Surface Laptop Ultra: 5 things Microsoft announced

Microsoft just put a $2,599 price tag on a Surface and aimed it squarely at MacBook Pro buyers. The Surface Laptop Ultra, shown at Wednesday's Windows and Surface event in San Francisco, ships October 16. Pre-orders are open now.

You get a 15-inch mini-LED display with up to 2,000 nits and a 3:2 aspect ratio. It weighs under 4.5 pounds and is under 18 mm thick. Microsoft claims 2.5 times the thermal capacity of the seventh-gen 15-inch Surface Laptop, plus all-day battery life.

Then comes the swipe at Apple: USB-A, USB-C, HDMI, a headphone jack and a full-size SD card reader. A magnetic charger works over standard USB-C. The SSD is replaceable.

RTX Spark: gaming muscle meets local AI

Inside sits NVIDIA's Arm-based RTX Spark, with 20 CPU cores, up to 128GB of unified memory and GPU power comparable to a GeForce RTX 5070. Microsoft ran Gears of War: E-Day on it and says Call of Duty follows later this year. The NPU meets Copilot+ requirements, and the chip draws no more than 80W.

Windows agentic AI features

However, here’s the catch. With your consent, Copilot can now work with your local files. It can train models on-device and utilise cloud computing whenever necessary.

In the fall, the taskbar search will be flooded with tens of thousands of instant actions, including everything from toggling dark mode to sending text messages. The "Get Started” feature will help you to configure agents, and Meta's Muse will become available natively on Windows.

Don't forget about the backlash following the recall and the features that Copilot had which Microsoft later removed.

Surface RTX Spark Dev Box for more intensive tasks

There will be a small PC specifically designed for intensive AI workloads. The Surface RTX Spark Dev Box costs starting at $5,999.