Everything You Need to Know About the New Microsoft Surfaces
When you’re thinking about buying a new laptop, Microsoft wants you to think about the Surface. And during its big September event, the company not only unveiled Copilot, its AI-focused assistant coming with the next big Windows 11 update , but also showed off two new Surface laptops, both of which could shake up the current status quo for laptops with Windows. .
Surface Go 3 Laptop
Microsoft’s first hardware announcement was the new Surface Laptop Go 3 (not to be confused with the Surface Go 3 ), which is designed for work on the go: it weighs just under 2.5 pounds and offers up to 15 hours of battery life. . It’s as ultraportable as the Surface laptop line has ever been, but Microsoft has nonetheless blessed it with some powerful specs that will help make it even more compelling.
The Go 3 laptop features a 12.4-inch touchscreen with a pixel density of 148 ppi, a resolution of 1536 x 1024 and an aspect ratio of 3:2. Under the hood is a 12th generation Intel Core i5 processor. Fast charging ensures that you can charge the battery quickly when needed, which is very convenient if you plan to use this laptop as a daily driver.
The Go 3 has a standard 720p webcam, which probably won’t look amazing , but it should be good enough for video calls in Teams. It features a USB-C 3.2 port as well as a USB-A 3.1 port and thankfully still has a headphone jack. After all, there’s still a place for wired headphones.
The laptop comes with integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics, which is expected in a powerful yet ultraportable laptop like this one. There are also options with 8 or 16 GB of LPDDR5 RAM and a removable SSD with a capacity of up to 256 GB. All this, and you can choose from four colors: platinum, ice blue, sage and sandstone.
In terms of specs, this is probably one of the most promising Surface laptops I’ve ever seen. But Microsoft had something to brag about.
Surface Studio 2
Microsoft also introduced Surface Studio 2 . According to the company, this particular laptop functions as a 2-in-1, offering “2x the power” compared to previous versions. (They do, however, promise 19 hours of all-day battery life.) It has a larger touchscreen than the Surface Laptop Go 3 and isn’t as lightweight (the Intel Iris Xe graphics model weighs 4.18 pounds, while the NVIDIA graphics model models weigh 4.37 pounds) and appear to be aimed at users who prioritize power over portability.
The Surface Studio 2 has a curved 14.4-inch display with a resolution of 2400 x 1600. It will likely look sharper than the Laptop Go 3 since it has a PPI of 200, and motion will be smoother since the display has a 120Hz refresh rate.
Microsoft offers several options, all of which include a 13th-generation Intel i7 processor. You can also choose between 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB RAM configurations, and the company will even offer several different Nvidia RTX graphics card options. These cards include the RTX 4050, 4060, and RTX 2000 Ada. If you don’t need a dedicated graphics card, you can also opt for just the Intel Iris Xe graphics built into the 13th generation i7. You can choose between 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB removable SSDs.
The laptop also features a higher resolution 1080p webcam with Windows Hello 2.0 face authentication, Wi-Fi 6e and Bluetooth 5.3. It has two USB4 ports, one USB-A 3.1 port, a MicroSDXC card reader, and a headphone jack.
You can pre-order both new Surfaces now.
We haven’t seen specific benchmarks for either of these laptops yet, so the jury is still out on how they’ll perform in the real world, but if what you’ve seen has you intrigued, both new Surfaces are available for pre-order now.
The Surface Laptop Go 3 starts at $799.99, and the Surface Studio 2 starts at $1,999.99. Both of these prices can be significantly higher depending on the configuration you choose.