Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 takes on Apple MacBook Air 15 and Intel machines in first test with Snapdragon X Elite X1E-80-100 chipset

Specifically, the bottom of Signal65's report confirms that Microsoft has equipped at least the Surface Laptop 7 15 with the X1E-80-100, Qualcomm's mid-tier Snapdragon X Elite chipset behind the X1E-84-100. Additionally, the laptop features LPDDR5X RAM clocked at 8,448 M/Ts and a Samsung PM9B1 (MZ9L4512HBLU-00BMV) SSD. Unfortunately, Signal65 decided against using any AMD-powered laptops when assessing the Surface Laptop 7 15. Instead, it compared the device against its direct predecessor, as well as the Surface Pro 9 5G, MSI Prestige 16 EVO AI (Core Ultra 7 155H) and the latest MacBook Air 15.

Nonetheless, the Snapdragon X Elite's performance in the Procyon battery benchmark, while better than the MSI Prestige 16 EVO AI, imply that it may struggle against even AMD Ryzen Hawk Point-powered devices in this regard. Similarly, Signal65's tests found the Surface Laptop 7 15 outlasting the MacBook Air 15 by about 19% when playing a video at 150 nits, despite their reliance on comparable battery capacities.

It is worth stressing that it is unclear how long the Surface Laptop 7 15 lasts in more demanding tasks. To that end, the device falls short of its Apple counterpart in Cinebench 2024 single work but takes a huge lead when all cores are being utilised. Moreover, the latest MacBook Air 15 enjoys leads in 3DMark GPU, Google Chrome and Office365 productivity benchmarks. On top of that, the Surface Laptop 7 15 does not run as coolly as its MacBook counterpart, even with active cooling. Please see Signal65's full report for more details.