Microsoft Surface Pro 6 Microsoft Surface Pro 6 Tablet, 12-inch, Intel Review

A beautiful relic. You're buying the premium Surface feel and pen support, but you're stuck with a painfully slow processor from 2017. Only for the most patient and budget-conscious.

Look, the Surface Pro 6 is a weird one in 2025. It's a classic design that still feels premium, but it's running on fumes under the hood. The one thing you need to know is this: you're buying a beautiful, well-built Windows tablet shell that's hamstrung by ancient, slow internals. For under $300, that might be okay if you just need a basic web machine, but don't expect it to keep up with anything modern.

The performance data is brutal, and it matches the real-world feel. That Intel Core i5-8250U lands in the 9th percentile for CPU performance. Let's be clear: it's slow. Opening more than a few browser tabs will make it sweat. The integrated UHD 620 graphics are in the same bottom-tier percentile. It's fine for streaming video and light document editing, but that's about it. The 8GB of RAM is its saving grace, sitting in a more respectable 71st percentile, which helps it multitask a bit better than you'd expect from such an old chip.

At $268 for a renewed model, the value is a mixed bag. You get a premium-feeling device for a budget price, but you're paying for that feel, not the performance. If you need a capable computer, this isn't it. If you want a nice-looking Windows tablet for very, very light tasks and are okay with its limitations, the price is hard to argue with.

Don't even think about comparing this to a modern iPad Pro or Galaxy Tab S10+. They're in a different universe of speed. The more relevant fight is against other budget Windows tablets. A Lenovo Idea Tab Pro with a newer chip will run circles around this for a similar price, though it might not feel as premium. Even a used Surface Pro 7 or 8, if you can find one near this price, is a vastly better buy because of the USB-C port and 10th/11th gen Intel chips. This Pro 6 is for people who prioritize the Surface design and pen experience over everything else, including speed.

If you need a tablet that's actually fast, skip this. Go look at a renewed iPad Air or a modern budget Android tablet. If you need a capable Windows laptop replacement, also skip this. A used business laptop from the same era would be more powerful and cheaper.

We can only recommend the Surface Pro 6 if your needs are incredibly specific and modest. You must want the Surface Pen experience, you must be on a tight budget, and you must only plan to do light web browsing, note-taking, and media consumption. For anyone else—students needing to run research apps, artists using heavier software, or general users who hate waiting—this isn't the one. Spend a little more for a newer used model or look at a different brand entirely.