GoKawiilNearly 10 years ago I reviewed my favorite Surface device. Microsoft hand-delivered its Surface Studio all-in-one PC to me, and I was hooked from the moment I switched it on. It had a beautiful floating touchscreen that you could push all the way down into a drawing board mode, making it unlike anything I had seen in the PC market. But like many other Surface devices, it no longer exists.
Over the past few years, Microsoft has been steadily walking back from the experimental ethos that built the brand. The detachable Surface Book? Gone. The giant Surface Hub touchscreen displays? Gone. The Android-powered Surface Duo? Gone. Even the Surface Laptop Studio, which was supposed to replace the Surface Book, has been axed.
What’s left of Microsoft’s Surface devices has been reduced to just the Surface Laptop and Surface Pro, with a variety of different sizes and specifications. Earlier this month Microsoft launched its Surface Pro 12 and Surface Laptop 8 devices with Intel chips inside, and rumors suggest Qualcomm-powered consumer versions will be announced next month.
Both of the new Surface Laptop and Pro models are simply refinements of an existing formula and don’t push the categories forward in meaningful ways. The Surface Pro and Surface Laptop have matured to the point where Microsoft can launch smaller models that squeeze in more powerful chips, but apart from that, you know what you’re getting at this point. The real surprise is the pricing: Both start at an eye-watering $1,949.99, which could seriously hinder their adoption by the businesses they target.
There’s still a chance for Microsoft to launch a different kind of Surface, though. Months of rumors suggest Nvidia is about to enter the Windows on Arm market with its own chips, the N1 and N1X. Lenovo and Dell are rumored to be working on devices with Nvidia’s new chips, and recent reports suggest Nvidia will announce its Arm-powered processors at its Computex keynote this weekend.
Microsoft used Nvidia’s Arm-powered Tegra chips for its original Surface RT tablet in 2012, before partnering more closely with Qualcomm for its Windows on Arm efforts. It’s hard to imagine that Nvidia would be dipping its toes back into the Windows on Arm market without having renewed a close partnership with Microsoft.
The advantage of Nvidia’s new chips over Qualcomm’s existing offerings will likely be on the GPU side. That’s where Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chips have been weaker than the competition, and Nvidia has an opportunity to really push Windows on Arm gaming laptops forward with a stronger GPU and better driver support.
Could we finally see a Surface gaming laptop? I’m not so sure Microsoft would be interested in this market itself, despite regular calls for an Xbox or Surface gaming laptop. Former Surface chief Panos Panay told me in 2022 that OEMs serve this part of the market well, so there was no need for Microsoft to do its own.
Where I do see the potential for a Microsoft and Nvidia partnership with these new chips is on the AI side. Nvidia isn’t a gaming company anymore, so if it’s launching new Arm-powered processors then you can bet they’ll be focused on powering local AI agents, too. I’m expecting Nvidia’s N1 and N1X chips to be tuned for AI workloads. Microsoft has been working hard to make Windows attractive to AI developers, so a Nvidia partnership here would make a lot of sense.
I’m also expecting Microsoft to continue the type of hardware work that leads to devices like its smart Surface camera. While this camera was primarily designed for the Surface Hub devices Microsoft is now giving up on, it’s the combination of AI and hardware that could be used in regular webcams down the line.
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