If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Easy to say. Sometimes hard to do - especially if you're a multi-national tech company under constant pressure to release new and exciting products on a regular basis.

By the same token, change isn't always bad but sometimes it's a challenge to get people on board.

Microsoft has never shied away from launching less conventional devices to a mass market in a "let's see how it goes" sort of approach.

So how are the this year's Surface devices faring so far?

The latest iteration of the Microsoft Surface Laptop is the thinnest and lightest yet. That doesn't mean this is the skinniest 13-inch laptop on the market but for those Surface fans who are looking to upgrade this year, the new slimmed-down model may attract customers who've previously gone with the tablet version of the Surface to save a little weight and space.

Starting from NZ$1,999.00, in many ways the Surface Laptop represents better value than its sister product, the 12-inch Surface Pro - because by the time you add a keyboard and a power adapter (that's right, for the tablet, the adapter is now an optional extra) even the base model adds up to hundreds more.

Available in Violet, Ocean or Platinum, the 13-inch Surface Laptop not only looks great, it has some other very useful features, starting with a decent selection of ports.

All too often these days we consumers are left out in the cold when it comes to adding peripherals or even just charging. Thankfully, this year's Surface Laptop has foregone the weird, proprietary magnetic chargers of the past and now charges via USB-C, like any other device. There's a 45W wall-charger included in the box and you'll get excellent battery life.

You won't get the 23 hours of local video playback Microsoft claims on its website, because nobody is turning off Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and every other background process in order to do that. But you should make it through a typical work day with no issues.

Not if you're a gamer though - but we'll get to that.

Back to those ports though; not one but two USB-C 3.2 slots, capable of fast data transfer via Thunderbolt 4 accessories and also DisplayPort 1.4a-enabled which means you can run two external 4K monitors at up to 60Hz.

On the other side, a headphone jack and amazingly, a full-sized USB-A port because although some manufacturers refuse to admit it, we all still own plenty of things that plug in via USB-A.

The keyboard is nicely spaced out and the keys have a nice, clicky travel to them that you don't always get with a laptop. There's a Windows Hello fingerprint sensor under the power key for secure login. This works well - the device remembers your fingerprint when you first turn it on so you don't have to scan again once it has booted to the login window. Oddly, the built-in Surface Studio Camera is not Windows Hello compatible so you can't log in via facial recognition.

I've never understood why Microsoft would produce a device with a camera that doesn't do Windows Hello. But then, Microsoft does a lot of things I don't understand.

Like this whole ARM / Snapdragon thing.

I realise there are more devices running on ARM architecture than any on other system. But the vast majority of those devices are phones and tablets. And yet, right from the very first Surface RT, Microsoft has dabbled with ARM. Over the years, the odd Surface has been ARM while others have been based on a more conventional Intel setup.

Now, again, Microsoft seems to be all in on ARM - this time running the Surface Laptop with the Snapdragon X Plus 8-core processor. It's fast. It's efficient. But it still doesn't play well with others. 

Last year I was prepared to cut Microsoft some slack. When you release new technology - especially new hardware - it can take third-party developers a while to catch up and provide compatible products. But as I said, this isn't the first time Microsoft has gone this route and yet popular tools like Adobe Audition still can't be downloaded onto this device.

That's the audio editor I use every day at Newstalk ZB, by the way. Who's to blame here? Microsoft or Adobe? Other Adobe apps work via emulation so who knows what's going on?

Then I tried to install some games, some via Ubisoft, some via Steam. Some worked, some didn't, some booted up but then couldn't find a suitable video driver so performance was pretty scratchy. I certainly couldn't recommend this device as a gaming machine - not least of all because as soon as you start running anything too graphically intensive it starts eating battery life like a Pac-Man eats dots.

Meanwhile, the 13-inch PixelSense display has its pros and cons - it's great having a 10-point multi-touch screen - I always find that pretty much eliminates the need for a mouse. I'm a fan of the 3:2 aspect ratio too. The taller shape always gives me the impression there's more space to arrange different windows on. 

However, the refresh rate maxes out at 60Hz and 400 nits of brightness is fine but certainly not dazzling. Like I say, this ain't no gaming rig but I found it perfectly adequate for streaming my shows.

Where the Surface Laptop excels is with its video capabilities. The mic/camera/speaker combo is excellent and there are some genuinely useful settings for your next online meeting, like the new Portrait Blur option, which washes a gentle, soft-focus filter over whatever's in your background. You can see me demonstrate this in the video below.

This is also a Copilot+ PC. That means a dedicated Copilot button on the keyboard which gives you instant access to the latest incarnation of Microsoft's built-in AI. Copilot's integration into products like Office 365 and Edge makes it very useful when it comes to summarising web-pages and messages or organising data. It's actually a great way to learn how to use the Surface Laptop itself. Can't remember the keyboard shortcut for screen recording? Ask Copilot.

Another exciting Windows 11 feature has been a long time coming but it's finally here; Recall, the ultimate undo. This utility constantly saves full-system snapshots over time and when you open it, you get a timeline and preview of all your previous work on the device. This is more than just the ability to restore back to your last update - you can literally revisit forgotten webpages or go back to the first draft of your big presentation.

Tools like this and other native apps like Clipchamp (which I used to edit the video below) work seamlessly, which makes the frustration of dealing with third-party compatibility issues all the more acute.

As a business tool, the 13-inch Laptop Surface is a powerhouse. The integrated AI tools, excellent battery life and sublime video-call performance are all more typical of a much more expensive machine.

If only all the software developers were as onboard with ARM as Microsoft certainly seems to be.

Click here for more information and pricing on the Microsoft Surface Laptop (13-inch).