Microsoft unveils new Surface Laptop with improved trackpad, Snapdragon X2, and more

Alongside the new Surface Pro, Microsoft is debuting its next-generation Surface Laptop with newer processors and higher prices.

Microsoft's new Surface Laptop Ultra generated a lot of buzz earlier this month, but in addition to its most powerful laptop with an NVIDIA chip, Microsoft also has a more affordable laptop lineup, which has been waiting for an update for quite a while. Today, Microsoft announced the eighth-generation Surface Laptop.

The new Surface Laptop is powered by the Snapdragon X2 Plus and X2 Elite processors. These chips offer faster CPU performance, up to 58% faster graphics, and 80 TOPS Neural Processing Units (NPUs) for on-device AI processing. Like the previous models, these chips retain their great energy efficiency, and Microsoft says that buyers can expect up to 20 hours of work on a single charge.

The laptop is available in two sizes: 13.8-inch and 15-inch. You will have a hard time finding visual differences between the new and previous models, as Microsoft is not taking any major design leaps, except for the new Jade color, which may look familiar to Surface Laptop 5 owners. Other colors include Platinum, Black, and Dune.

The 15-inch variant got a higher-resolution display. It is a 3,270 x 2,180 resolution screen with a pixel density of 262 ppi (the 13-inch model has a 201 ppi density) and a maximum brightness of 600 nits SDR and HDR. Unlike the Surface Pro 12th-gen, which is available with optional OLED displays, the Surface Laptop sticks with IPS, a 1,300:1 contrast ratio, a 120Hz refresh rate, and a 3:2 aspect ratio.

Another notable change in the Surface Laptop 8 is its trackpad. It now provides haptic feedback when you perform various actions in apps and the operating system. It is a relatively new feature that Microsoft brought to Windows 11 in recent updates, and it is only available on certain devices, such as the Logitech MX Master 4, Surface Slim Pen 2, the upcoming Surface Laptop Ultra, and now the Surface Laptop 8.

Like its tablet-shaped sibling, the new Surface Laptop is notably more expensive. It starts at a $1,599 for a 13.8-inch configuration with a 256GB SSD and 16GB of RAM. However, in the US, the base model has double the storage while keeping the same price. Available configurations include up to 64GB of memory and up to 2TB SSD (user-removable PCIe Gen4). The Surface Laptop 8 is now available for purchase on the official Microsoft website.

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Posted Wednesday 17 June 2026 at 6:23 am AEST (my time).

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