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Microsoft's redesigned Surface Laptop is a Copilot+ PC with over 22 hours of battery life
It has thinner bezels, no notch and it comes in two sizes.
To kick off Microsoft Build 2024, the company announced new Surface devices at its hardware and AI event today. Among the fresh gear is the new Surface Laptop: a redesigned PC with thinner bezels in 13.8- and 15-inch sizes and Qualcomm’s Arm-based Snapdragon X Elite chip. Of course, AI plays a key role on the new device as this is one of the newly-named Copilot+ PCs that run over 40 models locally thanks to updates to Windows 11 and Qualcomm's Hexagon NPU.
To go along with the thinner bezels, an upgraded PixelSense touchscreen display offers HDR and Dolby Vision IQ. Microsoft says this is the brightest display it has ever shipped at 600 nits, and it offers a wide color range supporting the P3 gamut. What's more, the new Studio Camera is now in the bezel, so there's no visible notch. As expected, there's now a dedicated Copilot key and the touchpad is equipped with haptics, plus there are two new colors: Sapphire and Dune. The company's onstage graphic mentioned "more ports," but it didn't mention those during the presentation. We'll be looking for more info on those during our hands-on and review. Microsoft has also decided to drop the numbers in device names as it's referring to this new machine simply as Surface Laptop.
Microsoft says the new Surface Laptop is over 86 percent faster than the Surface Laptop 5. In an onstage demo, this new model was batch processing photos almost twice as fast as a MacBook Air. Adobe's flagship apps — Photoshop, Lightroom and Photoshop Express — are coming to Copilot+ PCs today, so they'll also work with existing Arm Windows machines. The company says the 15-inch Surface Laptop lasted "far longer" than the Surface Laptop 5 and MacBook Air, with over 22 hours of local video playback. You can expect up to 15 hours of active web use on the 15-inch version, according to Microsoft.
The new Surface Laptop will be available with either 16GB or 32GB of RAM and removable SSD options in 256GB, 512GB and 1TB capacities.
This is actually the second "Surface Laptop 6." Microsoft revealed the first one back in March, but that model is basically a Laptop 5 with updated internals for business use. Intel's Core Ultra CPUs deliver AI smarts though, and the 13.5- and 15-inch models are available with with up to 64GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. There's also a dedicated Copilot key like we've seen on machines from other companies, aiming to get you to use Microsoft's AI more easily and more often at work. Since these are meant for enterprise customers, they aren't available in stores, leaving everyone waiting for the proper Laptop 6 the company unveiled today.
The Surface Laptop is up for preorder today starting at $1,000 and it ship on June 18.
Catch up on all the news from Microsoft's Copilot AI and Surface event today!
