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Dell 14 Plus 2-in-1 Review: A solid 2-in-1, though not without compromise

Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch review: purple imperfect

by admin June 16, 2025

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We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch: Two-minute review

I have been begging Apple to release a purple MacBook for a few years now and have been repeatedly disappointed year after year, so when I found out that the Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch was going to sport a pastel purple colorway, it really was Microsoft’s game to lose here.

And while it doesn’t quite come close enough to dethroning the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch, performance-wise, it’s a very solid everyday laptop that looks undeniably superior to Apple’s rather boring MacBook Air design over the past couple of years.

The Surface Laptop 13-inch starts at $899.99 / £1,099 / AU$1,699 on Microsoft’s website, which is roughly the same price as the MacBook Air 13-inch (which starts at $999 / £999 / AU$1,699), but its performance, at times, is substantially slower than Apple’s best laptop, making it an iffy value proposition for those who could go either way as far as operating systems go.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch: Price & availability

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

How much does it cost? Starts at $899.99 / £1,039 / AU$1,699
When is it available? It’s available now
Where can you get it? You can buy it in the US, UK, and Australia

The Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch is available now, starting at $899.99 / £899 / AU$1,699 directly from Microsoft or at retail partners. It comes in slightly cheaper than the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 in the US and UK, (starting at $1,099.99 and £1,039, respectively). In Australia, however, the larger Surface Laptop 7 13.8-inch starts out cheaper at AU$1,597 (and it comes with more powerful hardware to boot).

The Surface Laptop 7 13.8-inch also features a more powerful Qualcomm chip, a sharper screen, and better port support (though no Violet colorway, you’ll have to settle for the equally gorgeous Sapphire option).

Similarly, the Surface Laptop 13-inch is also slightly cheaper than the MacBook Air 13-inch with M4 in the US (starting at $999), while being slightly more expensive in the UK (the base MacBook Air 13-inch start at £999), while there is no difference in starting price between the two in Australia.

Compare this, however, with a similar memory-and-storage-specced Dell 14 Plus, starting at $799.99 / £999 / AU$1,298, but which comes with more powerful x86 processors from AMD and Intel, meaning that you get better performance without any compatibility worries that comes with ARM-based chips.

Granted, none of these competing laptops look anywhere near as good as the Surface Laptop 13-inch, but if your main interest is performance, there are cheaper options that will get you what you want.

All that said, however, this is the best-looking laptop you’re going to find at this price, in my opinion, and yes, that includes the entire MacBook lineup. If you want to look good at a cafe while reading emails, or streaming Netflix in an airport lounge while waiting for a flight, this laptop will turn heads (at least in Violet) without totally breaking the bank.

The only real knock I can point to is that the long-term value of the Surface Laptop 13-inch is lower than a MacBook Air 13-inch with M4. The latter is much more performant and it will stay ‘current’ for a few years longer than the Surface Laptop 13-inch, in all likelihood.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch: Specs

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus 8-core SoC
16GB LPDDR5x
The display could be better

There isn’t a whole lot of variation in terms of spec configurations for the Surface Laptop 13-inch, with the biggest difference being some extra storage and two additional colorway options.

Swipe to scroll horizontallyMicrosoft Surface Laptop 13-inch Base Specs

Price:

$899.99 at Microsoft.com | £899 at Microsoft.com| AU$1,699 at Microsoft.com

Colorways:

Platinum

CPU:

Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus 8-core

GPU:

Qualcomm Adreno X1-45

Memory:

16GB LPDDR5X-4300

Storage:

256GB SSD

Screen:

13-inch, 3:2, 1920x1280p 60Hz, 400-nit, Touch PixelSense

Ports:

2 x USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 w/ DP and Power Delivery, 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, 1 x combo jack

Battery (WHr):

50WHr

Wireless:

WiFi 7, BT 5.4

Camera:

1080p

Weight:

2.7 lbs (1.22 kg)

Dimensions:

11.25 x 8.43 x 0.61 ins | (285.65 x 214.14 x 15.6mm)

For $100 / £100 / AU$200 more, you can upgrade the storage on the Surface Laptop 13-inch to 512GB and get additional Violet and Ocean colorway options, but otherwise the more expensive configuration (which I tested out for this review) is identical to the base configuration.

Swipe to scroll horizontallyMicrosoft Surface Laptop 13-inch Max Specs

Price:

$999.99 at Microsoft.com | £999 at Microsoft.com| AU$1,899 at Microsoft.com

Colorways:

Platinum, Violet, Ocean

CPU:

Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus 8-core

GPU:

Qualcomm Adreno X1-45

Memory:

16GB LPDDR5X-4300

Storage:

512GB SSD

Screen:

13-inch, 3:2, 1920x1280p 60Hz, 400-nit, Touch PixelSense display

Ports:

2 x USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 w/ DP and Power Delivery, 1 x USB Type-A 3.1, 1 x 3.5mm combo jack

Battery (WHr):

50WHr

Wireless:

WiFi 7, BT 5.4

Camera:

1080p

Weight:

2.7 lbs (1.22 kg)

Dimensions:

11.25 x 8.43 x 0.61 ins | (285.65 x 214.14 x 15.6mm)

There’s no option to upgrade the memory or storage on any of these models beyond the configuration options at the time of purchase, which does make the longevity of the Surface Laptop 13-inch’s specs more limited than laptops like the Dell 14 Plus, where you can at least upgrade the storage if you’d like.

And while the specs on the MacBook Air 13-inch with M4 might not be upgradable either, they are simply better overall for a relatively small increase in price, meaning the long-term value of the MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) is superior overall.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch: Design

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Beautiful color options and fantastic aesthetics
Light and portable
Display resolution is only 1280p with no HDR

The design of the Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch is simply stunning. There’s no other way to describe it. Starting with the exterior aesthetics, the Surface Laptop 13-inch is as close to a MacBook Air for Windows as you’re going to find on the market, and in my opinion, it’s even better looking thanks to the additional Violet and Ocean colorways alongside the default Platinum look of the base model. You pay extra for the splash of color, but it’s a worthwhile investment. The machined aluminum finish of the laptop chassis, along with the pastel-ish hue of the chassis and the darker, more matte color of the keycaps and trackpad.

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

The display on the Surface Laptop 13-inch is a step down from the larger 13.8-inch Surface Laptop 7 from 2024, which had a maximum resolution of 2,304×1,536p (a PPI of 201, compared to the 1,920×1,280p Surface Laptop 13-inch’s 178 PPI) and 120Hz refresh compared to just 60Hz for the Surface Laptop 13-inch.

It also has a lower contrast ratio of 1,000:1 compared to the larger version’s 1,400:1. The Surface Laptop 7’s display is also made of Corning Gorilla Glass 5. In contrast, the Surface Laptop 13-inch’s display is only “Strengthened glass” according to Microsoft’s official spec sheet for the Surface Laptop lineup.

The display does max out at 400-nits, though, which is nice and bright enough for most people and situations, but you might struggle to see the screen properly if you’re using the laptop outside on a bright sunny day.

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

I found that carrying the Surface Laptop 13-inch around was very easy, as it fit in pretty much any bag and was thin and compact enough that I was able to use it sitting in an airplane seat during my 15-hour flight to Computex 2025 last month with almost no issue.

Speaking of using the laptop, the key switches are quiet and have good travel and responsiveness, and everything is well-spaced, so you don’t feel cramped despite the laptop’s smaller size. The trackpad is likewise responsive and smooth, making navigation and clicking around the desktop a breeze.

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

One thing that’s not that great is the port selection, which is limited to two USB-C Gen 3.2 ports, a USB-A Gen 3.1 port, and a 3.5mm jack for a headset. It’d have been nice to get some USB4 ports in there like you get with the larger Surface Laptop 7 models, but both USB-C ports do support power delivery and DP 1.4 output (though if you’re trying to connect to more than one monitor, you need one port per monitor, rather than being able to daisy-chain them to just a single port).

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

The webcam, meanwhile, is a 1080p Surface Studio Camera that is crisp enough, but unlike the larger Surface Laptop models from last year, it does not support Windows Hello authentication, and it doesn’t have a physical privacy shutter, which in 2025 should be pretty much mandatory, so along with the port and display downgrades, I’ve got to ding what is otherwise a nearly perfect design.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch: Performance

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

A performance downgrade from last year’s Surface Laptop
Some compatibility issues with ARM architecture still linger
Gaming is functionally a no-go

What holds the Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch from really being the fierce MacBook Air competitor that many of us hoped it would be is the 8-core Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus SoC.

When I reviewed the Microsoft Surface Pro 11 last year, I was genuinely impressed by the performance of the Snapdragon X Elite chip, despite the compatibility challenges that Windows-on-Arm is still working through. That was a much more powerful chip, though, and even the 10-core Snapdragon X Plus SoC offers noticeably better performance than what the Surface Laptop 13-inch is packing.

The 8-core chip isn’t awful, to be clear. It’s perfectly good for general computing tasks like streaming, school work, and office productivity, and it’s probably one of the best student laptops out there for those who want a little bit of style to go along with their studies.

But if you need this laptop to do anything other than writing up papers and reports, streaming movies, or using web-based cloud software, you will likely be unhappy with what you’re getting here for the price.

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

The most direct and obvious comparisons I can make with this laptop is the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch with Apple Silicon (starting with the Apple M2), the larger 13.8-inch Surface Laptop 7, the recently released Dell 14 Plus, last year’s Dell XPS 13 (with both Intel and Qualcomm SoCs), and the Asus Zenbook A14 with the entry-level Snapdragon X SoC.

Only the M2 MacBook Air 13-inch and Dell 14 Plus are cheaper than the Surface Laptop 13-inch (at least at the time of review), and all of these laptops start around the same price, give or take a hundred bucks or so.

The models I’ve tested and that TechRadar has reviewed in the past vary by spec, so it’s not entirely an apples-to-apples comparison laid out in the charts above, as some of the Dell and Apple notebooks’ advantages can be easily chalked up to more expensive processors.

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

If you go with any of those systems at the same price as the Surface Laptop 13-inch I tested, the performance difference might not be nearly as dramatic on paper, and almost certainly won’t be all that noticeable.

Still, it’s pretty clear that the Surface Laptop 13-inch either lands somewhere in the middle of its competition, or comes in second or third from the bottom. Add to that some performance issues stemming from Microsoft’s Prism software layer that translates x86-architecture-designed programs, which is pretty much every Windows program, to be ARM-compatible.

Generally, this works rather well, but it does introduce system overhead that will slow things down. In short, unless you’re running a piece of rare ARM-native software, you will almost never get as good an experience with Windows software on ARM as you would with the x86 architecture powering Intel and AMD chips.

The question really comes down to whether or not the performance is good enough, and I think that for most people, it will be (unless you want to load up Steam and get into PC gaming. The best gaming laptop, this is not).

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Much like the MacBook Air 13-inch, the Surface Laptop 13-inch is more geared toward casual computing needs and productivity work, and it excels at these tasks.

So, even though the MacBook Air 13-inch with M4 gets roughly twice as many FPS as the Surface Laptop 13-inch, the MacBook Air 13-inch still struggles to maintain playable frame rates unless you seriously scale back your graphics settings.

The MacBook’s gaming advantage, then, only really looks intimidating as a percentage, but in practice, none of the laptops I tested were suitable for the task of playing, say, Cyberpunk 2077 at max settings and native resolution.

What it really boils down to, then, is whether you’re just looking for a new laptop to keep up with friends and family, maybe do some office work, or write that Sci-Fi novel at the local coffee shop that you’ve been meaning to finally get around to this year.

If those are the boxes that need ticking, any of the laptops listed above will get the job done, but none will look as good as the Violet Surface Laptop 13-inch.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch: Battery Life

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

How long does it last on a single charge? 17 hours and 14 minutes
How long to recharge from empty to full? With the included 45W charger, it takes about two and a half hours to charge to full.

One other key area where the Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch shines is its stellar battery life. In my testing, it ran about 17 hours and 14 minutes on average in my battery test, thanks to the super efficient ARM architecture. This puts it in fourth place overall in my 10 laptop test group, but it does outlast all three MacBook Air 13-inch models in the group by an hour or more.

So even though it’s not officially in the battery life winner’s circle, you can’t ask for much more from a laptop this thin and light.

Should you buy the Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch?

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)Swipe to scroll horizontallyMicrosoft Surface Laptop 13 Scorecard

Buy the Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch if…

Don’t buy it if…

Also consider

If my Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch review has you looking at other options, here are three other laptops you should consider instead…

How I tested the Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch

I spent about a month with the device
I used our standard suite of benchmarking tools and performance tests
I used it as my primary work laptop, including taking it on an international work trip

I spent about a month with the Surface Laptop 13-inch, far longer than I usually spend with a device under review. While this was mostly due to circumstance (Computex and WWDC, in particular), this did allow me to do a much deeper dive.

In addition to my normal benchmarking process, I took extra time to retest some competing laptops we had in the office to come up with a more thorough comparison against the Surface Laptop 13-inch’s competitors.

Source link

June 16, 2025 0 comments

A Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch on a desk

Product Reviews

Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch review: purple yet imperfect

by admin June 13, 2025

Why you can trust TechRadar

We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch: Two-minute review

Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch: Price & availability

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

How much does it cost? Starts at $899.99 / £1,039 / AU$1,699
When is it available? It’s available now
Where can you get it? You can buy it in the US, UK, and Australia

Similarly, the Surface Laptop 13-inch is also slightly cheaper than the MacBook Air 13-inch with M4 in the US (starting at $999), while being slightly more expensive in the UK (the base MacBook Air 13-inch start at £999), while there’s no difference in starting price between the two in Australia.

Granted, none of these competing laptops look anywhere near as good as the Surface Laptop 13-inch, but if your main interest is performance, there are cheaper options that will get you what you want.

The only real knock I can point to is that the long-term value of the Surface Laptop 13-inch is lower than a MacBook Air 13-inch with M4. The latter is much more performant, and it will stay ‘current’ for a few years longer than the Surface Laptop 13-inch, in all likelihood.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch: Specs

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus 8-core SoC
16GB LPDDR5x
The display could be better

There isn’t a whole lot of variation in terms of spec configurations for the Surface Laptop 13-inch, with the biggest difference being some extra storage and two additional colorway options.

Swipe to scroll horizontallyMicrosoft Surface Laptop 13-inch Base Specs

Price:

$899.99 at Microsoft.com | £899 at Microsoft.com| AU$1,699 at Microsoft.com

Colorways:

Platinum

CPU:

Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus 8-core

GPU:

Qualcomm Adreno X1-45

Memory:

16GB LPDDR5X-4300

Storage:

256GB SSD

Screen:

13-inch, 3:2, 1920x1280p 60Hz, 400-nit, Touch PixelSense

Ports:

2 x USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 w/ DP and Power Delivery, 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, 1 x combo jack

Battery (WHr):

50WHr

Wireless:

WiFi 7, BT 5.4

Camera:

1080p

Weight:

2.7 lbs (1.22 kg)

Dimensions:

11.25 x 8.43 x 0.61 ins | (285.65 x 214.14 x 15.6mm)

Swipe to scroll horizontallyMicrosoft Surface Laptop 13-inch Max Specs

Price:

$999.99 at Microsoft.com | £999 at Microsoft.com| AU$1,899 at Microsoft.com

Colorways:

Platinum, Violet, Ocean

CPU:

Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus 8-core

GPU:

Qualcomm Adreno X1-45

Memory:

16GB LPDDR5X-4300

Storage:

512GB SSD

Screen:

13-inch, 3:2, 1920x1280p 60Hz, 400-nit, Touch PixelSense display

Ports:

2 x USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 w/ DP and Power Delivery, 1 x USB Type-A 3.1, 1 x 3.5mm combo jack

Battery (WHr):

50WHr

Wireless:

WiFi 7, BT 5.4

Camera:

1080p

Weight:

2.7 lbs (1.22 kg)

Dimensions:

11.25 x 8.43 x 0.61 ins | (285.65 x 214.14 x 15.6mm)

Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch: Design

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Beautiful color options and fantastic aesthetics
Light and portable
Display resolution is only 1280p with no HDR

The design of the Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch is simply stunning. There’s no other way to describe it.

Starting with the exterior aesthetics, the Surface Laptop 13-inch is as close to a MacBook Air for Windows as you’re going to find on the market, and in my opinion, it’s even better looking thanks to the additional Violet and Ocean colorways alongside the default Platinum look of the base model.

You pay extra for the splash of color, but it’s a worthwhile investment. The machined aluminum finish of the laptop chassis, along with the pastel-ish hue of the chassis and the darker, more matte color of the keycaps and trackpad, really help make this laptop stand out.

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

The display on the Surface Laptop 13-inch is a step down from the larger 13.8-inch Surface Laptop 7 from 2024, which had a maximum resolution of 2304 x 1536 (a PPI of 201, compared to the 1920×1280 Surface Laptop 13-inch’s 178 PPI) and 120Hz refresh compared to just 60Hz for the Surface Laptop 13-inch.

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

I found that carrying the Surface Laptop 13-inch around was very easy, as it fitted in pretty much any laptop bag and was thin and compact enough that I was able to use it sitting in an airplane seat during my 15-hour flight to Computex 2025 with almost no issue.

Speaking of using the laptop, the key switches are quiet and have good travel and responsiveness, and everything is well-spaced, so you don’t feel cramped despite the laptop’s smaller size.

The trackpad is likewise responsive and smooth, making navigation and clicking around the desktop a breeze.

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

One thing that’s not that great is the port selection, which is limited to two USB-C Gen 3.2 ports, a USB-A Gen 3.1 port, and a 3.5mm jack for a headset.

It’d have been nice to get some USB4 ports in there like you get with the larger Surface Laptop 7 models, but both USB-C ports do support power delivery and DP 1.4 output (though if you’re trying to connect to more than one monitor, you need one port per monitor, rather than being able to daisy-chain them to just a single port).

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch: Performance

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

A performance downgrade from last year’s Surface Laptop
Some compatibility issues with ARM architecture still linger
Gaming is functionally a no-go

What holds the Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch from really being the fierce MacBook Air competitor that many of us hoped it would be is the 8-core Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus SoC.

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Generally, this works rather well, but it does introduce system overhead that will slow things down. In short, unless you’re running a piece of rare Arm-native software, you will almost never get as good an experience with Windows software on Arm as you would with the x86 architecture powering Intel and AMD chips.

The question comes down to whether or not the performance is good enough, and I think that for most people, it will be (unless you want to load up Steam and get into PC gaming. The best gaming laptop, this is not).

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Much like the MacBook Air 13-inch, the Surface Laptop 13-inch is more geared toward casual computing needs and productivity work, and it excels at these tasks.

So, even though the MacBook Air 13-inch with M4 gets roughly twice as many frames per second as the Surface Laptop 13-inch, the MacBook Air 13-inch still struggles to maintain playable frame rates unless you seriously scale back your graphics settings.

If those are the boxes that need ticking, any of the laptops listed above will get the job done, but none will look as good as the Violet Surface Laptop 13-inch.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch: Battery Life

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

How long does it last on a single charge? 17 hours and 14 minutes
How long to recharge from empty to full? With the included 45W charger, it takes about two and a half hours to charge to full.

One other key area where the Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch shines is its stellar battery life. In my testing, it ran about 17 hours and 14 minutes on average in my battery test, thanks to the super-efficient Arm architecture. This puts it in fourth place overall in my top 10 laptop test group, but it does outlast all three MacBook Air 13-inch models in the group by an hour or more.

So even though it’s not officially in the battery life winner’s circle, you can’t ask for much more from a laptop this thin and light.

Should you buy the Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch?

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)Swipe to scroll horizontallyMicrosoft Surface Laptop 13 scorecard

Buy the Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch if…

Don’t buy it if…

Also consider

If my Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch review has you looking at other options, here are three other laptops you should consider instead…

How I tested the Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch

I spent about a month with the device
I used our standard suite of benchmarking tools and performance tests
I used it as my primary work laptop, including taking it on an international work trip

Source link

June 13, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

Surface Laptop 13-inch review: a little less for a little less

by admin May 28, 2025

Microsoft finally found its answer to the MacBook Air last year with the 13.8-inch Surface Laptop (formerly known as 7th Edition). That Snapdragon X-powered laptop matched the MacBook in build quality, battery life, and at least some aspects of performance — something Windows laptop makers have been trying to do for ages. The 13.8-inch Surface Laptop was brilliant, but Windows on Arm’s occasional app incompatibility stopped it just shy of being the default alternative to the MacBook Air.

Nearly a year later, Microsoft has new Snapdragon-based Surfaces that are a little smaller and a little cheaper. The $899.99 13-inch Surface Laptop is nearly as great as last year’s, despite some cost-cutting measures like a lower-resolution screen, a processor with two fewer cores, no face unlock, and no magnetic charging port. The hardware remains excellent, and Windows on Arm is even slightly better than last year. It’ll probably work fine for some of you, but not all.

$900

The Good

Exquisite hardware that feels great to touch and use
Very good keyboard and one of the best mechanical trackpads
Battery can stretch to 1.5 days (with native Arm apps)
3:2 aspect ratio screen is ideal for productivity

The Bad

Webcam doesn’t support Windows Hello
Loss of magnetic charging port
Snapdragon X still has app and game compatibility issues that competing chips do not
Why have Home, Page Up, and Page Down keys instead of media controls?

The base 13-inch Surface Laptop, officially known as the Microsoft Surface 13-inch 1st Edition with Snapdragon (man alive, what a name), has an 8-core Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus processor, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. For an additional $100, you can get 512GB of storage. If you want more RAM or storage — or a more powerful processor — you’ll need to jump to last year’s 13.8-inch model, which now starts at $1,099.99 with a 10-core processor and 512GB SSD.

Screen: B
Webcam: B
Mic: C
Keyboard: B
Touchpad: B
Port selection: C
Speakers: C
Number of ugly stickers to remove: 0

There isn’t a single major flaw in the new Surface Laptop’s hardware, though there are some minor downgrades and unfortunate omissions compared to the larger version. It doesn’t quite match the 13.8-inch’s screen, trackpad, ports, or webcam, but it’s a very good offering for its lower price. The 13-inch Surface has a 400-nit IPS screen that’s 1920 x 1280 resolution and 60Hz. It’s sharp and pleasing to look at, and it retains the 3:2 aspect ratio that’s so great for productivity, but it’s a step down from the 2304 x 1536 and 120Hz of the 13.8-inch Surface.

For ports, it’s equipped with a pair of USB-C 3.2, one USB-A 3.1, and a 3.5mm combo audio jack. It lacks the magnetic Surface Connect port of the larger models, which means you’re reliant on USB-C for power and port expansion. I can forgive that, but the more disappointing omission is Windows Hello face unlock. The 1080p webcam is otherwise sharp and contrasty, but Microsoft opted for Windows Hello biometric unlocking through a fingerprint sensor in the power button instead, likely to save money.

But, thankfully, there are a few key areas where the 13-inch excels despite its cost-cutting measures. The four-speaker setup sounds pretty good overall, though once you crank the volume, the low end hollows out. Typing on the Surface is pretty quiet and has just enough tactile feedback to feel nice — I even prefer it to the MacBook Air that it’s competing with. But one of my favorite parts is the trackpad. It’s mechanical, instead of haptic like its larger counterparts, but I’ve been shocked by how good it sounds and feels. Each click is crisp and well defined; it has a nice ka-chunk that’s pretty satisfying. You can’t click anywhere on it like you can on a haptic pad, but if every mechanical trackpad were this good, I’d finally shut up about it.

PreviousNext

1/2This is a very good keyboard and trackpad.

Like last year’s 13.8-inch Surface Laptop, the Qualcomm chip sips power and can even get through a 12-hour day of productivity apps (messaging, calls, Google Docs, lots of Chrome tabs, occasional music listening, downloading and uploading files). It also has exceptional standby times, so you can leave it closed and unplugged overnight with minimal battery drain.

Even if your laptop stays plugged in most days, it’s just so convenient not to worry about battery life when you take it off the charger. As I type this, it’s around 5:30PM, and I unplugged the charger at 10AM. I’ve had a one-hour Zoom video call — always a battery killer — and mixed use between productivity apps and some photo editing in Lightroom Classic (which isn’t a native Arm app, so it drains the battery faster). The Surface dipped below 30 percent battery and Windows turned on energy saver mode well over an hour ago, and I haven’t had to rush from my spot to plug in.

The right side has two USB-C 3.2 ports.

The left side has a single USB-A 3.1 port and an audio jack. And that’s it.

The 8-core Snapdragon X Plus processor performs well for core productivity and work tasks, though it did slow down once for me during some heavy multitasking on battery power. That was so far a one-off. I was on a browser-based Microsoft Teams video call, bouncing in and out of a document to take notes, with over 15 Chrome tabs open and a couple of other apps like Slack and Signal running in the background. It didn’t crash, but things slowed down for a moment while the video feed on Teams crapped out. I was able to jumpstart the video again by minimizing the window and restoring it, and things went back to normal.

The fan kicks on when you’re working it hard like that, but it almost always stays quiet and inoffensive. It would have been nice to see Microsoft go fanless as it did on the new 12-inch Surface Pro. Fortunately, any fan noise is infrequent enough that I often forget it’s there, and the chassis never got more than slightly warm to the touch.

With two fewer cores than the 13.8-inch and four fewer than its pricier Snapdragon X Elite configurations, the 13-inch is predictably slower at multicore tasks and related synthetic benchmarks. It’s still adequate for general purpose needs, but it’s not going to do any heavy lifting in creative apps without slowing down. By contrast, an M4 MacBook Air costing just $100 more than the Surface Laptop 13-inch can dabble in content creation apps and actually beats all the Surfaces (even the pricier ones) in many of our tests. It’s still hard to beat Apple, but if you’re not cross-shopping operating systems that doesn’t really matter.

System

Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch / Snapdragon X Plus 8C / 16GB / 512GB

Microsoft Surface Laptop 13.8-inch / Snapdragon X Plus 10C / 16GB / 512GB

Microsoft Surface Laptop 15-inch / Snapdragon X Elite 12C / 16GB / 512GB

MacBook Air 13-inch M4 / 10C / 10C / 16GB / 512GB

Geekbench 6 CPU Single2437244628413775Geekbench 6 CPU Multi11427131901466114899Geekbench 6 GPU (OpenCL)939119993Not tested30701Cinebench 2024 Single109108122171Cinebench 2024 Multi682808971736PugetBench for Photoshop47735600674810163Sustained SSD reads (MB/s)3840.783663.136562910.04Sustained SSD writes (MB/s)3476.622478.4429442115.57Blender Classroom test (seconds, lower is better)486418712 (tested before Blender had Arm support)69

While app compatibility can also be a mixed bag, I’m relieved that it’s gotten better since last year. The vast majority of Windows apps work fine on Arm, either natively or through emulation, but there are enough edge cases, especially around photo and video editing, 3D rendering, and music creation, that you still do need to make sure your apps are going to work well before you buy.

In my review of the HP OmniBook X, I lamented that the lack of support for Adobe Lightroom Classic forced me to use the standard, mobile-centric Lightroom, which I hate. Lightroom Classic now works via emulation, and it does so quite well. I can edit my 50-megapixel RAW files on the Surface Laptop 13-inch, and it’s fast enough for some dip in, dip out sessions. I wouldn’t want to edit an elaborate product shoot on a tight deadline or cull and batch-process a full wedding shoot, but it’s good to know that I can do some photo editing if I have to.

It’s still hard to beat Apple, but if you’re not cross-shopping operating systems that doesn’t really matter.

But elsewhere, even within the Adobe Creative Cloud suite, there are still some major omissions. Adobe After Effects, Illustrator, and InDesign have zero support for Windows on Arm — they don’t even run emulated. Adobe says on its help page that Arm-supported versions of these apps “will be released soon,” but there’s no estimated timeframe.

In other cases, apps run but still leave a bit to be desired. Blender was updated with Windows on Arm support last year, but it still doesn’t fully utilize the Snapdragon X’s GPU cores, leading to significantly longer rendering times than even a MacBook Air. Windows on Arm seems to be on the right trajectory, but it’s going to take much longer to reach full parity with vanilla x86 Windows, especially if you account for games.

1/7Here are some side-by-side comparisons with the 13-inch MacBook Air M4.

Game support for the Snapdragon-based Surfaces, as with Macs, is still a crapshoot. The Surface Laptop 13-inch is not a gaming machine, obviously, but plenty of games that work just fine on other Windows laptops with integrated graphics run poorly or not at all. Right now, most popular online shooters, like Fortnite and Valorant, which include anti-cheat software, can’t run on Windows on Arm laptops (though Fortnite is coming to Arm eventually). Some of my favorite indies — like Vampire Survivors and Balatro — work, but your best option is to stream games from services like GeForce Now or Xbox Cloud Gaming, though even as a PC Game Pass subscriber, you can’t install any Game Pass games locally like you can on x86 PCs.

There’s an easier path around these obstacles. Microsoft could have just used an Intel Lunar Lake chip in the new Surface Laptop, which would have likely sacrificed some battery efficiency for wide-ranging app and game compatibility. Last year’s Surfaces did get that as an option, but Microsoft positioned them as enterprise laptops with higher prices. You can buy them, but only at specialized retailers.

The hinge doesn’t go to any extreme angles, but it’s sturdy without being too hard to open.

Despite Microsoft’s ongoing Windows on Arm push, the vast majority of the Windows ecosystem and user base still lives on x86. Since the first Snapdragon X PCs came out last year, Intel Lunar Lake and AMD Strix Point chips have proven x86 still has the juice (for now), and there’s a draw to sticking with a proven platform instead of risking potential frustrations with Arm, especially for creative work.

Opting for a Lunar Lake laptop like the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i , or a Strix Point one like Asus’s Zenbook S 16, avoids the app compatibility issue entirely and gets you better performance in graphical tasks like photo and video editing, at the cost of a few hours of battery life and a few hundred dollars. Though, there are pricier Windows laptops running these chips that totally flub the basics compared to the Surface.

This thing is certainly sleek.

At $900, the 13-inch is an exceptional no-nonsense Windows laptop for general productivity stuff, and it looks and feels great. It’s right at the price range where laptops start getting really good, without the kinds of compromises that feel like penalty boxes a few years later: slow processors, low-quality screens, bad battery life, or cheap builds. It’s much better hardware than some other laptops in its price range, with better battery life, in exchange for small compromises on speed and app compatibility. The 13.8-inch version is still nicer overall, but that one now costs $200 to $300 more thanks to Microsoft’s own price and configuration shuffling.

Would I buy one for myself? Truthfully, no. I moonlight as a wedding photographer, and while Lightroom Classic works with Windows on Arm now, it’s just not fast enough to rely on yet. And my gaming sensibilities lead me to feeling that if I can’t play games on a laptop, I might as well switch back to a MacBook.

But nearly every downside of the Surface Laptop 13-inch is just a downside of Windows on Arm. If developers keep updating their programs to use the architecture properly, the edge cases get fewer, and the closer the Surface Laptop 13-inch gets to being the easy answer to “what laptop should I buy?”

2025 Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch specs (as reviewed)

Display: 13-inch (1920 x 1280) 60Hz touschscreen
CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus X1P-42-100
RAM: 16GB LPDDR5X (non-replaceable)
Storage: 512GB UFS
Webcam: 1080p
Connectivity: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4
Ports: 1x USB-A 3.1, 2x USB-C 3.2, 3.5mm combo audio jack
Weight: 2.7 pounds
Dimensions: 11.25 x 8.43 x 0.61
Battery: 50Wh
Price: $999.99

Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

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May 28, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

Apple’s 13-inch MacBook Air M4 drops to $850 for Memorial Day

by admin May 26, 2025

If you’ve been eyeing Apple’s new MacBook Air with the M4 chip, now’s a good time to scoop one up. The 13-inch model (16GB RAM, 256GB SSD) is over $100 off its usual starting price of $999 in a Memorial Day sale on Amazon — and a coupon available for three of the four colors brings the price down even further to $850. That applies to the 13-inch M4 MacBook Air in Midnight, Silver and Sky Blue. The Starlight variant is on sale too, but with no additional coupon, making it $899.

Apple

Models with higher storage options are on sale too, also with savings of more than $100 and a coupon for certain colors. The model with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD is down to around $1,050 from its usual $1,199, while the version above that (24GB RAM, 512GB SSD) is around $1,250 compared to the normal $1,399 price tag. The prices are unbeatable for the laptop that’s only been out for a few months, and is our pick for the best MacBook you can get in 2025.

The 13-inch MacBook Air M4 was released in March and scored a 92 in our review. Engadget’s Devindra Hardawar called it “a nearly flawless ultraportable,” especially with a starting price that’s lower than what we’ve seen in earlier models. It weighs just 2.7 pounds and measures 0.44 inches thick, but is a fast and capable laptop with a bright display and impressive battery life. In Engadget’s tests, the 13-inch MacBook Air lasted for more than 18 hours with HD video running.

Even the base model should be fine for most users, with a 10-core CPU, 8-core GPU and 16-core Neural Engine. As Devindra noted in his review, this year’s 13- and 15-inch MacBook Airs are “zippy, wonderfully light and can last well beyond a full day of work.”

Check out our coverage of the best Apple deals for more discounts, and follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

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May 26, 2025 0 comments