Microsoft’s new high-end Surface laptop is surprisingly serviceable

Microsoft has just introduced the most powerful laptop in its Surface range and it’s set to take on Apple’s popular MacBook Pro for demanding work applications. If you’re looking for a high-end machine, there are a couple of things in this premium option that are worth knowing about, including an all-new processor that no other laptop on the market has yet.

The Surface Laptop Ultra is powered by an RTX Spark N1X chip, which is basically Nvidia’s all-in-one silicon that combines the company’s Blackwell graphics architecture (seen in current-gen 50-series GPUs), up to 20 cores for the Arm-based CPU, and up to 128GB of unified memory.

Microsoft says that will help you run AI models locally, work on 3D modeling and video editing projects, and also on games.

One thing to note about this PC is that it runs on an Arm-based processor, which some apps don’t directly support. You can still run virtually any Windows software using the Prism emulation layer, but they may not run as well as on x86-64 chips from Intel and AMD.

You’ll also find a bright, color-accurate 15-inch touchscreen, plenty of ports, a magnetic USB-C port for the power adapter, and 2.5 times the thermal capacity of the low-end Surface Laptop (the amount of heat its cooling can remove), all in a chassis less than 18mm thick, with 15 hours of video playback on battery.

The Ultra starts at $2,599.99 and can be configured with more cores and memory. Microsoft says this will compare mightily to a 14-inch MacBook Pro, which comes in a powerful configuration with an M5 Pro chip (18-core CPU, 20-core GPU), 24GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage for $2,499. The Ultra was said to outperform it in benchmarks for AI tasks, including image and video generation.

That said, Apple already has a loyal audience for its high-performance MacOS-based laptops and is much better at marketing and distributing MacBook Pros than Microsoft. The latter probably won’t move many Ultras, but it’s trying to fire a warning shot across Apple’s bow to signal that it’s serious about enabling high-level performance for AI apps and services on Windows machines.

I’m more interested in what Microsoft is doing to make Ultra easier to use over the years. The laptop components are not glued in place, so it will be easier to take everything apart and make repairs. The company says it will publish maintenance guides and make replacement parts available to help with that, and that you’ll also be able to upgrade your storage to 2TB in the future.

If this sounds familiar, it might be because we’ve previously covered hardware brand Framework, which designs its laptops to be repairable from the ground up. Microsoft’s effort doesn’t come close (the Ultra doesn’t support plug-and-play modules for adding ports and card readers, and allows updates using a single tool that comes in the box), but it’s a step in the right direction. I’d sure like to see more brands follow suit with future models.

We’ll have to wait a little while to see if the Ultra has what it takes to outshine the beloved MacBook Pro in real-world tests. You can reserve now and deliveries will begin on October 16. Find the Surface Laptop Ultra on the Microsoft site.