Surface Laptop Studio: A 120 Hz and Tiger Lake-H35 leap from the Surface Book series, but only North America will receive it before 'early 2022'

Microsoft has lifted the lid on the Surface Laptop Studio, arguably the successor to the Surface Book 3. As expected, Microsoft has done away with the removable design of the Surface Book series, a staple since the original model launched in 2015. In its place arrives a hinge that mimics the one showcased by Acer in the ConceptD 7 Ezel.

Accordingly, the Surface Laptop Studio looks like a conventional laptop until you pull the display forwards, allowing it to hover in place. You can also bring it flat against the keyboard deck for writing and drawing, as you already can with the Surface Book series.

Ultimately, the Surface Laptop Studio is closer to the Surface Studio in design than the Surface Book. Microsoft has included all hardware in the base this time around, allowing it to offer 35 W processors rather than the 15 W ones in the Surface Book series. These Tiger Lake-H35 processors can be paired with up to 32 GB of LPDDR4x RAM and a 2 TB SSD, albeit only with the Core i7 model.

The display itself measures 14.4-inches and operates at 2,400 x 1,600 pixels in a 3:2 aspect ratio. While the panel is lower resolution and smaller than the one in the Surface Book 3 15, the Surface Laptop Studio can run at up to 120 Hz, something the Surface Book machines cannot. The Surface Laptop Studio gains the Surface Slim 2 too, which it can recharge magnetically.