Microsoft wants to topple Apple from its throne: Surface Pro and Surface Laptop on Arm unveiled

Microsoft calls the new generation of notebooks with Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite or Snapdragon X Plus processors Copilot+ PCs. These include devices from Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Samsung as well as the new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop. The manufacturer promises nothing less than a "quantum leap in computing" and more performance than the latest Macbook Air.

Surface Pro with OLED option

Externally, nothing has changed on the Surface Pro compared to its predecessor. The 13-inch convertible costs 1050 francs / euros in the cheapest version with Snapdragon X Plus, 16 gigabytes (GB) of RAM and 256 GB SSD. It is available in four colours. Accessories such as a keyboard and stylus are optional. However, the old ones are compatible with the new model.

The Surface Pro is now available with an OLED display instead of an IPS display. Both displays have a resolution of 2880 × 1920 pixels and a refresh rate of 120 hertz. The OLED version is only available with a Snapdragon X Elite and an SSD of at least 512 GB. Incidentally, this should be replaceable - but only by a specialist.

As with the design, everything remains the same in terms of connections: one Surface Connect and two USB-C ports. Microsoft remains vague about the battery life: 14 hours with local video playback and ten hours with active web browsing.

The new Flex Keyboard is available for the Surface Pro. Thanks to Bluetooth, it also works wirelessly. The new Surface Pro is said to offer up to 90 per cent more performance than its predecessor.

Surface Laptop up to 86 per cent faster than its predecessor

The seventh version of the Surface Laptop is Microsoft's first traditional notebook with an arm chip. It is available in 13.8 and 15 inch. The cheapest version with Snapdragon X Plus, 16 GB RAM and 256 GB SSD is available from 1050 francs / euros. The cheapest 15-inch version costs 1350 francs / euro. It already has the Snapdragon X Elite installed. Microsoft offers a maximum of 32 GB of RAM for both versions. The SSD has a maximum storage capacity of one TB. According to Microsoft, the SSD can be replaced, but only by a specialist.

Thanks to the Arm architecture, Microsoft promises up to 20 hours (13.8-inch version) or 22 hours (15-inch version) of battery life when playing videos. When browsing, the duration is reduced to 13 and 15 hours respectively.

In terms of design, Microsoft is not reinventing the wheel and is staying true to the style of its predecessor. It is available in four colours and the casing is made from an aluminium alloy. The manufacturer continues to use IPS instead of OLED for the display. However, they offer 120 hertz refresh rates with 2304 × 1536 and 2496 × 1664 resolution respectively.

The Surface Connect port for charging is also on board. Other ports include one USB-A (version 3.1), two USB-C (version 4) and one for headphones. The Surface Laptop can be charged via the USB-C ports as an alternative to Surface Connect. The notebooks offer Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 as wireless connection standards. At 1.34 and 1.66 kilograms, the new models are slightly heavier than the predecessor model.

In terms of performance, Microsoft claims up to 86 per cent more than its predecessor. As with the Surface Pro, this figure should be treated with caution. Independent tests will show what the devices really achieve.

Copilot+ PCs

Windows notebooks have fallen behind Apple's Macbooks in terms of battery life and performance since the switch to M chips in 2020. The new Copilot Plus PCs are designed to make up for this shortfall. Compared to a Macbook Air with an M3 chip they are said to offer over 50 per cent more continuous performance.

Microsoft therefore seems to have great confidence in the new notebooks. And that's after the Surface RT 2012 came up with terrible performance. The Surface Pro X 2019 was better, but still not good. The partnership with Qualcomm to manufacture the chips now seems to be bearing fruit. There is no other way to explain Microsoft's confidence in the devices.

Compatibility with non-native programmes in particular was a weak point. Too few software manufacturers have made their apps available natively for Windows on Arm. In terms of emulation, Windows could not keep up with Apple's Rosetta 2. The new emulator called Prism is now set to change this. Non-native apps should be emulated twice as fast as before thanks to this.

Native apps have also changed a lot since 2019. Photoshop and Zoom, for example, now run natively on Arm. The same applies to the most popular browsers. This is important because many applications are now web-based. 87 per cent of the time you spend on a Copilot Plus PC should be on native apps. The rest of the time, Prism should ensure that you don't notice any loss of performance.

Microsoft also wants to make the Copilot Plus PCs fit for artificial intelligence (AI). They are said to be able to perform more AI tasks per watt than a Macbook Air with an M3 chip or an Nvidia RTX 4060 graphics card. The Recall feature, for example, allows time travel on the devices. If you have seen something on the PC or worked on something, you can return to this point. AI models that run locally in the background record everything.