As the name suggests, Microsoft’s new Surface Laptop Studio fuses together a number of different Surfaces, among them the Surface Laptop and Surface Studio. Inside the Surface Laptop Studio, however, new GeForce RTX hardware points to the power Microsoft has traditionally offered inside the Surface Book. Our full video above walks you through every inch of the laptop, which doubles as a physical avatar for Microsoft’s Windows 11 ambitions.
Within the Surface Laptop Studio you’ll see supporting hardware that bolster some Windows 11’s features. DirectStorage, which can quickly load and resume games off a speedy NVMe SSD, should be able to tap the Surface Laptop Studio’s high-end 1TB and 2TB configurations. Dynamic Refresh Rate increases the display refresh rate to 120Hz for smoother inking.
The Surface Laptop Studio also supports AutoHDR, a way of adding high dynamic range visuals to games that weren’t encoded for them. Here, the Surface Laptop Studio will tap the GeForce RTX GPU from Nvidia, which can provide HDR capabilities to the Surface Laptop Studio’s display via Dolby Vision.
And it’s the display that, really, is one of the most eye-catching features within the Surface Laptop Studio. It pulls forward into a “Stage” mode, hiding the keyboard and allowing you to ink or watch streaming video. It also folds back flat. We’ll show you how it works, with some hands-on impressions as well.
Microsoft has priced the Surface Laptop Studio notebook at $1,599.99 and above, with prices climbing to $3,099.99 for the most premium model. The Surface Studio Laptop is available for preorder right now, and will ship on Oct. 5.
As PCWorld’s senior editor, Mark focuses on Microsoft news and chip technology, among other beats. He has formerly written for PCMag, BYTE, Slashdot, eWEEK, and ReadWrite.
