Microsoft today announced the release schedule and pricing for the Surface Laptop Ultra it introduced earlier this year. The 15-inch Surface Laptop Ultra starts at $2,599, less than Apple’s 16-inch MacBook Pro, which costs $2,999, and targets the same market of creators and developers. Microsoft says it’s designed for “demanding creative, software development, AI, engineering, and 3D workloads.” Microsoft’s new laptop uses an Nvidia RTX Spark chip, which includes an Nvidia Blackwell RTX GPU with up to 6,144 cores and an Nvidia Grace CPU with up to 20 cores. It supports up to 128 GB of unified memory and has a new thermal architecture to support the hardware. The RTX Spark is an Arm-based chip, so the laptop runs Windows on Arm with x86 apps using Microsoft’s Prism emulation. According to Microsoft, the Surface Laptop Ultra is its most powerful laptop to date. It has the “brightest, sharpest and most vivid display” Microsoft has ever used on a Surface device, with a maximum HDR brightness that’s 25% higher than the MacBook Pro M5. The mini-LED display is a touchscreen and supports gestures and navigation, but not pen input. The laptop is lighter than the 16-inch MacBook Pro, with a large haptic trackpad and upgradeable storage. Microsoft even adopted a MagSafe equivalent, adding support for Magnetic Connect. Microsoft says Magnetic Connect is “the world’s first magnetic USB-C charging built into a laptop.” The device has three USB-C ports, one USB-A port, one HDMI port, an SD card reader, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Along with the Surface Laptop Ultra, Microsoft announced the $5,999 Surface RTX Spark Dev Box to compete with devices like the Mac Studio and Mac mini. It is equipped with an Nvidia RTX Spark chip and offers up to 1 petaflop of AI performance with support for AI models with up to 120B of parameters. Microsoft offers a bonus to customers who “break in” with their MacBooks. MacBook owners can get up to $1,000 cash back when purchasing a Surface Laptop Ultra when you trade in an eligible MacBook. Surface Laptop Ultra launches on October 16. “We’re confident that once today’s creators and developers experience everything the Surface Laptop Ultra has to offer, they won’t look back,” reads Microsoft’s website. The Surface Laptop Ultra will compete directly with Apple’s rumored OLED MacBook, which could also have an Ultra name. The MacBook Ultra is expected to feature a touchscreen, M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, and a thinner, lighter design.
