Here’s everything we know about Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Ultra
Earlier this year, Microsoft unveiled the Surface Laptop Ultra, describing it as “the most powerful thing we’ve ever made.” And while we know some details about it, including its ultra-bright MiniLED display and NVIDIA RTX Spark chip, other specs have been difficult to find. But today, at an event in San Francisco, Microsoft finally gave us a closer look at its next flagship laptop.
Now, before we go any further, it’s important to point out that the Surface Laptop Ultra will be a very beefy system, so buying one simply for browsing the web, editing videos, or even gaming on it will be overkill. This machine is aimed more at developers and AI researchers than your typical PC user and to help you understand this point, Microsoft describes the Surface Laptop Ultra as a “builder-class PC.”
The Surface Laptop Ultra comes standard with a 15-inch PixelSense Ultra Mini-LED touchscreen with a 3:2 aspect ratio and up to 2,000 nits of peak brightness. It also has a huge haptic touchpad that Microsoft says is 30% larger than what you get on a typical 15-inch Surface laptop, as well as a ton of ports, including USB-C, USB-A, HDMI, 3.5mm audio, and a full-size SD card reader. However, the most interesting new port is what Microsoft calls Magnetic Connect, which combines the speed and convenience of magnetic charging with a traditional USB-C jack while transmitting power, video and data.
In terms of performance, the Surface Laptop Ultra is based on NVIDIA’s RTX Spark chip and will support up to 128GB of unified memory and is capable of pushing up to a petaflop of FP4 AI computing. It also has 2.5 times the thermal capacity of any previous Microsoft laptop, and unlike most Windows PCs, the company says the Surface Laptop Ultra delivers 99% of its peak performance even when it’s not plugged into the wall. Compared to a MacBook Pro with an M5 Pro chip, Microsoft says the Ultra delivers 6.2x faster video generation, 4.3x faster image creation, and is 2.1x faster to first chip.
As for the rest of its design, the Surface Laptop Ultra features an aluminum chassis that’s just 18mm thick (0.7 inches) and weighs 4.5 pounds. It also comes with user-removable storage, so it should be easy to upgrade or replace your SSD after purchase. And finally, the Ultra will be available in two colors: platinum and nightfall.
The Surface Laptop Ultra is available for pre-order today starting at $2,599. Alternatively, if for some reason the Surface Laptop Ultra doesn’t seem powerful enough to meet your needs, Microsoft has also announced the Surface RTX Dev Box, which is also available for pre-order starting at $5,999.
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