Microsoft’s latest Surface Pro is the standard carrier for the 2-in-1 Copilot+ PCs available. But as I noted in my review at the time, it suffers from a few issues—most notably the sky-high price of $1,950 as it was prepared for our tests. Regardless of what you think of the idea of ​​a removable keyboard, this device comes with a price that’s pretty hard to swallow.
Enter Asus with the same suspicious logic, or even cheaper. I wouldn’t exactly call it the Wish version of the Surface Pro, but for $1,100, the ProArt PZ13 might at least take the pain out of spending if you’re going down this road.
Photo: Christopher Null
To determine the price, Asus has made its fair share of sacrifices. Some features remain the same, including a 13-inch touchscreen, 16 GB of RAM, and a magnetically attached keyboard, which comes included with your purchase. Otherwise, ProArt comes across as a slightly different beast. It starts with a stripped-down CPU: The ProArt uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus X1P42100 instead of the more capable Elite that powered the first wave of Copilot+ PCs. The aspect ratio and resolution of the two screens are slightly different—2,880 x 1,920 pixels on the Surface versus 2,880 x 1,800 on the ProArt—and even though the ProArt’s screen is a bit brighter and brighter, I had no complaints with it on several occasions. days of use.
Surprisingly, there are quite a few improvements on tap from Asus over what’s coming to the Surface Pro. Instead of Microsoft’s 512-GB SSD, Asus packs in a 1-TB drive by default. It also upgrades two USB-C 4.0 ports—one of which is needed for charging on the ProArt, unlike the Surface Pro—with a full-size SD card. Oddly, the card slot and one of the USB-C ports are hidden under a hard plastic flap that’s hard to open and does little more than get in the way.
Photo: Christopher Null
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