Microsoft unveils new Surface Laptop 8, Surface Pro 12 starting at $1,499

Microsoft has officially announced the Surface Laptop 8 and Surface Pro 12 with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X2 chips, as promised. They are available today starting at $1,599 and $1,499, respectively, with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

In a blog post, Microsoft said its next-generation Copilot+ PCs for consumers offer 58 percent and 53 percent better graphics performance than their 2024 predecessors, which use the first Snapdragon X chips. Aimed to attract creative professionals, both devices will come with the graphic design application Affinity pre-installed and pinned to their start menus.

Speaking to Mashable, Andrew Hill, VP of Microsoft’s Surface company, said that the company’s most important thing in developing its new devices is “making sure the basics are good.”

“We’re spending a lot of time and energy across Surface and Windows right now on the basics, and we have to make sure you have a lot of that collateral, for lack of a better word, of how those investments go up to reliability, responsiveness, battery life, overseas,” Hill said. “So we put a ton of energy into those pieces.”

Buyers who buy a Snapdragon X2-powered Surface Laptop 8 directly through Microsoft now through June 30 will get a free Surface Arc Mouse ($89.99), and those who buy a Surface Pro 12 this month will get a free Surface Pro 13-inch keyboard ($169.99). If you miss the boat, you will have to purchase those accessories separately.

The new Surface devices appear to cost about the same as their predecessors, which have recently seen a late-life price hike due to a global RAM shortage. I will update this story once I check out their live listing.

This is the second generation of Surface devices where Microsoft has offered consumers Snapdragon models, despite ongoing ARM compatibility issues. (The company announced its Intel-powered counterparts to businesses last month.) According to Hill, this is because “We find with Qualcomm, performance per watt and battery life are at a premium.”

Microsoft Surface Laptop 8: What’s new (and what’s missing)

The clamshell-style Surface Laptop 8 comes in 13.8- and 15-inch sizes as standard, and the smaller one will be available in a new Jade finish. Other options include Microsoft Dune, Black, and Platinum finishes. Sorry, no more Sapphire.

Contrary to what the rumors said, these Windows laptops will not have OLED displays. However, the 15-inch 120Hz LCD touchscreen has been bumped from 2,496 x 1,664 resolution (201 pixels per inch) to 3,270 x 2,180 resolution (262 ppi). “It’s the sharpest of all [display] on the Surface Laptop,” says Microsoft. For reference, it’s brighter than the Apple MacBook Pro’s Liquid Retina display.

The new Haptic trackpad for Surface Laptops has added support for Windows 11’s new haptic gestures feature, which adds subtle vibrations to certain on-screen actions. They also have a new 1080p webcam certified by camera rating site DXOMARK as the “#1 ranked computer camera,” Microsoft says.

Mashable Light Speed

Configuration options for both sizes are:

• CPU: Snapdragon X2 Plus or X2 Elite processor

• Memory: 16GB to 64GB of RAM

• Storage: 256GB to 2TB for the 13.8-inch model; 512GB to 2TB storage for the 15-inch model

Battery life will be the same or slightly worse in this generation. The 13.8-inch Surface Laptop 8 is rated for up to 20 hours of local video playback, while the 15-inch model is rated for up to 19 hours. Their predecessors achieved ratings of up to 20 and 22 hours, respectively.

Both models still have a backlit keyboard, WiFi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, and their usual ports. The 13.8-inch model has two USB-C ports, one USB-A port, a Surface Connect port, and a headphone jack; the 15-inch model adds a microSDXC Express card reader.

Both 2026 Surface Laptops have the same footprint as the 2024 versions, although the 13.8-inch Laptop 8 is significantly smaller and heavier. It’s now three pounds on the dot, up from 2.96 pounds.

Microsoft Surface Pro 12: What’s new (and not)

The Convertible Surface Pro 12 is available in Platinum, Black, and Dune finishes. No Sapphire here, either.

You can still choose from LCD or OLED display systems like in the previous generation, but you are no longer limited to certain amounts of RAM or storage based on the type of display you choose. The 2024 Surface Pro 11 with an LCD display was released with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, while the OLED model went up to 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. Now, your configuration options are the same either way:

• CPU: Snapdragon X2 Plus or X2 Elite processor

• Memory: 16GB to 64GB of RAM

• Storage: 256GB to 1TB storage

There should also be a slight gen-over-gen boost to battery life. The Surface Pro 11 is rated for up to 14 hours of local video playback, but this new model should last 15.5 hours.

Finally, the Surface Pro 12 has exactly the same weight and dimensions as its predecessor. Plus, you still get WiFi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, two USB-C ports, a Surface Connect port, and a Surface Pro keyboard port.

Microsoft Surface Status

It’s been a busy spring for Microsoft. In mid-April, the company raised prices on its 2024 Surface devices to $500, citing “recent increases in memory and component costs.”

In mid-May, Microsoft introduced the new Surface for Business devices with Intel chips. (It teased consumer-focused Snapdragon X2 models as part of that announcement.) The 13.8-inch Surface Laptop 8 Business has an optional integrated privacy screen, similar to the privacy display on the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, but the two-line designs are otherwise identical.

Their values ​​do not exist. The flagship Surface for Business device will start at $1,949.99 when it arrives on July 14. The 13-inch Surface Laptop for Business is available starting at $1,499.99. A smaller variant with 8GB of RAM will debut later this year, starting at $1,299.99.

At Computex in early June, Microsoft released the new Surface Ultra laptop and Surface RTX Spark Dev Box desktop PC, both with Nvidia’s new RTX Spark “superchip”. They are scheduled to be released sometime later this year; keep an eye on the prices, they’re probably going to be bonkers.

The new Surface Laptop 8 and Surface Pro 12 aren’t cheap on their own, but they’re the most affordable options in the Surface lineup yet. Microsoft has yet to announce updated Snapdragon X2 versions of the 13-inch Surface Laptop and 12-inch Surface Pro, which it introduced last year as cheaper, compact alternatives to its flagship devices. That said, they arrive about 11 months after the Surface Laptop 7 and Surface Pro 12 dropped, so it’s probably only a matter of time before their replacements arrive.