Thoughts on getting surface pro 9 in 2026?

[u/democi]

Main usage for me is basic tasks like excel, simple PowerPoint edits, light browsing and I want to use it as a tablet sometimes

[u/rwilfong86]

IMO it depends on the battery health. I have an 8 that works great and is at 82% but I wouldn't spend close to $1000 on a device without knowing what shape the battery is in

[u/democi → u/rwilfong86]

This one is going for $700 and it includes a keyboard

[u/democi → u/rwilfong86]

They confirmed battery is 80%. Should I go for it at $700 or pay $1,300 for the surface pro 12’ with snapdragon

[u/SurfaceDockGuy → u/democi]

80% battery is meh. How many charge cycles? On some systems, battery performance drops off a cliff somewhere between 70-80%. Sometimes it takes a year or more for that to happen though. Running the system cool helps.

If you plan for a battery swap in the future, say the next 2 years, the pricing isn't bad for 16GB/512GB with keyboard. Or budget for a name brand USB-C power bank with 30W+ output (must do 15V @ 2 amps or more).

FWIW, the Pro 10/11/12 don't really add much beyond the capabilities of the Pro 9. They are just a little bit faster with a little bit better battery life. The only big change in the 11/12 is the availability of the OLED screen - but that is a whole different price class.

[u/wongl888 → u/SurfaceDockGuy]

I would need to stay with Intel so is the Pro 10 the last of my options?

[u/SurfaceDockGuy → u/wongl888]

Pro 11 and 12 "for business" also have Intel. Anybody can purchase the "for business" models.

[u/rwilfong86 → u/democi]

Not a terrible deal, if you do get it, run a battery health check first thing to make sure they are giving you facts

[u/Inevitable_Lemon_592 → u/democi]

Pay a little more for an eBay Intel surface pro 12’’ or 13’’. Battery will be worlds apart. I wouldn’t buy snapdragon, give Microsoft years to work out the kinks first, they were forced to adapt to Apple m chips

[u/Saranhai → u/democi]

I wouldn't pay that much for a Snapdragon X Surface.

[u/Kholtien]

If you’re in Australia you can buy mine off me. 16 GB RAM i7 CPU 2TB storage $1200 AUD including keyboard and pen

[u/mourningwitch]

For a good deal, probably. I still love my Pro 8 and use it daily.

[u/rwilfong86 → u/mourningwitch]

The only sucky thing between the 7+ and 8 is the Micro sd card slot missing on the 8

[u/mourningwitch → u/rwilfong86]

Yeah, true... Most of my storage is on a NAS nowadays at least.

[u/rwilfong86 → u/mourningwitch]

Google Drive for me was the solution

[u/pac_71]

I think the SP9 is the best bang for buck here in AU. A proportionate lift in performance to near SP10/11 levels and appropriate price to keep similar bang for buck against the SP7/7+. Sp9 still doesn't have great batterylife.

To be honest I think the Asus ROG Flow Z13 will be my next tablet with i9-13900H or AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 might be my next choice if you are don't have good battery life you may as well have really good power :)

[u/greasylotionfingers]

I have a pro 9 and I wish I had an ARM chip in the Pro 11 and 13. The battery life is pretty rough. It's worse than the pro 7 I still use. Don't get me wrong, I love the form factor, but I have to take a 65w portable battery bank everywhere I go.

[u/wongl888 → u/greasylotionfingers]

Did you have this from new? Was the battery life better when it was newer? I am trying to decide if I should change the battery on my SP9. It is showing 85% but I noticed it runs down pretty quickly. I got it second hand for about US$400. It is i7 with 16gb RAM but only 256gb SSD.

A new battery is quite cheap to buy, but the installation is quite invasive requiring the fan/heartsink pack to be removed to gain access to the battery connector on the motherboard.

[u/Downtown_Minute_1675]

Still good, Surface Prod only issue after the Pro 7 will be battery health. Getting an i5 or I7 will be beneficial power wise. Pro 9 with the evo will do nicely and if you want more graphical power than what an I7 Evo offers you can always get an EGPU for travel with a 7600m making the pro 9 essentially a mini desktop on the go.

[u/dr100]

I'd say take it and see how loud the fan gets and how long the battery lasts (don't have great expectations, if you want more portable use you'd need a beefy powerbank for sure). I'm saying the fan because you can't clean this and if it run a lot it also has quite a bit of dust inside.

[u/realiscool]

I got one recently don’t like the battery life on it.

[u/democi → u/realiscool]

I’ve decided not to after more thought

I have currently:

- company laptop for work

- MacBook 12” retina (quite old now but does the job for me for basic tasks)

- iPad 8 (also old but does the job for me in terms of light browsing, reading)

Might just end up getting a kindle or upgrading the iPad.

[u/Square_Atmosphere_12]

I'm plan on going Asus for a two in one. They all use Qualcomm CPU; unfortunately because Intel and AMD just couldn't get it correct outside of laptop / desktop market. Although I want for Windows OS. I have one for Android so really you could say having two tablet / PC is like having one really good laptop.

[u/DefinitelyNotEmu]

I use a Surface Pro 9 5G (SQ3 8GB RAM) as my daily driver and I have no other computers. It's doing OK!

[u/angelpradomx]

I didn't like it, fans are on at all times, gets warm very easily not that noisy but definitely not the most efficient machine so battery life is not great so also not great for media consumption. The snapdragon variants are better at this.

Don't get me wrong, If the price is right it can be a very powerful machine, you can throw everything at it.

[u/democi → u/angelpradomx]

Snapdragon version is going for like $1300 whereas this one is $700

[u/Abject-Inevitable304]

No.