Although the Surface Laptop 4 15 offers increased performance, it still disappoints

The new Surface Laptop 4 arrived, and for the first time both the 13.5 and 15-inch versions are available with AMD as well as Intel CPUs. We were able to run the new 15-inch model with the custom AMD processor through a detailed test and are rather disappointed overall. It is not a bad device at all, and thanks to the new AMD Ryzen processor (Ryzen 7 4890U) the performance has also increased hugely. The chip is based on the "regular" Ryzen 7 4800U, and there only appear to be some optimizations in the iGPU, since particularly the integrated video decoder runs more efficiently. However, as a customer one has to ask why one should pay a premium price for an "old" Ryzen 4000 processor, when there are already laptops with the Ryzen 5000. 

While the 3:2 display continues to be good, it should be calibrated if possible. However, nothing changed in terms of the brightness, which means that reflections on the touchscreen can quickly become a problem. Particularly outdoors, the usage of the laptop can be limited. There was also an upgrade to Wi-Fi 6, and the case continues to leave a good impression, even if there are practically no maintenance options at all.

There are also some other weak points, such as the bad webcam (but that is also not any better in devices from other manufacturers), the lack of an option for an LTE or 5G module, and also the Surface Connect port, which is simply impractical in our opinion and also takes up a lot of space that would better be used for 2x USB-C ports. In addition, there are some unnecessary and artificial limitations in terms of the configurations, since 32 GB RAM and the large 1-TB SSD are only available in combination with the Intel processor. Due to the relatively large display bezels, the device also just looks a bit outdated. Overall, we would have liked to see more innovation in all areas and the newest technology here. As already said, the Surface Laptop 4 15 is by no means a bad device, but the price-performance ratio is not really good and we have a hard time recommending it.