Copilot+ represents a new era for Windows laptops, and it’s a fresh reimagining for Surface as well. You’ll notice that the generational number in the name is gone with this new era — one that comes with a new design, higher performance, and AI features.
Both the new Surface Laptop and Surface Pro come exclusively with the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite, which brings massive leaps in performance, battery life, and AI capabilities over the previous generation of Surface devices.
Microsoft took the opportunity to tighten up the design of both devices too. The Surface Laptop gets a large, haptic feedback touchpad, thinner bezels across the top and sides, and new color options (for a total of four), plus it supports up to three 4K external monitors.
The Surface Pro gets an even bigger upgrade this time around. It now has the option for an OLED HDR display, an ultrawide quad-HD Surface Studio Camera, and a 4K rear-facing camera. Like the Surface Laptop, the Surface Pro can also support up to three 4K external monitors.
One of the most interesting features is the new Surface Pro Flex keyboard, which can be used either connected to the screen or disconnected. In theory, this opens up some new ways of interacting with the device. There’s also a new keyboard option with larger, brighter characters to be inclusive of those who might benefit from it. The detachable keyboard also features a 14% larger haptic feedback touchpad.
On the performance front, Microsoft claims that it’s 90% faster than the Surface Pro 9. Battery life is off the charts too, with a claimed 22 hours of local video playback battery life, which is longer than the MacBook Air and a huge improvement over the previous generation.
Microsoft also spent some time talking about the new AI capabilities that can take advantage of the on-device AI processing provided by the 45 Tera Operations Per Second (TOPS) neural processing unit (NPU). One included Cocreator, a diffusion-based image =eneration feature that takes hand-drawn photos and turns them into more realistic AI images. A new feature in the popular video-editing app Capcut was also shown off. It allows the presenter to quickly mask five dancers from a video and replace the background, all running on the NPU.
Like the rest of the Copilot+ PCs, the new Surface Laptop and Surface Pro will be available for preorder today and will be shipping on June 18.
This is a developing story, and we’ll continue to update as more information becomes available.
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