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Microsoft has two new Surface devices arriving later this year, both powered by Nvidia’s RTX Spark chips. I got a chance to take a closer look at both the Surface Laptop Ultra and Surface RTX Spark Dev Box at Microsoft’s Build conference this week, and while both have the same chip inside, they’re utilizing Nvidia’s RTX Spark in different ways.
The Surface Laptop Ultra looks and feels very much like a 16-inch MacBook Pro. There are no transforming hinges, detachable displays, or any other tricks — this is a clamshell laptop built with performance in mind. Microsoft has opted for a 15-inch mini LED panel, which operates at up to 2,000 nits of HDR brightness. I got to see that peak HDR level in a dark room, and I can confirm it’s a very, very bright display. In fact, it’s the brightest display Microsoft has ever put on a Surface device.
The Nightfall color option.
The trackpad on the Surface Laptop Ultra is not only bigger than regular Surface trackpads, it also has the new haptics support in Windows 11. This adds subtle haptic patterns when you’re hovering near a close button in Windows, or alignment cues when you’re trying to drag, scale, or rotate objects. It’s the type of haptics that really transforms how a device feels, and you’ll notice it in various parts of Windows 11 when you’re dragging sliders and interacting with UI elements. I hope other laptop manufacturers start shipping this improved haptics support, too.
When I first picked up the Surface Laptop Ultra, I was also surprised by the weight. It feels hefty compared to the 15-inch Surface Laptop 7, but there’s clearly been a tradeoff of weight in favor of performance and battery life. “When we went through the priority order of what we’re going to design for, performance, performance, performance, battery life, battery life, battery life, display, display, display, making sure we’d nailed those things,” says Andrew Hill, corporate vice president of Surface product, in an interview with The Verge. “If other tradeoffs have to be made, so be it, but let’s make sure we nail the fundamentals that are really what people care about.”
This is the biggest trackpad on a Surface device and it also has a new haptics system.
I got to see the Surface Laptop Ultra being put through its paces in a variety of tasks, including one demo where it was running a local AI model that was eating up a lot of the 128GB of unified memory, all while Indiana Jones and the Great Circle was playable.
I also got to feel the heat dissipation of the Surface Laptop Ultra, which has a hot spot just above the keyboard. It felt warm to touch at the section on the top of the keyboard and below that area on the rear of the device, but not hot enough to be uncomfortable on a lap. Microsoft is also using two fans to cool the device, and I could barely hear them even at almost full load.
The inside of the Surface Laptop Ultra is like a work of art.
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