Microsoft revealed new Surface hardware on May 6 with a new Surface Laptop 13-inch joining the ranks. Here’s how the new Copilot+ PC compares to the existing Surface Laptop 7 (2024) stablemate.
The new addition to the Surface Laptop range is smaller more affordable than its the current models, but there are compromises on specs. It’ll sit alongside the current Surface Laptop 7 models among Microsoft’s homemade Copilot+ PC line up when it arrives on May 20.
Let’s delve straight in and check out the differences.
Surface Laptop 13 is cheaper, but…
Microsoft’s new Surface Laptop 13 stars at just $899 in the United States, while the Surface Laptop 7 started at $999 a year, but we’ve seen it much cheaper than that. On that evidence, given what we’re about to tell you, it seems difficult to recommend the 2025 model. We’ll have to get the Surface Laptop 13-inch in for testing before we can determine whether it’s worthy of a place in our best Windows laptops guide.
Surface Laptop 7 has a much better display
As well as being larger, the 13.8-inch Surface Laptop 7 offers a 2304 × 1536 (201 PPI) resolution panel with a 1400:1 contrast ratio and upto 120Hz refresh rate. The new model’s 13-inch panel is a significant downgrade with a 1920 x 180 resolution (178 PPI), with a 1000:1 contrast ratio and just a 60Hz refresh rate.
Surface Laptop 13 is thinner and lighter with a smaller screen
More specifically the newcomer is the thinnest and lightest Surface Laptop ever so the ultraportable just got, well, more portable.
Microsoft hasn’t revealed the full specs yet but the Surface Laptop 7 13.8-inch was 1.43kg and 17.5mm thick. The Surface Laptop 13-inch (2025) is 1.22kg / 15.6 mm
There’s only one display size option in this generation now with thew 13-inch screen replacing the 13.8-inch and 15-inch models. The Surface Laptop 7 is available in Black, Platinum, Dune and Sapphire, while the 2025 Surface Laptop 13-inch will be available in Ocean, Violet and Platinum.
There are Snapdragon X differences
Microsoft is equipping the new Surface Laptop 13-inch with an 8-core Snapdragon X Plus CPU with up to 16GB of RAM.
That’s a downgrade from the Surface Laptop 13.8-inch and 15-inch options that offered a 10-core Snapdragon X Plus or a 12-core Snapdragon X Elite. These models were configurable to 64GB of LPDDR5 RAM.
No Windows Hello facial recognition nor Surface Connect Port
Last year’s Surface Laptop 7 models offered Windows Hello face authentication through the full HD web cam. The 2025 model only offers a fingerprint sensor within the power button. Meanwhile, Microsoft has dropped the magnetic Surface connect port from the line up in favour of USB-C charging. Whether that’ll be missed or not remains to be seen.
Surface Laptop 13 offers better battery life
Microsoft promises up to 23 hours of local video playback from its new model along with 16 hours of active web usage. The Surface Laptop 7 (13.8-inches) offers 20 hours of video and 13 hours of web usage in comparison.
