a good skill to build.

Frontend Mentor Solutions

When you’ve finished a challenge, you can submit a link to your solution and repository of your code. Consequently, both are essential to getting community feedback. First, the solution’s link is used to showcase a screenshot of your work next to the challenge design for comparison. Additionally, the repository link lets others view your code to give feedback.

The solutions section is also a great place for feedback on your code. In my experience, the more specific your ask for feedback, the better. Feedback I’ve received has been both thoughtful and helpful. Frontend Mentor also has a dedicated and lively Slack channel if you need help on a challenge.

Home & Dashboard

Frontend Mentor is going through a redesign as I write this review. Two newly added sections are Home and Dashboard. Home is a newsfeed of other’s submissions to challenges you’ve also completed. It’s an encouraging starting point for giving feedback to others based on your own experience with a challenge. Let any experienced developer tell it, this is also a great way to build your skills.

The Dashboard is an overview of your Frontend Mentor account. Here you can see your credits, challenges (in progress and completed), followers and following, and bookmarked solutions by others. The only thing missing is an area for solutions you liked, but didn’t bookmark.

Get Out Of Tutorial Hell

If you’re serious about getting out of the proverbial tutorial hell, Frontend Mentor should be your first stop. It’s a great resource to turn theory into practice and even land you a new client. Mine have. Additionally, even experienced developers can benefit from using Frontend Mentor’s advanced designs as portfolio pieces.

Happy coding!

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The Pixel Buds A-Series is the follow-up to the now discounted and original Pixel Buds. The price might be cheaper, but so is the experience of what was previously a decent alternative to Apple’s AirPods. Here’s a look into the Pixel Buds experience and how the Pixel Buds A-Series holds up.

PIXEL BUDS DESIGN

Pixel buds remind me of plug earrings when I get a glimpse of them in my own ears. They’re circles the size of a dime with a small ear hook to help keep them in place, a touch my little ears appreciate. The center of each bud has a small ‘G’. The look is minimal and unobtrusive: a very Google aesthetic.

The case for the Pixels buds feels surprising great in your hand. It’s a sleek oval shape that has a satisfying snappiness to opening and closing the lids. It’s almost hard to resist fidgeting with it. Both cases are also extremely light, though the Pixel Buds case had a teaspoon more weight due to the built-in wireless charging, a feature that’s not included in the A-Series case.

Inside each the case, the buds sit in individual slots. The charging indicator for the buds is just inside the wireless case, while the case’s charging indicator sits at the front bottom. On the back of the case is a small button to start Bluetooth pairing mode. On the bottom of the case is a USB Type-C charging port. FYI, only a charging cable cord is included in the box, but at least it’s USB-C to USB-A. Both Pixel Buds are sweat and water resistant including the wireless charging case.

PIXEL BUDS FEATURES

The original Pixel Buds have a few features you won’t find on the A-Series such as wind reduction, swipe gestures for volume control and attention alerts to lower the volume if the buds hear a baby crying, a dog bark, or emergency sirens go off.

Both Pixel Buds share many of the same features such as touch controls for controlling your music, built-in noise reduction for calls, a bass boosting EQ profile, Google assistant, and adaptive sound to optimize the earbuds based on background noise levels.

Two helpful features of both buds are in-ear detection and the ability to “ring” a lost or misplaced earbud. In-ear detection will pause and resume your music when removing your Pixel Buds from your ears. If you misplace a bud, you can ring it to find it. The volume on the missing earbud gets progressively louder the longer you take to find it. You can also use the built-in find my device feature to locate them via your Google account.

Lastly, you can also share an earbud with a friend and listen to tunes together. Enabling sharing detection lets them adjust their bud’s volume to their needs, while listening to the same song.

PIXELATED PERFORMANCE

Audio & Call Quality

When I first used both Pixel Buds, I initially thought they were noise cancelling earbuds, but they’re not. They’re just happen to be that good at cutting down background noise, though not enough to block out a loud AC unit. Even on a light jog they stay in my ears, but I find the ear hooks uncomfortable after a few hours. The sound great for their size. Even without the built-in EQ profile, the bass levels are impressive. Call quality is great, but these are not the ear buds to walk around with while taking a call. Keep reading to find out why.

Bluetooth Connectivity

Unfortunately, the compliments end end here because these buds have constant Bluetooth connection issues with my Pixel phone. Cutouts are common, whether listening to music or taking calls. The experience and frequency of cutouts and completed connection drops is even worse with the A-Series. It’s not uncommon for an earbud to lose connection during a call and take nearly 30 seconds to reconnect. The range is also terrible. They don’t stay connected when walking just 10ft between my office and kitchen.

Touch Controls

Touch controls on the Pixel Buds are very responsive. Some may even call them sensitive. Simply brushing them can register as a tap or gesture. At the same time, I sparingly experience a lack of registering intentional taps or gestures, which typically requires me to reconnect the buds to my phone. I didn’t find myself missing the volume gestures on the A-series, but for such a standard gesture it seems petty for Google to remove it.

BATTERY LIFE

Both Pixel Buds last me a little over 5 hours, split between working to music and taking calls. That’s pretty short battery life, which really shows the difference that having the wireless case makes. With it, the battery life feels a lot longer compared to the new A-Series. That’s just the added benefit of being able to constantly charge these earbuds when needed with a wireless case. Fortunately, like most Google devices, it doesn’t take long to fully charge the buds and be on your way.

VERDICT: PASS ON THE A-SERIES

I hope Google has a replacement in mind for the original Pixel Buds because the A-Series is definitely not that. With such consistent connectivity issues, it’s hard to recommend either pair, but I don’t recommend buying the A-Series, even for $99. Find a pair of original Pixel Buds for cheaper or wait and see if Google releases something better soon.

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For those that work from home or just love to block out the world with a great playlist, consider Sony’s fourth generation, award-winning and industry leading noise cancelling headphones: the WH-1000XM4 (XM4). On the outside, the XM4’s look like its predecessor (WH-1000XM3), but keeps its crown as king of noise cancelling and brings updates with it.

Design

The Sony WH-1000XM4’s have a clean and minimal profile with bulky ear-cups. Mine have a matte black finish that makes the plastic build look like a smooth clay molding. The headphone band is wrapped in a small strip of firm pleather. The ear pads have the same pleather with a more plush feel. On the outside, these headphones look underwhelming and simple. However, there’s powerful technology tucked away within the swiveling ear-cups.

Two microphones on the top of each ear-cup capture background noise and an integrated noise cancelling processor (QN1) applies noise cancellation in real time. The processor works with a Bluetooth Audio SOC to adjust music and noise signals over 700 times per second. According to Sony, this processor has approximately four times greater signal processing performance than before.

The left ear-cup is home to a power button, customizable button, and 3.5mm headphone jack. The right ear cup is the only ear-cup with a touch sensitive panel (which can be turned off) and has a USB-C charging port on the bottom. The panel could use a few small changes. To start, Sony could reduce the number of swipes it takes to adjust the volume. So many swipes are required that I often accidentally switch tracks when trying to lower the volume. Once in a while, the sensors won’t register any touches. For headphones this expensive, I wouldn’t expect to experience these issues.

The XM4’s feel pretty light on your head, despite all the bulk. Sony also includes a simple, but sturdy carrying case to protect the XM4s on the go.

Noise Canceling Features

The XM4s features take advantage of a built-in proximity sensor and two acceleration sensors to tailor its noise canceling power to your needs in real-time. For example, when you take off the XM4s while listening to something they automatically pause what you’re listening to. Here are four more features that show off the XM4s power. FYI, they require the Sony Headphones app to enable or customize.

Ambient Sound

Placing your hand over the right ear-cup activates ambient sound to adjust the level of noise cancellation. On the highest setting, you can hear voices closer to what you’d hear without the headphones. On the lowest setting, voices sound muffled and suppressed.

To be clear, this isn’t a volume adjustment. Background noise will either sound clear or muffled, which is a great introduction to the power of the noise cancellation on these headphones.

Noise Canceling & Atmospheric Pressure Optimizing

The personal noise cancelling optimizer tailors the noise cancellation to your ears and face profile. Using the Sony headphone’s app, it analyzes your face shape, hair and glasses (if you wear them) to optimize performance. While a neat feature, if you change your hair style a lot you’ll need to rerun the optimizer every time, which can get irritating.

If you fly a lot, the atmospheric pressure optimizer is a treat. Using the built-in sensors, it adapts how noise cancelling is applied at high altitudes to help block out the sound of a plane’s engines. Unfortunately, I am not flying at this time, so I can’t test this feature.

Speak-to-Chat

Speak-to-chat is one way to automatically pause the headphones when you want to talk to someone. There’s a 1-2 second delay between when you speak and the music pauses. You can set this feature to continuing playing your music after 15, 30 and 60 seconds or disable automatic playback. Impressively, speak-to-chat won’t turn on unless it hears your voice. However, check the timeout settings to ensure it doesn’t resume playing music in the middle of a long-winded sentence by someone else.

360 Reality Audio

360 reality audio isn’t a noise cancelling feature. It’s closer to a sound profile the headphones offer through Tidal‘s HiFi plan at $19.99 a month. The goal is to make you feel like you’re listening to music in a professional studio. There’s better clarity in the mids and highs and the artist’s voice sounds layered rather than flat. Unfortunately, this isn’t how all 360 reality audio songs. Some songs, like Giveon’s Last Time featuring Snoh Aalegra, sounds the same whether you’re listening to it in 360 reality audio or master quality.

Two smaller, but useful features of note are support for connecting two devices via Bluetooth and support for a range of Bluetooth codecs, including LDAC, for high quality audio.

Performance

As soon as you put the XM4s over your ears the world disappears. And that’s before you turn them on. Noise cancellation is powerful on the XM4s, almost to a fault. It’s a little scary wearing these in public or even alone in your house. For your safety, I don’t recommend using these headphones much in public or in the rain; noise cancellation is that good, but these headphones aren’t water resistant.

Background noises like movement, the wind, or busy streets are muted at just 50% volume. You can still hear voices, but it’s hard to make out what anyone is saying over your music. At full volume you won’t hear God. One time, my brother had to bang on my front door to get my attention while listening to music at 70% volume. The hype around how well the XM4’s cancels noise is well earned!

Audio quality is impressive, though audiophiles will find some flaws. The lows are heavy and full, but it’s also easy for highs and mids to get lost, muting background adlibs. I often found myself wishing for more clarity in the highs.

Bluetooth connectivity is impressive on the XM4s. At my local grocery store, my brother walked 50-60ft away with the XM4’s and they didn’t skip a beat. We were so impressed, we tried it again at a local coffee store. I went inside with my phone, while my brother stayed in the truck with the XM4s. Again, it kept a flawless connection.

I’ve only had two issues with Bluetooth. Sometimes my music will play on my phone despite reconnecting to the XM4s. Second, they will cut off if you try using them too close to the timeout period.

Battery Life

Sony claims the XM4’s can last for 31 hours. If this sounds suspect, I can assure you it’s true. The XM4s really can last this long without disabling the features that make them so great. It often takes 3-4 hours of playback before I notice the battery drop even 1%. After 5 hours, the battery power is around 80%. Using the app equalizer and DSEE Extreme features quickly drains the battery. I experienced a 10% drop within an hour of use and the Sony app warns you that these features consume a lot of battery power.

It took me a full week to kill the battery, averaging 5 hours of use a day. That’s longer than any headphones — or any technology — I’ve ever used!

Quality Noise Canceling

There’s no denying the Sony XM4’s powerful noise cancellation. Aside from the glitches in the gesture panel, the features of the XM4 makes it easy to adjust the power of the headphones to your environment at any time. They also sound great and fit comfortably on your head for hours. The most important question is: are they worth $350? No, but they are worth a pretty penny. Waiting for a sale to grab them for less than $300 is a much better deal.

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Having good backup harddrive is important if you care about your data. While there are plenty of traditional harddrive options, solid-state drives (SSD) have been growing in popularity thanks to their fast performance and durability. The OWC Envoy Pro Elektron is a great starter and travel SSD to consider. It’s fast, tough and tiny enough to fit in your hand or pocket.

Solid State Drives (SSD) in Plain English

A traditional hard drive (HDD) has a spinning disk and moving parts to read and write data, like a CD players. A solid-state drive (SSD) is more like an MP3 player; they don’t having any moving parts. Instead, they are made with integrated circuits and flash memory that can read and write data electrically. Flash memory is also shock resistant, giving SSDs an advantage in protection and durability. Overall, an SSD is quieter, quicker, and more shock resistant than traditional HDD. In this case, they can also be smaller thanks to needing less parts.

Design

The Envoy Pro Elektron is tiny enough to fit comfortably and discreetly in your pocket. It’s barely bigger than the case for a pair of Pixel Buds, just shy of the width of a credit card and weighs less than half a pound (85g to be exact). If you’re tight on space, this SSD can help you reclaim some of it back.

It’s not only compact, but minimal. There is a power light on the front and one USB Type-C port on the back, wrapped in a metal casing to stay cool. It’s crush proof, dustproof and waterproof (IP67 rated) according to OWC – none of which I attempted to test. Aside from the logo on top, the Pro Elektron keeps things simple.

In order to work with devices without a USB-Type C port, a USB 2.0/3.0 adapter is attached to the included cord.Those with Android devices can conveniently use the cord as a charger too.

Performance

On paper, the Envoy Pro Elektron sounds fast, capable of delivering speeds of up to 1011MB/s. However, data from leading SSD testing software puts the SSD at the speeds closer to an entry level SSD and just shy of their claims. Next to my laptop’s internal Sasmung SSD, it doesn’t stand a chance.

Numbers don’t lie, but these numbers also don’t tell the full story. During my creator’s tests, the Pro Elektron felt very responsive and just as quick as my laptop’s internal SSD. I didn’t experience any hiccups or lags while transferring or editing files directly from the drive. Let’s dig into how well it performed during tasks a content creator might use it for.

Creator’s Test

Transferring Media

Transferring 1GB of 4K videos and RAW image files each was quick. Separately, the RAW image transfer took under 15 seconds. Things did take longer when transferring only video files, the timing was less than 30 seconds.

Editing Photos

Editing RAW image files in Adobe Lightroom using the drive was a breeze. From import to export, the editing process was smooth, responsive and snappy.

Editing Videos

Editing videos directly from the SSD in Adobe Premier Pro was just as smooth as the other tasks. Using a 4K video from DJI Pocket 2, the import process was quick and adding a few text and transition animations didn’t cause any lag. After an hour of editing, the Pro Elektron was still keeping up the demands of Premier Pro.

A Great Travel SSD

If you’re looking for a powerful and portable solid-state drive, the OWC Envoy Pro Elektron fits the bill. Designed with durability in mind, it’s tiny enough to grab and go at a moment’s notice and nicely handles most tasks typical of content creators. It also works with Mac & PC, but requires their proprietary software to use with both platforms at the same time. Lastly, it comes with a 3-year limited warranty. Though not a dealbreaker, this SSD doesn’t come with any apps to manage backups or the drive.

At $149, the 480GB storage model is a better buy than the base 240GB model ($114.99) and cheaper than the 1TB model ($229). While there are cheaper solid-state drives on the market, the Envoy Pro Elektron is worth every penny thanks to its tough and compact design with fast performance.

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Surface Pro 7 Design

If I had to sum up the Surface Pro 7’s design in one word, it would be: low-key.

On the outside, there isn’t much to see beyond its magnesium unibody and Microsoft logo. Inconspicuous cooling vents line the edges and the lower half of the back doubles as a kickstand. There’s also a front and back camera, dual mics, and 1.6w stereo speakers with Dolby Audio for calls and meetings.

While bezels are getting thinner on today’s gadgets, the Surface Pro 7 is stuck in the past. It makes me cringe see its beautiful, bright and vibrant 12.3-inch 4K touchscreen wrapped in a thick black bezel. It truly deserved better. Instead, bezels steal the show (or at least share the spotlight).

The Surface Pro 7 is a little skimpy on ports. There are USB Type-A and Type-C ports, a headphone jack, Surface Connect port, Surface type cover connectors and microSD card slot tucked behind the kickstand. Though it would’ve been nice to have 1-2 more USB ports, accessories like the HP Thunderbolt G2 dock or Microsoft’s Surface Connect fill in the gaps.

Type Cover & Surface Pen

The detachable Surface Type Cover transforms the Surface Pro 7 from a tablet into a laptop. It costs $100, though it really should be included with the Surface Pro 7. In short, having one makes the Surface Pro much easier to use.

The keys are slightly stiff and obnoxiously loud when pressed. The mousepad feels smooth, but its buttons are louder than the keyboard when pressed. The textured material surrounding the mousepad is comfortable to wrest your wrists on. Overall, the TypeCover is nice to use, if a little noisy.

On rare occasions the mouse on the TypeCover stopped registering on the screen, though the keyboard continued to work. Turning the screen on and off again or fiddling with the mousepad for a few seconds usually fixed this.

The Surface Pen is self-explanatory and very impressively precise. I’ll take any excuse to use the Surface Pen, but I mostly use it to sign documents. Unfortunately, it’s just as expensive the TypeCover. If you don’t write, draw, or sign tons of documents, it’s safe to pass on the Pen.

Performance

The Surface Pro 7 runs Windows 10 Home and has built-in face recognition for unlocking the device. For this review, my unit has an Intel Core i7 processor, Intel Iris Plus Graphics card, 16GB of RAM and a 256GB hard-drive.

With this configuration, the Surface Pro 7 is responsive and snappy. Powering on and off only takes a few seconds. I rarely noticed any slow downs after leaving 20+ tabs open running, including YouTube videos and live Zoom meetings along with a 3-4 more apps running in the background. The graphics card is an entry level chip that’s great for light photo and video editing. However, it can strain under the demands of more graphic intensive programs.

Creator’s Test

As a content creator, the software and tools that I use can be taxing and demanding on the devices I use. I did a few of the tasks typical of content creators to see how well the Surface Pro 7 could handle them. Here’s how it performed:

All of this activity quickly generates a lot of heat. The fans constantly run and the upper back gets uncomfortably hot to touch when the screen brightness is set to 100%. No matter how hard they blow, these fans are not enough to keep the Surface Pro 7 cool when the screen brightness is cranked up.

Surface Pro 7 Battery Life

The Surface Pro 7’s battery lasted just shy of 7 hours with a 1080p video on loop at max brightness and 50% volume. Moreover, it took around 3 hours and 15 minutes to hit 50% battery life. These numbers are impressive, though not the 10.5 hours of battery life quoted by Microsoft.

The battery takes around an hour and a half to fully charge, which is as long as some smartphones. A fast charging option gets the battery to 80% in 30 minutes, but you’ll need the right charger for this. Without it, results are closer to 20% battery life in the same time.

Should You Buy The Surface Pro 7?

The Surface Pro 7 is a great choice for those looking for a portable and powerful computer reasonably priced at $749. It’s also the best alternative to the iPad if you’re looking to break out of Apple’s ecosystem.

The compact form factor and accessory ecosystem make the Surface pro 7 convenient to travel with. It also comes with the full Windows 10 experience and a beautiful 4K screen. However, keep in mind the accessories quickly drive the price tag up to nearly $1000. For instance, the Type Cover and Surface Pen each cost $100.

Occasionally, you can find a deal bundling the Surface Pro 7 with one or both of these accessories. However, if you have to choose, take the TypeCover and leave the pen. It feels limiting to use Surface Pro 7 without a keyboard and mouse.

*Image Credits: Microsoft.com

Thank you to Microsoft for generously gifting the Surface Pro 7 used in this review. All opinions are my own and do not include any influence from Microsoft.

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