Anyone can buy the Intel-powered 15-inch Surface Laptop 3 for Business

A new member was added to the Surface Laptop family at the October Surface event, the 15-inch Surface Laptop 3. This larger Surface Laptop 3 shares many design elements with its smaller sibling, but comes in a larger form factor that’s preferred by people who prioritize screen size over portability. One main difference between the 15-inch model and the 13-inch model is that the 15-inch model is powered by an AMD chip. This chip came with high expectations but disappointed in our review. Luckily, for people looking for another option, an Intel-powered 15-inch Surface Laptop 3 for Business exists, and you don’t have to work for a business to purchase it.

In our testing period with the AMD-powered 15-inch Surface Laptop 3, there was a persistent battery drain. Leaving the lid closed overnight led to a 20 percent drop in battery. Geekbench tests for the device also came out lower than last year’s Intel Core i5 13-inch Surface Laptop 2 and this year’s Intel Core i5 Surface Pro 7.

The AMD-powered Surface Laptop 3 also lacks some driver support and optimization that appears in Intel devices. Additionally, it lacks WiFi- 6 and DDR4 RAM.

Without having a 15-inch Surface Laptop 3 for Business to test, we can’t guarantee that performance would be better. But it’s likely that an Intel-powered Surface Laptop 3 would at least have similar performance to a Surface Pro 7, which beat the AMD version of the Surface Laptop 3 in multiple ways. It’s worth pointing out that there may be warranty differences between the Surface Laptop 3 for Business and the consumer-aimed Surface Laptop 3.

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