Excitedly, I accepted Microsoft’s offer to test out a brand new Surface laptop, 7th edition, the latest in the company’s hardware range, which was only released to the public in June. Not only is it a new model laptop, but it ushered in a new genre of PC – the Copilot+ PC, a standard that Microsoft has set which requires, among other things, the device includes a neural processing unit capable of a minimum of 40 trillion operations per second, a minimum of 16GB of RAM, and a minimum of 256GB storage.
These numbers – especially the NPU – are all about holding, and running, more than 40 built-in AI models. These models are implemented in silicon and are on the device; you can perform a range of AI tasks online or offline, and at no charge save for the PC itself. Unlike ChatGPT or other popular online AI tools, you don’t need to purchase and consume credits because you’re not using cloud resources.
There is a lot of promise. When the Surface Laptop 7 was first announced I thought this could be my dream machine that would become my daily driver for all my work and creativity. But, in reality, you’re going to find a rocky start.
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Firstly, the Surface Laptop 7th edition is a beautiful piece of hardware. and runs with a snappy ARM-based Snapdragon X 12-core X1E80100 CPU @ 3.40GHz. It has a 10-point touch screen and has been designed to be the most easily-repairable Surface device ever. The back cover can be easily removed with a little bit of work. First, pull off the sticky feet that cover the screws, unscrew them, and slide the back off. Inside the laptop, you’ll find helpful notes telling you the quantity and type of screws for each part. The battery and SSD are easily removed and replaced. Unfortunately, the RAM is not replaceable. Also, note that you’ll void the warranty if you pull the back off yourself. It’s designed to be easily repaired by an authorised technician, but not so much for user-servicing or upgrading.
As a laptop in general, and specifically, as a Windows laptop, it’s a delightful, responsive unit, especially with ARM-native applications. Intel-based apps will still run, via Prism, which is more than twice as performant than Rosetta 2 was on previous ARM devices.
It has 22 hours of battery life, HDR, 120Hz refresh rate, Dolby Vision IQ, can drive 3x 4K displays, and includes 2x USB-4 ports, a USB-A port, a headphone jack, and a Micro SDXC slot. It is made from 100% recycled aluminium and 100% recycled rare earth minerals. It features Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, and can have up to 64GB RAM and up to 1TB of SSD storage. It includes a Full HD Surface Studio camera, with studio microphones with voice focus. Omnisonic speakers support Dolby Atmos and AI-enhanced sound. Pricing begins at $1899 here in Australia for the base 16GB/256GB model. You definitely get a solid, stylish, delightful, and long-lasting laptop for your money that makes Windows 11 really fly.
However, it’s no mere PC. This is, after all, the standard-bearer for Copilot+ PCs. And here is where the disappointment set in.
Microsoft speaks about the out-of-the-box things the Copilot+ PC can do. For instance, it can translate voice on the fly from whatever app you use. It can generate text. It can generate imagery. And, it can co-create art with you in Microsoft Paint.
Yes, Microsoft Paint has an artificial intelligence uplift. In theory, anyway. The idea is you give it a text prompt, then start drawing, and while you draw, the Cocreator AI will make a similar image following your style and your prompt. For example, you might say you want to draw a sea turtle with coral around it. Then you begin making a greenish-blob in the middle of the window, and yellow and red blobs on the sides. Watch in amazement as the Cocreator produces a green turtle with red and yellow coral – understanding your prompt and interpreting your image and combining it all to make artwork for you, with you.
Well, that’s the promise.
So! What happened when I fired up Paint? Nothing. It was just Paint.
I tried drawing. No Cocreator showed. I tried looking for toolbars or menus or buttons or anything that gave a skerrick of a hint of being AI-infused. Nothing.
I pushed the Copilot button on the keyboard. No obvious tools or shortcuts there. So, I asked Copilot. It said, open Paint, click the Cocreator icon.
What Cocreator icon?
Then Copilot tried gaslighting me by saying it made a mistake; Cocreator isn’t available in Paint in Windows 11 at all.
I tried, and tried.
But then … a possible lead ! I need Paint version 11.2309.20.0 or higher!
Sure enough, the version of Paint on the device is less than this; it is Paint 11.2302.20.0.
Of course, let me note Windows checked for updates during installation. And, why would the Copilot+ PC – the first of its kind, the flagship Surface Laptop 7 – ship with a lower version of Paint that required to use its features?
In fact, the Store did have version 11.2404.1020.0, and sure enough, now the Cocreator icon appears (but perversely, the ‘About’ menu item which told me the version number has now gone.)
While I’m at it, the Store also has a nice new “AI Hub” section, listing AI-infused apps you can download, like Adobe Lightroom, Snapchat, a tool called ‘Be my eyes’ which aids the visually impaired/people with low vision, along with many more. However, it didn’t distinguish those that were AI-apps using cloud services, or those that made use of the Copilot+ AI PC specifically. For example, Microsoft is clear one of the on-chip models is an LLM that can be used for text generation. But clicking several chat generating apps in the AI Hub in the Store revealed they were all using ChatGPT or other services – and which, in turn, means they don’t run on-the-device, they can’t be used when offline, and they have limited free-use, or require payment to unlock full capabilities.
Unlike Paint, with its Cocreator capabilities, there is no built-in Windows tool to take advantage of text generation – except while editing text, iTWire did find you can highlight text to bring up a “reword with Copilot AI” option.
As an example, here’s a sentence:
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy sleeping dog.
Rewriting with Copilot AI gives us:
The swift brown fox leaped over the slumbering dog.
Maybe more interestingly, here’s a revision of the opening paragraph of this story:
I was eager to test Microsoft’s new Copilot+ AI PC, anticipating the excellence and fluidity of its AI capabilities. However, my initial experience straight out of the box was underwhelming. Despite this, with some perseverance, including navigating challenges with an untruthful AI, it is possible to make progress.
You can tune the response. Here’s the “funny” version:
I was excited to test out Microsoft’s latest Copilot+ AI PC, eager to witness the brilliance of its AI capabilities. However, my initial experience was underwhelming, to say the least. It seemed to have left its smarts at the factory! But, with some persistence and navigating through a few fibs from the AI, it’s possible to get things on track.
And here’s the short, professional version:
I anticipated experiencing the advanced AI capabilities of Microsoft’s new Copilot+ AI PC, expecting a seamless and intelligent system. However, my initial experience was underwhelming. Despite this, I believe that with persistence and addressing the challenges, including the AI’s inaccuracies, it is possible to navigate through the issues.
Hmm, short? Let’s try professional, long:
I anticipated experiencing the advanced capabilities of Microsoft’s new Copilot+ AI PC, expecting a seamless integration of AI intelligence. However, the initial encounter was underwhelming, as the system did not meet expectations straight out of the box. Despite these challenges, including navigating through misleading AI responses, perseverance can lead to a satisfactory resolution.
Ok, you get the idea. Annoyingly, if you tab to a different window to do something else while Copilot AI thinks about its response, the window goes away! You have to sit and wait for it to work – no multitasking allowed – or you won’t get a result.
Back to Paint. Now I have the Cocreator icon I was looking for, finally.
Let’s do something with it. Here’s a prompt and a picture – “A black knight on his horse, resting under a tree”. The left is my fine artwork, the right is Paint’s Cocreator output, modifying and adjusting as I drew.
It wasn’t without tweaking; my first attempt at the horse tail was misinterpreted by Cocreator as another horse head, facing the opposite direction, standing behind this one. And the tree is weirdly in a different place. But there’s no denying that’s cool. So much so that I feel like saying “ok, Copilot+ PC, all is forgiven now.”
Still, imagine if the magical experience of the Copilot+ PC was what you encountered when you first turned it on, without having to battle with the computer, and with its AI that flat-out told me Windows 11 Paint did not offer Cocreator. Only when I persisted did it say I should update Paint via the Microsoft Store. This soured the first experience, but here we are now, generating AI art based on my own design not much time later.
That said, it’s clearly not perfect, and seems to be relying more on the prompt than my own design:
What does Copilot have to say about this?
