Microsoft put new silicon in its flagship laptops this year. Then it jacked up the prices.
Buying a 2024 Surface Laptop with 512GB of storage cost $999 on Amazon in the Dune finish when Wired published its October 2026 buying guide. Black and Silver builds cost $50 more. The replacement, the Surface Laptop 8th Edition, runs on Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2 chips. For an otherwise identical configuration, it demands over $400 more. Sometimes it sells at its full retail price of $1,600. Wired wrote that recommending the 2024 model over the current one felt "embarrassing. Not for me — but for Microsoft."
That 2024 machine built its reputation on battery life and a tall 3:2 screen, sold in 13.8-inch and 15-inch sizes. At $1,600 for the newer 8th Edition, Wired argued that the price hike wipes out the appeal: "That's just too much for what you're getting."
The culprit is memory. Wired reported that an ongoing component shortage has pushed laptop prices up across the market.
Independent testing on the Laptop 8th Edition has also stalled. Microsoft chose not to send review loaners to tech outlets. Wired tested the Snapdragon X2 silicon inside Lenovo's IdeaPad Slim 5x and logged clear graphics gains. Still, Microsoft's own machine remains untested by outside reviewers.
Then comes the Surface Laptop Ultra. Wired described the new workstation as a "completely different animal under the hood."
It matches the thickness of the standard 15-inch Surface Laptop. Yet it runs on an Nvidia RTX Spark N1X chip, designed to deliver discrete GPU power in a thin chassis. Buyers can spec up to 128GB of unified RAM for on-device AI tasks. Wired evaluated a 32GB model and reported that 32GB cannot handle models with 70 billion parameters or more. Gaming brings snags too. Hit online titles such as League of Legends and PUBG refuse to run, though Nvidia claims it is "working on it."
On the tablet side, the Surface Pro lineup is splintering. Microsoft sells the Surface Pro 12th Edition alongside the smaller Surface Pro 12, which runs a stripped-down Snapdragon X Plus chip with two fewer cores. Wired gave the Pro 12 a 6 out of 10 at launch, citing webcam and screen downgrades. But with the larger 13.8-inch Surface Pro climbing in price, Wired now calls the smaller tablet the better buy among Microsoft's 2-in-1s.
Shoppers looking at Microsoft's 2026 catalog face a stark choice: pay hundreds more for Snapdragon X2, or scoop up discounted 2024 stock before Amazon runs dry.
DDFiled by The Deals Desk
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