Microsoft’s tiny new Surface Laptop and Pro shrink in other ways, too

Smaller Surfaces have finally arrived. Microsoft is announcing smaller, less powerful revisions of the Microsoft Surface Pro tablet and Surface Laptop, all built around a more conservative version of Qualcomm’s battery-sipping Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus chip.

Smaller doesn’t necessarily mean cheaper, however. And while earlier reports said Microsoft would ship both devices with 12-inch screens, that’s not quite what we’re getting.

The new $899 13-inch Surface Laptop is very similar to the existing 13.8-inch Surface Laptop 7, which actually ships for as low as $799.99 with a Snapdragon X Plus chip inside. Meanwhile, the smaller 12-inch Surface Pro will cost as little as $799.99, the same price Microsoft charges for its existing 13-inch Surface Pro 11 with a Snapdragon X Plus inside. As you’ll see below, you’re getting a lot less.

What’s new? The smaller sizes, of course, plus new colorways like Ocean and Violet, and a special Slate color for the Surface Pro. The Pro features yet another redesigned keyboard, while the Laptop’s chief selling point is a 16-hour battery life (23 hours for video playback) that Microsoft says is its longest yet. Microsoft is also using these Copilot+ PCs and the X Plus chip’s 45 TOPS as showcases for AI technologies like Recall, Click to Do, and its improved semantic search capabilities, while promising even new AI-powered features for the future.

Microsoft is also waving goodbye to the Surface Connect port, the iconic magnetic power connector that defined Surfaces for a decade. Now, Surface is using USB-C ports only for charging and expansion, though there’s an extra USB-A port on the Laptop for legacy connections.

It’s hard to look at those prices and not think “tariffs,” though that’s not the word Microsoft executives are focusing upon. “We think that these new Surface Pro and Surface Laptops are for a set of customers for whom affordability is going to be important,” Pavan Davuluri, the corporate vice president for Windows and Devices, told reporters.

“Tariffs are a moving target for us,” Davuluri said. “We don’t have good information yet to share about where we’re going to land” on the topic of tariffs, he added.

Keep in mind, too, that these new devices straddle the commercial and consumer markets. Microsoft executives said that these devices will eventually be offered to businesses, but appear to be sold to just consumers for now. (Only Windows 10 Home is offered, and not Windows 10 Pro.) A Surface Laptop in Violet is probably more suited to a classroom rather than a boardroom, anyway.

Surface Laptop 13-inch: cutting corners

At 0.61 inches thick and 2.7 pounds, the 13-inch Surface Laptop is the thinnest and lightest Surface Laptop Microsoft has ever created, executives said, with the longest battery life. The existing 13.8-inch Surface Laptop, also with an Snapdragon X Plus chip inside it, weighs 2.96 pounds, while the 15-inch Surface Laptop weighs 3.67 pounds. But Microsoft cut some corners to achieve the low price and smaller display size.

First, there’s the processor. Both X Plus chips are not the same: The existing 13.8-inch Surface Laptop 7 includes a 10-core X Plus chip; the new 13-inch Surface Laptop offers an 8-core X Plus chip instead.

Microsoft appears to be offering a single processor option with 16GB of LPDDR5X memory, but the choice of either 256GB or 512GB of removeable storage. Only the 256GB SSD is removeable; the 512GB model uses what’s known as Universal Flash Storage, a lower-power option that in this case appears to be soldered on to the motherboard.

It’s easy to wonder where the new 13-inch Surface Laptop will fit into Microsoft’s existing Surface clamshell laptop lineup, too. The Surface Laptop Go 3 fizzled out in 2023, though the $799 ($999 as tested) clamshell with a 12.4-inch display certainly lives on in spirit inside the new 13-inch Surface Laptop. Physically, too! The new Surface Laptop carries over the fingerprint sensor that was embedded in the Surface Laptop Go’s power button.

The Surface Laptop Go 3 was known for its sub-1080p display. The 13-inch Surface Laptop doesn’t go that far, but it offers a 1920 x 1280 display. That’s fine or even better than what you might expect on some cheaper laptops, given the small screen size, but the 178 PPI it offers pales in comparison to the 2304 x 1536 (201 PPI) the 13.8-inch Surface Laptop delivers. The larger Surface Laptop’s display also puts out 600 nits of rated brightness with a refresh rate up to 120Hz; on the 13-inch, expect 400 nits of brightness with a basic 60Hz-refresh rate instead on the newest 13-inch model.

Microsoft refers to the two external USB-C ports as capable of DisplayPort 1.4a with support for up to two 4K displays at 60Hz, but stops short of calling them USB4 or Thunderbolt ports. There’s also a USB-A (USB 3.1) legacy port, too. As noted above, the Surface Connector is gone, which means that you won’t be able to use Surface chargers from earlier laptops any more. Inside the laptop is Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth Core 5.4, however.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch: specifications

• Display: 13-inch PixelSense (1920 x 1280 (178 PPI), “strengthened glass” ) up to 60Hz and 10-point multitouch
• Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus 8-core
• Graphics: Qualcomm Adreno
• NPU: Qualcomm Hexgaon (45 TOPS)
• Memory: 16, 32GB LPDDR5X
• Storage: 256GB SSD, 512GB UFS
• Ports: 2 USB-C (USB 3.2 w/DisplayPort 1.4a), USB-A 3.1
• Security: Camera (Windows Hello), Fingerprint reader, TPM 2.0 chip
• Camera: 1080p (user-facing) with Windows Studio Effects and Windows Hello
• Battery: 23 hours video playback; 16 hours Web browsing
• Wireless: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth Core 5.4
• Operating system: Windows 11 Home
• Dimensions: 11.25 x 8.43 x 0.61 in.
• Weight: 2.7 pounds
• Color: Platinum, Ocean, Violet
• Price: $899 and up

Surface Pro 12-inch: a new keyboard complements a cheaper look

Microsoft’s revamped 12-inch Surface Pro is interesting, in part because Microsoft sells the 13-inch Surface Pro with an LCD display, 16GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD for $799.99 — or did, as Microsoft’s site currently lists it as being sold out. Now, Microsoft is offering the 12-inch Surface Pro at the same minimum price.

Again, it’s not the same Surface as its predecessors. It too uses the downgraded processor, and the 2196 x 1464 offers a lower pixel density (220 PPI vs 267 PPI) than the existing Surface Pro. It’s protected by “strengthened glass,” without any mention of Gorilla Glass. As you might expect, the former OLED option has gone missing. However, the refresh rate isn’t 60Hz, but 90Hz, which is a cut above what you might expect at the low end.

Microsoft is offering a configuration with just 16GB of LPDDR5X memory, like the Surface Pro, and the a removeable 256GB of storage or 512GB of UFS storage soldered down. Microsoft’s port choice mimics the Surface Laptop, too, as do the wireless options.

The Surface Pro’s camera quality decreases, too. Unfortunately, the user-facing camera is now just a generic 1080p option with Windows Hello, instead of the 1440p option Microsoft offered before. Support for AI-powered Windows Studio Effects is still offered, however.

Microsoft also adjusted the keyboard yet again. A 13-inch Surface Pro would demand its own keyboard, but Microsoft hasn’t chosen to follow the almost ludicrous connectivity of the Surface Pro Flex Keyboard. Instead, Microsoft describes the 13-inch Surface Pro keyboard as one that folds completely flat with the Surface Pro for easier inking and typing, and that features a “customizable precision touchpad with adaptive touch mode.”

The new Surface Pro can be used with the Surface Slim Pen 2, which now charges when clipped to the back of the tablet.

The Surface Pro contains 82.9-percent recycled content in the enclosure and is the first Pro to contain 100-percent recycled cobalt in the battery cell, Microsoft added.

Microsoft Surface Pro 12-inch: specifications

• Display: 12-inch PixelSense (2196 x 1464, 220 PPI, “strengthened glass” ) up to 90Hz with dynamic refresh rate and 10-point multitouch
• Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus 8-core
• Graphics: Qualcomm Adreno
• NPU: Qualcomm Hexgaon (45 TOPS)
• Memory: 16, 32GB LPDDR5X
• Storage: 256GB SSD, 512GB UFS
• Ports: 2 USB-C (USB 3.2 w/DisplayPort 1.4a), 1 Surface Keyboard Port
• Security: Camera (Windows Hello), NFC/smartcard reader; TPM 2.0 chip
• Camera: 1080p (user-facing) with Windows Studio Effects and Windows Hello, 10MP rear-facing
• Battery: 16 hours video playback; 12 hours Web browsing
• Wireless: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth Core 5.4
• Operating system: Windows 11 Home
• Dimensions: 10.8 x 7.47 x 0.30 in.
• Weight: 1.5 pounds without accessories
• Color: Platinum, Ocean, Violet
• Price: $799 and up
• Optional accessories: Surface Slim Pen 2, $90 on sale at Amazon