Surface Laptop Go 3: New details emerge before Microsoft's September 21 launch event

With Microsoft's next hardware event just around the corner, it is a surprise to see no leaked renders or retailer listings emerge yet. Nonetheless, Roland Quandt has outlined more details about the Surface Laptop Go 3, building on information that Windows Central provided in late July. For reference, the latter claimed that Microsoft would equip the third-generation model with a 12th Gen Intel Core i5 processor, albeit without going into specifics.

According to Quandt, Microsoft has settled on the Core i5-1235U, an Alder Lake-U series part that has 10 cores split between 2 P cores and 8 E cores. Thus, the Core i5-1235U also has 12 threads, the same amount as the nominally more powerful Core i7-1265U. According to our database, the Core i5-1235U averages 1.27x higher scores than the Core i5-1135G7 that powers the Surface Laptop Go 3, a modest improvement between generations.

With that being said, the Core i5-1235U contains a few other advantages over the Core i5-1135G7. For example, the former has a 46% lower TDP than the latter, as well as lower base clock speeds and fewer performance cores. As a result, the Surface Laptop Go 3 should run more efficiently and consume less power during general tasks than its predecessor, thereby improving battery life. Conversely, GPU performance is likely to remain more or less unchanged, which was not the Surface Laptop Go 2's strong suit anyway.

Microsoft will present the Surface Laptop Go 3 on September 21 during a wider launch event. Purportedly, the compact laptop will be available with 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB or 256 GB of storage; other changes like a backlit keyboard, a larger battery, more ports or a refined display are not expected, though.

Purchase the Microsoft Surface Pro 9 (Core i5-1235U/8 GB RAM/512 GB storage) on Amazon