Microsoft's new Surface Laptops are expensive, but the products are not good enough
Microsoft refreshed its two models Surface Laptop Studio as well as the compact Surface Laptop Go and both can be purchased since last week. We already had the chance to review the two updated laptops, but the results are mixed.
According to Microsoft, the Surface Laptop Studio is primarily designed for content creators and the foldable display adds two additional operating modes and you can also use it as a tablet. Thanks to the touchscreen with haptic feedback, pen inputs are very comfortable, but you have to purchase the pen separately for around $100. We still like the picture quality of the 3:2 aspect ratio IPS screen and the colors are already very accurate out of the box. Movements benefit from the increases refresh rate of 120 Hz. However, considering the price of $3299, it is very unfortunate that the screen only covers the small sRGB color gamut.
Microsoft listened to the feedback in terms of ports and the two USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 are now accompanied by one regular USB-A port as well as a fast microSD card reader. The old Tiger Lake processor was replaced by the current 13th generation Raptor Lake Core i7-13700H and our review unit was equipped with the fast GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU. This means the performance is much higher compared to the predecessor, but there are even faster 14-inch devices out there. All in all, the performance is okay for a multimedia laptop, but the cooling solution is a problem. The fans are located in the front area of the base unit, which means the palm rest area gets warm very quickly when you stress the device and warm air is dissipated at the front side areas, which is an issue when you want to use an external mouse. The chassis does not provide any maintenance options, either.
Finally, we are not happy about the limited number of SKUs. If you want a model with the faster GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop, for example, you also have to get 64 GB RAM, which obviously increases the price. Our review unit with the 1 TB SSD retails for a hefty $3299 and we think this is too expensive.
While the Surface Laptop Studio 2 offers some improvements, the situation is more difficult for the compact Surface Laptop Go 3. Microsoft simply replaced the processor and now uses last year's Core i5-1235U from the Alder Lake generation. The entry-level model now features 256 GB SSD storage as well as 8 GB RAM, and you can now get 16 GB RAM for around $200 more. Microsoft completely axed the more affordable models from the previous generation. Positive aspects are still the high-quality chassis as well as the decent keyboard, but there is still no background illumination. The performance is now higher in short load scenarios, but the overall performance level is still low. The high-pitched fan under load is also still a bit annoying. The battery runtime is worse compared to rivals like the Dell XPS 13 9315 or the Apple MacBook Air M1.
The price was already one of our biggest issues with the previous models, and it is now even higher. This means there are more rivals, which often offer better overall packages. We expect street prices will drop quickly (as it was the case with the previous generation), but the price is still too high for the offered products.
We think the prices for both products are too high and it seems Microsoft wants to copy Apple's price strategy, but the quality of the new Surface Laptops cannot meet the correspondingly high expectations. Please see our comprehensive reviews for further information on the two models:
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