The Surface Pro 9 isn’t the only new portable Surface tablet that Microsoft is updating today. It also updated the 13.5-inch and 15-inch Surface laptops with several new colors and updated 12th Gen Core processors from Intel. But if you were hoping for an upgraded version of AMD’s Ryzen laptop, you’ll be disappointed – there’s no word on a Ryzen version today, and if Microsoft is planning one, there’s nothing to say about it just yet.
Both Surface laptops will be available for purchase on October 25th. A 13.5-inch laptop starts at $1,000, while a 15-inch version will cost you no less than $1,300.
The laptop design (including size, weight, ports, screen size, and resolution) is no different from the Surface Laptop 4. The 13.5-inch laptop weighs 2.8 pounds (or 2.86 pounds with all-metal finish) and comes with a 2256× screen 1504, while the 15-inch laptop weighs 3.44 pounds and uses a 2496×1664 touchscreen – both screens are compatible with the Surface Pen accessory, and both feature the Surface line’s proprietary 3:2 aspect ratio.
Port selection hasn’t changed much either, which some users might find limiting. The native Surface Connect port is still the default for charging, but laptops can also charge via a single USB-C port (both laptops have upgraded to Thunderbolt 4). Otherwise, you’ll only get one USB-A port and a headphone jack.
Both CPU options for newer Surface laptops (lower-end Core i5-1235U and slightly faster Core i7-1255U, available as an upgrade) combine two high performance P cores with eight low power E cores. which are actually quite good at handling workloads that can use all the cores of the system processor at the same time. The base versions of both laptops include 256 GB of (user-upgradable) memory and 8 GB of (non-upgradable) RAM. The 13.5-inch version has 512GB of storage and 16GB of RAM, a configuration that will cost $1,500 or $1,700 depending on which processor you buy. The 15-inch version can have up to 1TB of storage and 32GB of RAM for $2,400 (these options are only offered together and also require the purchase of an i7 processor).
Neither laptop had a dedicated graphics option, relying instead on integrated Intel Xe graphics. The Xe GPU is still good for what it is, especially in games that support AMD’s GPU-independent FSR 2.0 scaling, but a dedicated GPU option for a 15-inch laptop will help it compete against other 15- and 16-inch laptops. inch thin and light jobs; for now, Microsoft seems happy with letting the Surface Laptop Studio do the job.
We weren’t too impressed with the battery life of most of the 12th gen Intel laptops we tested, but most of them used the more powerful P-series processors, while both Surface laptops use the low-powered U-series processors. Processors that should behave better. Microsoft says the laptops should last 18 and 17 hours (for the 13.5-inch and 15-inch versions, respectively), compared to 17 and 16.5 hours for the Intel Surface Laptop 4 versions; we will need to do our own battery testing to see if these claims are true.
No matter how well the Intel chips perform, it’s too bad we won’t see a Ryzen version for a Surface laptop (or presumably any Surface model; today’s Surface Pro and Surface Studio updates also shun AMD). We were particularly impressed with the CPU and GPU performance and battery life of the Ryzen 6000 chips, which can outperform Intel, offering more than enough performance for photo and video editing and even light gaming.