Surface Laptop Review: Microsoft’s Best MacBook Air Competitor Yet

The new Surface Laptop isn’t just a refresh. It’s Microsoft’s first clamshell laptop with Qualcomm chips inside, and it represents Microsoft’s most serious attempt yet at a transition to Windows on Arm. The company’s previous efforts at Arm-based Windows machines were flawed, with poor app compatibility and sluggish performance. Now, Microsoft is trying again to finely balance processing power and battery life in a way that only Apple has achieved in laptops so far.

This time around, Microsoft has nailed it. Everything about the new Surface Laptop feels way better. Microsoft has not only closed the MacBook Air gap but also raised the bar for what you should expect from a Windows laptop that starts at $999.99.

A Hands-on Experience with the Surface Laptop

Verge Score: 8/10

Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition (13.8-inch)$999.99

THE GOOD:

• All-day battery life

• Great performance for most apps

• 16GB of RAM for the base model

THE BAD:

• Game support is limited

• AI features feel gimmicky

• Emulated apps can hit battery and performance

How we rate and review products

Hardware

Inside and out, Microsoft has made a lot of changes to the Surface Laptop 7th Edition that are subtle but don’t amount to a huge redesign. The most noticeable is the slightly larger 13.8-inch LCD display, which now has smaller bezels at the sides and top. The display’s corners have been rounded, and it supports HDR with Dolby Vision and up to a 120Hz refresh rate. The 15-inch model also has smaller bezels and rounded corners.

I’m glad that the bezels have finally been addressed, but I do wish this screen had some type of antireflective coating. Now that the summer has finally arrived in the UK, I’ve noticed plenty of reflections while using this laptop. Cranking up the brightness counters the reflections, but I’d just prefer a coating, personally.

Camera and Trackpad

Microsoft has also managed to integrate an upgraded 1080p front-facing camera into the top of the display without having to put a notch in. The image it produces is surprisingly good for a laptop — enough that a friend even asked me what camera I was using during a video call. This camera also has Windows Hello support so you can log in to the Surface Laptop with just your face.

Microsoft has also finally added a precision haptic trackpad, so you get consistent click feedback anywhere on the large touchpad surface. It’s fully customizable, and the haptics are so subtle on this new trackpad that when I briefly switched back to a Surface Laptop 4, it felt like the older trackpad was broken. The trackpads on the 13- and 15-inch Surface Laptop 7th Edition models are the same size, so you’re getting a nice and big trackpad either way.

Keyboard

The keyboard is largely the same as prior Surface Laptop models, with the exception of a new Copilot key. It’s the first big change to Windows keyboards in 30 years, but all the key does is launch a Progressive Web App (PWA) version of Copilot. It’s far less functional than the Copilot integration that already existed in Windows 11, and I’m not entirely sure why Microsoft has made Copilot less useful on these new Copilot Plus PCs that have a dedicated button for the AI assistant.

Specs as Reviewed

• Display: 13.8-inch (2304 x 1536) 120Hz LCD touchscreen

• CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus (10-core)

• GPU: Qualcomm Adreno

• RAM: 16GB LPDDR5x

• Storage: 256GB PCIe 4.0 SSD

• Webcam: 1080p Surface Studio Camera

• Connectivity: Wi-Fi 7; Bluetooth 5.4

• Ports: 2 x USB-C USB 4 with DisplayPort 1.4a, 1x USB-A 3.1 Gen 1, headphone jack, Surface Connect charging port

• Weight: 2.96 lbs.

• Dimensions: 11.85 x 8.67 x 0.69 inches

• Battery: 54 Whr

• Price: $999.99

The Surface Laptop 7th Edition also has a second USB-C port this time around, which is ideal if you want to charge over a USB-C port and still connect an accessory. Both USB-C ports are compatible with USB 4, and there’s even a USB-A 3.1 Gen 1 port if you haven’t quite moved into the USB-C era. Both the 13.8- and 15-inch models can also charge through the dedicated Surface Connect port. Microsoft has kept the 3.5mm headphone jack, and there’s a microSDXC card reader on the 15-inch model.

Performance

On the $999.99 13-inch model I’ve been testing, Microsoft picked Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Plus chip. It has two fewer CPU cores than the 12-core Snapdragon X Elite and lacks the dual-core boost option found on the two higher-end X Elite models, which dynamically adjusts the processor frequency on up to two cores to get more power when the CPU needs it. It has the same GPU and NPU otherwise, and all Surface Laptop 7th Edition models include Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 support.

Microsoft has also ditched the alcantara fabric options for the Surface Laptop this time around. It’s all metal now, with four color options to choose from: sapphire blue, a golden dune, and the regular black and silver options. The fancy color options aren’t available on the base $999.99 model, which only ships in silver.

The 15-inch model starts at $1,299.99 with a Snapdragon X Elite processor, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. If you want the X Elite on the 13.8-inch model, it starts at $1,399.99, though you do get 512GB of storage.

Windows on Arm and Performance

Ahead of this review, I went back to the original Surface Pro X from 2019 for a few days to see where Windows on Arm was at. The last time Microsoft did a big Windows on Arm push, ARM64 support was terrible. Microsoft and Qualcomm have both been pushing software developers to support native Arm apps over the past couple of years, and things have noticeably improved. Chrome, Slack, and Spotify now all have native apps.

Native apps like Chrome feel great on this new Surface Laptop. Whereas the Surface Pro X always felt underpowered, Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon X Plus and Elite are far more capable of delivering the responsiveness you’d expect from a modern laptop. My time using the base Surface Laptop 7th Edition felt like any regular Intel- or AMD-powered laptop. Performance in everyday tasks also felt the same, though that experience could be mixed if you’re not in native ARM64 apps.

Battery Life

All of this performance doesn’t come at the cost of battery life, thankfully. I’ve largely been using the 13-inch model over the past week, and the battery life has been phenomenal. On the first day, I was working outside with 100 percent screen brightness, downloading multiple Steam games, attending video calls, and working in Photoshop regularly. I managed to get around seven hours of battery life in total.

Then, in the evening, after topping up the battery, I used the Surface Laptop at 50 percent brightness inside for around four hours, and it only drained 25 percent. I closed the lid at 11PM with 72 percent battery and woke the laptop up at noon the next day. It turned on instantly with 70 percent still remaining. On lighter days when I was mainly using Slack, WhatsApp, Discord, and Chrome for a mixture of work tasks, I managed seven hours with 70 percent battery left. The last time I charged the 13-inch model was Friday, and I used it regularly over the weekend. I still had 27 percent battery on Monday morning. I can’t remember the last time I could trust a Windows laptop to go to sleep and not drain the entire battery or to be able to last the entire workday.

Much like the performance side, you really need to be using ARM64 native apps to get the best battery life, though. Using demanding emulated apps will eat through battery life a lot faster, so your battery life mileage is going to vary depending on the way you work and the native apps available. For me, this battery life has been transformative — allowing me to leave the house without a charger. I can even get from zero to 80 percent charge in an hour on the 65W Surface Laptop charger (which only comes with the larger 15-inch model). A capable USB-C charger will also deliver the same.

Windows AI

For all the improvements in battery life and performance, the Surface Laptop is also a Copilot Plus PC with a neural processing unit (NPU) for new built-in AI features in Windows. Microsoft has made a big deal about these, with Recall supposed to be the flagship feature on these new laptops. Recall has been delayed due to security concerns, and it’s a delay that has overshadowed the entire launch of Copilot Plus PCs. It’s why you’re only reading this review now and not on launch day last week.

What’s left of the AI-powered Windows 11 features aren’t nearly as controversial as Recall, but they’re also not that compelling.