Microsoft switched the Surface Pro tablet and both sizes of Surface Laptop from Intel and AMD’s processors to Qualcomm’s Arm-based processors last summer, part of a renewed hardware and software push to make the Arm version of Windows a thing. That ended a few years of a bifurcated approach, where the Intel and AMD versions of Surface PCs were the “main” versions and the Arm variants felt more like proof-of-concept side projects.
But if you work in a large organization or you’re an IT administrator, the bifurcated approach continues. Microsoft announced some business-only versions of the Surface Pro tablet and the Surface Laptop last year that continued to use Intel processors, and today it’s announcing two more, this time using Intel’s Lunar Lake-based Core Ultra CPUs.
The refresh includes a new Surface Pro tablet and both 13- and 15-inch versions of the Surface Laptop, updated with most of the same design tweaks that the Qualcomm versions of the devices got last year (for example, a slightly larger 13.8-inch screen on the smaller version of the Surface Laptop, up from 13.5 inches). Generally, they have similar dimensions, weights, and configuration options as their Arm counterparts, including an OLED display option for the Surface Pro.
Officially, Microsoft refers to the devices as the Surface Pro 11th Edition for Business and the Surface Laptop 7th Edition for Business, the same generation numbers it uses for the Arm-based Qualcomm Snapdragon versions it sells to consumers.
The Lunar Lake processors include a neural processing unit (NPU) fast enough to qualify for Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC label, which unlocks a few AI and machine learning-related features that aren’t available on most Windows 11 PCs. At this point, many of those features are still in preview, including the overhauled Windows Recall, a feature called Click To Do that “identif[ies] text and images on your screen that you can take actions with,” and an updated Windows Search that tries to do a better job understanding plain-language queries. For now, at least, it’s worth noting that the Snapdragon Copilot+ PCs are all getting these features first, and so far, Intel and AMD PCs have gotten them weeks later.
All the devices offer one of four possible Core Ultra CPUs (the 236V, 238V, 266V, and 268V); integrated Intel Arc graphics; 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB of storage; and either 16GB or 32GB of RAM. Some of the Qualcomm Surface devices offer as much as 64GB of RAM, but the Lunar Lake chips top out at 32GB.
Per usual for its business-specific Surface devices, Microsoft isn’t including pricing as part of its announcement today; these will probably vary based on the kind of organization that is buying them and how many devices they’re buying.
Microsoft is also launching a $200 Surface USB4 Dock for all Surface devices. It appears to be a slightly streamlined, somewhat less-capable version of the Surface Dock 2, with up to 65 W of power delivery, two USB-C ports, one USB-A port, an HDMI port, and an Ethernet port. The dock can connect to up to two external 4K displays using its USB-C and HDMI ports.
Why make x86 Surface PCs just for businesses?
Microsoft’s x86-to-Arm app translation layer, now called Prism, is capable of running many legacy apps, and it has become much more common for developers to release both x86 and Arm-native versions of their Windows apps. But Windows and x86 processors were closely intertwined for decades, and lingering compatibility issues remain. Companies and other large organizations are more likely to have made large investments in obscure software or hardware that uses specialized drivers, things that can’t be translated automatically by Prism and whose developers are less incentivized to prioritize niche features like Arm compatibility.
If Microsoft is going to continue to design, manufacture, and sell Intel-based Surface devices anyway, we’d prefer that they be offered to the general public—surely there are Surface-curious PC enthusiasts who need or would prefer an x86 machine to an Arm one for various reasons.