‘Surface is hardware built to bring the best of Microsoft to life,’ says Brett Ostrum, Microsoft corporate vice president for Surface devices.
Microsoft plans to make a host of new Surface devices, including the Pro 12-inch, Laptop 13-inch and a Surface Mouse, available on Oct. 13 in select markets.
The Pro 12-inch starts at a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $1,149.99 while the Laptop 13-inch starts at $1,199 MSRP, according to the Redmond, Wash.-based technology giant. Surface Mouse starts at $79.99. All three devices will be available to commercial customers through the Surface for Business program.
Microsoft disclosed the new thin, light Windows PCs as part of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit 2026, which runs through Thursday in Maui, Hawaii. The new Pro and Laptop devices are built on Snapdragon X2 Plus processors.
The new devices follow up on Microsoft’s July release of enterprise and commercial versions of its new 13-inch Surface Pro and 13.8-inch and 15-inch Surface Laptop options with X2 processors.
[RELATED: Microsoft Unveils Surface Pro, Laptop With AI-Ready Snapdragon X2]
The new Pro and Laptop options were designed with 18 percent more efficient battery performance, 60 percent faster graphics and 95 percent faster on-device AI while maintaining their lightweight designs, Brett Ostrum, Microsoft corporate vice president for Surface devices, said in a statement.
“Surface is hardware built to bring the best of Microsoft to life—Windows, Copilot and Microsoft 365 experiences that make a PC feel more useful, more personal and more responsive,” Ostrum said.
John Richards, vice president of engineering at Tampa, Fla.-based AVI-SPL—a Microsoft Managed Partner and No. 57 on CRN’s 2026 Solution Provider 500—told CRN in a recent interview that AI has been transforming customer conversations around the modern conference room.
Microsoft’s Teams collaboration application has become a foundational platform for customer meeting rooms, with the Copilot AI application adding more value to Teams and opening up new experiences around voice identification and ways to gather data and insight from meetings, he said.
“There’s an immense opportunity in workplace transformation,” Richards said. “Everybody’s in a different place in the spectrum right now as to where they’re at in solving that [setup optimization] problem and who their power users are and the change management activities that need to happen to truly get the most out of this.”
Microsoft Expands Surface Portfolio
The Snapdragon X2 chip and Microsoft’s Windows operating system enable users to run AI on the device, in the cloud or in a hybrid environment, according to Microsoft. Users can choose the approach that provides lower latency, reduced dependence on cloud calls and tokens, and greater data privacy.
The new Pro and Laptop promise up to 17 percent faster performance for Microsoft Office productivity workloads, up to 18 percent more efficient battery performance, more than 60 percent faster graphics performance and up to 95 percent faster local AI inferencing on the neural processing unit (NPU). Neither device has a fan.
And both of them are 25 percent brighter with 500-nit, 3-to-2 aspect ratio PixelSense touch screens and a new black color option.
Both devices have secured-core PC safeguards, Microsoft’s Pluton security processor built into the computer’s main CPU with Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0, and other Microsoft-designed protections.
They have Surface Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), a modern replacement for traditional Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) firmware, according to Microsoft.
Solution providers and IT teams can leverage the Surface Tools for Business suite for managing, protecting, supporting and recovering devices throughout their life cycles, according to Microsoft. That suite includes the Surface Management Portal, Surface Support Portal, Surface IT Toolkit and Surface Repair Tool.
Surface Pro 12-Inch Brings Portable Design, Pen Features, 5G Option
Microsoft bills the Pro 12-inch as its most portable and versatile device in the Pro lineup. The device can convert from tablet to laptop. Users can attach a keyboard to this device, and the Pro has a magnetically stored Surface Slim Pen for sketching.
Pro can leverage the Snapdragon X2 Plus chip for summarizing notes, editing photos and annotating designs, according to Microsoft. The chip helps add an extra hour of active web browsing for users.
Surface Pro 12-inch devices will have an AI-powered, pen-first Ink Canvas experience pre-installed. The experience will also be available to download from Microsoft Store for supported Surface and Windows devices on Oct. 13. Users can leverage Ink Canvas for sketching, annotating, generating images and summarizing text directly on the canvas.
The new device has a 5G configuration option for mobile teams to stay connected without public Wi-Fi. It also supports Windows Hello facial recognition with enhanced sign-in security and has a 10 megapixel Ultra High Definition rear-facing camera.
Surface Pro 12-inch also has a kickstand with a 165-degree full-friction hinge and accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer sensors.
Surface Laptop 13-Inch Promises Longer Battery Life
The Laptop’s battery supports up to 22.5 hours of local video playback and up to 18 hours of active web usage. By comparison, the Pro has up to 15.5 hours of local video playback and up to 13 hours of active web usage.
Surface Laptop 13-inch has a resolution of 1,920 x 1,280 pixels at 178 pixels per inch compared with the Pro’s 2,196 x 1,464 resolution at 220 PPI.
The new Laptop measures 11.25 inches long x 8.43 inches wide x 0.61 inches tall and weighs 2.7 pounds. The Pro is 10.8 inches long, 7.47 inches wide and 0.3 inches tall and weighs 1.5 pounds, according to Microsoft.
The 13-inch has a contrast ratio of 1,000 to 1 compared with the Pro’s 1,400 to 1 and a refresh rate of up to 60Hertz compared to the Pro’s up to 90Hz.
Surface Laptop 13-inch supports a fingerprint power button with enhanced sign-in security, a Universal Serial Bus Type-A version 3.2 port and 3.5-millimeter headphone jack.
Surface Mouse Has Copilot Button Option
Surface Mouse devices will come in black and platinum and will be available from the Microsoft Store, according to the vendor. The mouse will have integrated haptic feedback that responds to clicks, window snapping, object alignment and other activities.
Microsoft’s new mouse has a shape for left-handed and right-handed users, a customizable action button for its Copilot AI assistant and other shortcuts and Bluetooth 6.0 for pairing with up to three devices.
It has four buttons, a mechanical scroll wheel and 2.4GHz frequency range. It measures 4.3 inches long, 2.48 inches wide and 1.43 inches tall, weighing 4 ounces including batteries.
