Microsoft Surface Laptop (2024, 13-Inch) Review (2024)

Microsoft’s latest 13-inch Surface Laptop (starts at $999.99; $1,999.99 as tested) is yet another classy ultraportable laptop in its line, but it’s the laptop's internals in the spotlight this time. This is the first Copilot+ PC we’ve reviewed, packing Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X Elite processor to power AI features, like Copilot, and crunch other AI tasks locally. While the application of AI in Windows is still developing, you'll find some genuinely useful features within. Moreover, this is easily the best Arm chip we’ve tested yet in a PC. The CPU and GPU performance are there, and deliver at least competitive benchmark numbers relative to current-gen Intel and AMD offerings in the early going. Qualcomm is to be commended for that.

Software compatibility issues with Windows on Arm (WoA) remain the big question mark looming over Arm-based PCs like this one, and the second wave of Intel's and AMD’s AI-ready chips looms even larger. For now, the X Elite is competitive with current alternatives in its tier, though the much-upticked configuration of the Surface Laptop we tested is quite pricey. (Regardless, its battery life is exceptional.) Microsoft's premium Surface Laptop build is undoubtedly a selling point. Still, we recommend waiting for the WoA ecosystem to mature over the coming months, and for the competition’s following range of x86-based AI processors to have their say later this year—unless you’re an eager early Copilot+ PC adopter.

Design: Microsoft's Usual Flex

Microsoft delivers its new Surface Laptop in two sizes, as it has in the past. You have the smaller 13.8-inch model, which I have here for review, and a version with a larger 15-inch version. We’ve more often reviewed the larger version of the Surface Laptop, like the 15-inch Surface Laptop 5, but the ultraportable version has its own appeal.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

The new model is 0.69 by 11.9 by 8.7 inches and weighs 2.96 pounds, an ultraportable by both measures. The 13-inch Surface Laptop is a touch heavier than the 13-inch Apple MacBook Air (2.7 pounds) and the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (2.82 pounds), but it is notably trimmer than the Dell XPS 14 (3.7 pounds).

The 13.8-inch panel has a 2,304-by-1,536-pixel native resolution, a 120Hz refresh rate, and touch capability. Its 3:2 aspect ratio display looks roomier than similarly sized options. Refresh rates above 60Hz are usually the domain of gaming laptops. Still, some creator and professional laptops employ 120Hz screens to make viewing and creating content (or just browsing the web) smoother. Though a premium screen is not essential for many of you, the new Surface Laptop's panel falls into that camp and is a welcome addition.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

While these design aspects aren’t new, it’s still worth noting that the whole package is high-quality. Processor aside, it’s not difficult to see where the higher price comes in. The metal chassis feels like a premium product, the keyboard is comfortable, and the haptic feedback on the touchpad is satisfying. The latter kind of touch implementation can be hit-and-miss, but it's effective and responsive on this machine.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

The laptop's connectivity further supports real workflows on the road. The Surface Laptop includes two USB Type-C connections, a USB Type-A port, and a headphone jack on the left side. The right edge holds only the proprietary Surface Connect port, which is used for charging, though you can charge the device via the USB-C ports if you already own USB-C chargers. The webcam is a sharp 1080p camera with better picture quality than most I've tested, and it supports Windows Hello face authentication, as well as Windows Studio Effects (more on that later).

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

The 13-inch size, in particular, makes me want to tuck it under my arm and take it with me during the day; it’s a fine work and travel companion, and its sturdy keyboard is more capable than the detachable, floppy Surface Pro keyboard. Overall, the build quality is excellent, as we expect from Surface devices, with a premium for the build and feature set. The starting price is reasonable, though our review unit is much more expensive, which I'll explain below. Given the excitement over Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors, the specs and internals are the real stars of this update, so let’s dive in.

Snapdragon, NPUs, and You

In the lead-up to this launch, we’ve written plenty on Snapdragon, Copilot+ PCs, and neural processing units (NPUs), so we have plenty to read on the subject. You can find in-depth coverage at each of those links.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

If you haven’t been keeping up, here’s a quick breakdown of what’s new in this new Surface device. As AI enhancements, Microsoft’s Copilot AI companion, and other machine-learning features launch on Windows PCs, hardware is changing, too. Processors are now designed to handle local AI-based workloads with an NPU onboard alongside the chip's traditional CPU and GPU portions.

That way, your PC can benefit from AI enhancements without burdening the CPU and GPU, which are busy handling the usual computing tasks. By Microsoft’s mandate, NPU-bearing PCs that meet specific requirements are branded AI-enabled “Copilot+ PCs,” with new badging and standout representation in retail stores like Best Buy. Qualcomm's Snapdragon X chips are the first to meet the 40 TOPS threshold for Copilot+. (TOPS, for trillions of operations per second, is a rough measure of AI processing potential.) That gives them exclusivity in the Copilot+ market...for now.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Qualcomm is just one chip manufacturer producing processors with a beefed-up NPU this year. Intel and AMD already dipped their toes into AI PCs late last year, and their full-fledged next-generation “Lunar Lake” and “Strix Point” chips are coming soon, also to meet or exceed the Copilot+ TOPS requirement. AMD's and Intel's earlier chips' NPUs are not up to Copilot+ standards, so Qualcomm has the first opportunity to impress with Copilot+ PCs at launch (the Snapdragon X chips feature 45 TOPS-rated NPUs, dubbed "Hexagon"), starting with this Surface Laptop. Other manufacturers’ Snapdragon-based laptops are already in hand for testing, too. (As you'll see, we've already benched some HP models, and Lenovo and Samsung ones are on the docket.)

Configurations: From Mildly Expensive to Out-of-Pocket

The 13.8-inch Surface Laptop model starts at $999.99, which nets you the 10-core Snapdragon X Plus processor, 16GB of memory, and a 256GB solid-state drive. These memory and storage capacities have become the standard baseline in modern systems without too much of a premium. Only the Platinum color is available for the base model; the other colors (Dune, Black, and Sapphire) are tied to upgraded models.

The model sent for review is significantly upgraded from the base model, priced at $1,999.99 when configured through Microsoft’s site. It packs the superior 12-core X Elite processor (model X1E-80-100), 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. Adding that much storage, in particular, is a significant factor in the price jump, and many users may not need that much (not to mention 32GB of RAM), so attaining the superior processor doesn’t have to cost the full two grand. We received the classic black model, though Microsoft's other colors look just as chic.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite processor has several similar but slightly different flavors. All models, derived from the same die, feature 12 cores, a 42MB cache, support for DDR5 memory, and that claimed 45 TOPS NPU. The differences in the X Elite models revolve around the clock speeds; the X1E-80-100 version reviewed here maxes out at 3.4GHz multi-thread frequency and 4.0GHz dual-core boost, while the top-model X1E-84-100 goes slightly higher (3.8GHz with a 4.2GHz boost). The GPU in the higher model can push a bit more power, too—4.6 TFLOPS versus this model’s 3.8 TFLOPS. The total system power for the 13.8-inch Surface Laptop with this chip is 25 watts. That number can vary by laptop and should make a reasonably significant performance difference—the 15-inch Surface Laptop runs at 30 watts.

Putting aside the slightly different versions of the Snapdragon X Elite compared with the 10-core X Plus, the X Elite is the chip we’re more familiar with at launch. It is present in more launch laptops, and we tested it ourselves a few months ago, so we know more about what to expect from its performance. Of course, its capability will still vary by laptop, so it’s essential to look at individual testing like ours to gauge the exact speed.

The Copilot+ Experience

Aside from guaranteeing a certain level of performance and benefitting from any applications with AI enhancements, a Copilot+ PC delivers immediate access to some new Windows features. The most obvious is Copilot itself, which you may have seen appear on your Windows 11 PC in beta recently. Microsoft is all-in on AI, and Copilot is its primary manifestation within Windows.

Copilot now operates as a local application within Windows to which you can ask questions, change settings, and more. Copilot+ laptops, like this Surface Laptop, even include a dedicated Copilot key to pull up the assistant immediately. Copilot is a whole topic unto itself, so I won’t go further into the service itself here. Instead, see our Copilot explainer and some instructions and ideas for things to try.

(Credit: Microsoft/PCMag)

Outside of the Copilot app, several Windows functions lean on the NPU. One is Cocreator, built into the Paint app. That’s right: The humble, classic drawing and editing application is at the forefront of the Windows AI revolution. When you hit the Cocreator tab in Paint, a side panel pops up with a smaller image window, a text field, a slider, and a dropdown menu.

Simple instructions show how it works: Write a prompt of what you want to see in the text field, draw a rudimentary version in the main Paint image window, and watch the PC create a higher-fidelity version in the side panel window. Then, you can tweak the style and appearance with the “creativity slider” (an inherently dismaying term to me) and the dropdown menu, which can swap aesthetics between presets like watercolor, oil painting, and anime.

Making the image look roughly like what I expect takes some time. It’s vague how exactly the slider works or what it’s tweaking. From what I can tell, the liberty of the interpretation and the degree of stylization is where the tweaking happens—and it produces a finished image quickly.

Then there's Studio Effects. It’s not the first time we’ve used the Studio Effects video-call enhancements, but they mostly work well. Background blur works as expected, while the auto framing (to center you in the picture if you move around while on camera) does a decent job with significant adjustments if I move to the corner of the frame, slowly tracking to re-center me. It doesn't always activate, particularly for smaller moves, but it usually does the job.

The eye correction is the biggest miss: It doesn't work for me at all, never quite looking like I am looking into the camera. Toggling the feature on and off appears only to make it look like my eyes are open more widely by making my irises larger or cutting away a piece of my eyelid, which is off-putting and still doesn’t make it look like I am making eye contact while looking away from the camera.

Beyond that, Windows is capable of live caption translation, image generation, and some text editing tools. The controversial Recall feature (which aims to record your activity on your laptop so you can look back to previously accessed files, websites, and the like) is unavailable as initially planned and is back to open beta testing in the Windows Insider program.

When AI features are active, the system's NPU kicks into gear to bear the burden. You can see its activity level in Windows Task Manager—not that you need to watch it work, but the chip and ecosystem function as intended.

Grading any one laptop on the usefulness of Copilot and other AI features isn’t necessarily fair, as these traits are coming to all Copilot+ laptops across manufacturers (though Microsoft’s Surface would be the one to judge, if any). Still, judging a computer on the software ecosystem, which will evolve as the software updates, is beyond the scope of this laptop review. All Copilot+ PCs go as far as Copilot and the other AI features will carry them, but it is part of the value proposition. If you don’t deem these features worthwhile—and, in my view, the native Windows advantages are thin right now—you don’t need to run out for a Copilot+ PC just yet.

Beyond that, we’re down to judging hardware quality, value, and general performance, which brings us to benchmark testing. Qualcomm making the only Copilot+ PC chips available currently may also give you pause.

Testing the 13-Inch Microsoft Surface Laptop: A Promising Early Showing

In addition to differing implementations, speed claims, and architectures, the significant difference among the now-Big-Three processor manufacturers (AMD, Intel, and now Qualcomm) is that Qualcomm’s chips are built on Arm. Aside from Microsoft's prior attempts, this chip architecture hasn’t been used much for Windows systems. Intel and AMD build their chips on the long-running x86 architecture, which generally has higher performance potential and can handle the complex demands of Windows. In contrast, Arm chips have traditionally been far more common in more mobile-friendly devices like smartphones and tablets—Qualcomm’s bread and butter.

Microsoft has made several one-off attempts at Arm systems running Windows in the past, but these were hampered by software compatibility issues and generally lower speeds. Microsoft’s Surface Pro itself recently came in a pre-Snapdragon X Arm-based version, too. We’ve found that many apps have not been designed to run on Arm chips, or if they do, run through emulation, leading to slower performance.

The messaging this time is that compatibility for these Snapdragon laptops has progressed in addition to faster speeds and broader availability. The Surface Laptop and the rest of these first-wave systems are our first chance to put all of this to the test. We had reason to believe the improved speed claims before testing this machine—Qualcomm's initial testing shared with us and other media outlets showed strong results, albeit in a friendly environment with likely favorable tests—but testing compatibility required some trial and error.

The apps I tested launched and operated correctly, at minimum. Microsoft cites several specifically compatible and optimized applications to run on these chips, including Office software, Chrome, Slack, Spotify, WhatsApp, Zoom, and more. Steam and other apps work, in my experience, so compatibility largely seems better than past Windows on Arm efforts. However, issues remain, and our usual benchmark suite didn’t fare as well.

In short, several of our benchmark tests would not complete correctly; some that did complete ran through emulation, and a mix of these don’t have separate Arm-compatible versions to switch to. Those emulated posted notably slower scores, such as the venerable Cinebench R23. Given that, we compiled a new suite of benchmarks for our first round of reviews and testing, and we tested some Intel and AMD machines with these same benchmarks at the same settings to compare.

The Comparison Systems

Here are the systems we've compared the Surface Laptop with. They run the gamut of different processors and include several other Snapdragon X Elite laptops we tested while reviewing the Surface Laptop. We chose the four x86 systems to get a representative competitive mix of processors in there; we have not fully reviewed any of these systems yet, but drew them from PC Labs' incoming review pool.

The 16-inch Dell Inspiron and the 14-inch Asus Zenbook were chosen to show off the competing "Meteor Lake" Core Ultra 7 155H from Intel (in more and less forgiving thermal situations, in these bigger and smaller laptops). The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 2-in-1 has the lower-power Core Ultra 7 155U. (Qualcomm does not distinguish between H- and U-class processors like Intel and AMD do, leaving it to PC OEMs to scale up or down the total system power.) Meanwhile, Acer's latest Swift 14 Go has the latest-gen AMD mobile HS-class silicon inside, at least until its TOPS-heavy Ryzen AI 300-series processors hit the street in their first laptops, ostensibly in July.

Productivity & Content Creation Tests

This first group of tests represents workloads such as content creation, editing, and raw processing speeds. Our go-to general productivity test, PCMark, was not compatible with Snapdragon, so the focus is on more of these core-crushing media tests. We used the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.8 (instead of our usual 1.4, since 1.8 includes a new Arm-optimized version and an x86 version) to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution. We also included two legacy tests: Maxon's Cinebench R23 uses the Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Geekbench 5.4 Pro from Primate Labs simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Those two tests are part of our standard test suite, but we’ve also added Cinebench 2024 (which includes an Arm-optimized installer) and Geekbench 6.3 (which is better optimized for Arm) to test the Snapdragon X Elite.

At a glance, the Surface Laptop and X Elite were fast—at least on par with these x86 machines, if not quicker, in most cases. The Surface Laptop posted the best results on the multi-core Cinebench 2024 test, Geekbench 5.4, and the multi-core Geekbench 6.3 test. It also displayed some of the fastest scores on HandBrake and on another new addition, the bench test built into the venerable 7-Zip utility, which tests hash calculation methods, compression, and encryption codecs of the file archiver tool.

Qualcomm delivered on the promised speeds here, generally speaking, and this is (finally) not a case of Arm suffering on Windows in terms of performance. Intel's and AMD’s next-generation solutions are coming soon and could fare even better. Regardless, these X Elite results aren’t inherently slower just because it's an Arm system, which is a win alone. Qualcomm's raw-performance claims look solid in the early going here.

AI Tests

The following tests are laser-focused on these systems' AI performance. Note: This kind of testing is in its infancy. First up is the Procyon AI Computer Vision Benchmark by UL. This test leverages several AI inference engines executing common machine-vision tasks using various popular neural networks. The tests were run using integer operations under respective platform runtime SDK models: Qualcomm SNPE for the X Elites and Intel OpenVINO for the Intels.

The numbers from this test largely speak for themselves if you look at the X Elite systems' numbers against each other. We wouldn't directly compare them to the x86 machines here, for which the benchmark required us to run the test separately on CPU, GPU, and NPU.

Meanwhile, Geekbench’s cross-platform ML test simulates real-world machine learning tasks to gauge the overall AI workload performance, leaning on the CPU, GPU, and NPU. We ran this test in its CPU and DirectML (which leverages the GPU, in this case integrated) inference backend options.

This test is not optimized for the Arm-based X Elite. On the Geekbench ML CPU test, all systems looked roughly equally capable of the test AI workloads, with the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 and Acer Swift Go 14 the low and high outliers. The DirectML test (pressing the GPUs) varied more, favoring the Radeon 780M integrated GPU in the Swift Go 14 compared with the integrated graphics elsewhere. That demonstrates that, even with the X Elite, in some cases, you could be markedly better off relying on GPU-based processing for these workloads. Still, it's very early days for this kind of conclusion.

While we’re glad these benchmarks give us a measuring stick, don’t take them as gospel for AI performance. Judging the raw speed of NPUs and AI chips is a tricky proposition; operations per second is only one way to measure on paper, and between the differing hardware approaches and individual software and SDKs, you'll find many variables to AI efficiency. Plus, the point of an NPU is often to run AI tasks in the background in an efficient manner rather than in a drag race to completion. Speed-benching AI on the NPU may miss the point altogether.

Graphics Tests

Until we can dig into some time-consuming gaming testing (on the docket!), we were limited in what tests we could use to measure graphics performance within these Snapdragon X Elite machines; hence, UL's 3DMark being the only test type represented. However, at least two of the company's benchmarks are ready for Arm-based systems. First is 3DMark Wild Life and its Extreme variant: These two tests, run in their Unlimited variants, are compatible with laptops and smartphones, using the Vulkan graphics API at 1440p resolution to measure GPU speeds. The Extreme version ups the resolution to 2160p, or 4K, further stressing the graphics chips.

Steel Nomad is another new UL 3DMark test that works with Arm CPUs. Steel Nomad and its own Light variant test focus on APIs more commonly used for game development, like DirectX 12 and Metal, to produce insights more closely aligned with how games can expect to perform on the system, with an increased focus on more geometry and particle effects. None of these tests is ray-traced. Higher scores are better.

The Surface Laptop and its Adreno GPU posted the highest score on Wild Life Extreme, though the rest of the graphics results weren't quite as impressive. A discrete GPU goes a long way comparatively, even if this silicon is generally snappy, and you'd likely want one for any real graphics workload. The other tests showed more variation, with the Snapdragon laptops lagging in some cases. Bear in mind that the X Elite systems' integrated graphics are meant to be employed much like the Intel Arc Graphics, Intel Graphics, or AMD Radeon integrated solutions in the competition: to work in thin laptops and not serve as fire-breathing gaming engines.

Battery and Display Tests

We test each laptop and tablet's battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.

To gauge display performance, we also use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Windows software to measure a laptop screen's color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).

We have not yet been able to fully battery-test all of the Snapdragon X Copilot+ PCs we have on hand, so we have a limited dataset. Regardless, it's clear that the Surface Laptop is one of the longest-latest laptops we've ever tested on battery. A 25-hour-plus runtime is well into Apple MacBook Air territory, with the latest 13-inch MacBook Air lasting "just" 21 hours and 38 minutes in comparison.

Microsoft has long focused considerable attention on its display technology, and this Surface laptop lives up to that reputation. While it's not quite eating Apple's lunch, 98% of DCI-P3 coverage is competitive with every current Mac computer, which is essential for some content creators. Likewise, the Surface Laptop's maximum brightness well exceeds the MacBook line, though it's still just an IPS display rather than OLED or mini LED.

Some Software Thoughts

All told, we did a lot of work rearranging our usual benchmark tests and plugging holes where our usual tests failed, grabbing the Arm-specific version of different tests so they would run. That’s a plausible approach with real-world software, where the option exists, but you will not find a separate Arm download for every piece of software out there. Qualcomm points out that many vital applications have Arm-optimized versions (see this summary provided by Qualcomm).

With so many more manufacturers making Arm-based laptops this time, and Microsoft fully behind the push and urging developers on, the compatibility situation is more likely than in the past to improve. Still, waiting on improvements, going outside your typical workflow, and the uncertainty of whether specific applications you need will run as expected isn’t ideal—not when Intel and AMD will soon also power Copilot+ PCs in a few months.

Considering that Qualcomm's time lead on Intel's and AMD’s upcoming laptop chips isn’t vast, our gut feeling for most buyers is to hold off on buying until we can test some of those systems, too. AMD Ryzen AI 300-based laptops with 50-TOPS NPUs are expected to hit this summer, with Copilot+ features to come later via Windows Update. And Intel's Lunar Lake processors, with a much heftier NPU than the current Meteor Lake Core Ultra chips, are promised by the end of Q3 this year. That is not long to wait.

Verdict: A Strong First Impression, But Early Days

Regardless of how well it performs or how much better its app compatibility is, we still don't see an ironclad reason to run out and buy a Copilot+ PC just yet. The Snapdragon X Elite is a quick processor, and kudos are definitely due to Qualcomm for making the laptop-chip market a three-player game now. And most applications we use run without issue. But Intel's and AMD’s Copilot-ready chips are close behind, and x86 will obviate compatibility issues altogether. We’ve seen long-lasting Intel Core Ultra laptops already, and Lunar Lake, in particular, promises lots of speed, too, so waiting may be worthwhile.

This isn’t to take away from the new Surface Laptop itself. It's an excellently made laptop. It delivers on the Copilot+ PC concept of a portable, fast system with long battery life, but its launch is tied to the purpose served by its AI features. Our test configuration is flat-out expensive, with like-priced laptops putting more on the table, and it's more highly configured than most shoppers need. At the moment, if you’re seeking a workhorse PC in the $2,000 range, we’d just recommend a laptop with a more powerful Intel chip like an Intel Core Ultra 9 or 14th Gen HX, or an AMD Ryzen 9 8000 series—likely one with a discrete GPU at this price. The Surface Laptop looks like a better bet at its $999 base pricing, though the Editors’ Choice-award-winning Asus Zenbook 14 OLED Touchis a tough value to beat around that price.

We're genuinely excited by Copilot+ PCs, the emergence of the NPU, and the technical achievement by Qualcomm in launching what looks like true competitive laptop silicon right out of the gate. That's huge right there. We're just cautious about jumping right in, given that the X Plus and X Elite laptops start at $999 and up, and given the close proximity of AMD's and Intel's promising-looking CPU options on the well-proven x86 platform. This summer, we'll be doing plenty more testing on X Plus, X Elite, and Windows on Arm compatibility with software and games, and will report more on those aspects. A month or so from now, the Surface Laptop might well look more like a 4-star product.