Microsoft Launches The Surface Laptop 3: Here's What You Need To Know
By the time this post is published, it would have been a full 24 hours since Microsoft held its yearly Surface event, which took place here in New York City — living up to the hype and rumors that circulated on the Internet months before launching the Surface Laptop 3.
From all the information I've gathered, here's what you need to know about new Surface Laptop 3.
Right off the back, the device will be available in two screen sizes, 13-inches and for the first time we will have a 15-inch form factor within the Surface Pro product line. Granting users a much larger display to work with.
Regarding hardware, the 13-inch model will have a quad-core Intel Ice Lake processor. Interestingly the 15-inch model will use an AMD Ryzen APUs integrated with Radeon Vega graphics. Ironically, the name of the device is AMD Ryzen Surface Edition. If I'm not mistaken, implementing AMD base hardware into their Surface Pro product line is a first for Microsoft. And of course a considerable market win for AMD. On the memory and storage front, you get up tp 16GB LPDDR4X RAM and up to 1TB removable SSD storage.
When it comes to connectivity, Microsoft finally joins its competitors by including a USB Type-C port to their Surface Pro lineup. But it's not the first device to have this feature. Last year Microsoft introduced this feature to their Surface Go tablet. The only Microsoft device to date have USB Type-C. What we won't have is a Thunderbolt port, which is a surprise considering many had high hopes it would be featured on this laptop.
Consumers will have a new color option for the Surface Pro 3 that will include Sandstone, and for the very first time, have the option to purchase the laptop with or without Alcantara fabric that covers the keyboard deck. As a bonus, Microsoft adds fast charging support, taking the battery to 80-percent charge in less than an hour.
Both models are now available for preorder and will start shipping on October 22nd. Prices goes as follows, $999 for the 13-inch model and $1,199 for the 15-inch model.
The Surface Pro 3 laptop wasn't the only device Microsoft launched at the event. The company also raised the curtains and unveiled the Surface Pro 7, which retains the same design from previous models having significant upgrades to hardware. There's still a 12.3-inch PixelSense Display (2736 x 1824 resolution) and hardened chassis edges. Just like the Pro 3, the Surface Pro 7 also has USB Type-C connectivity but no Thunderbolt port.
As eluded in the paragraph above, there are significant changes to the hardware, instead of having an 8th generation Kaby Lake-R Core i5 and i7 processor, the Surface Pro 7 will now have the Intel 10th generation, 10nm Ice Lake processor. Undoubtedly it will have performance gains over Kaby Lake-R and consume less power. The Surface Pro 7 is readily available for a preorder retail price starting at $749 and will ship on October 22nd.
