Microsoft has launched its Surface laptop to compete against Apples’s MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. The company unveiled the new Surface laptop in its Education event on Tuesday, 2nd May. Microsoft also launched its latest operating system Windows 10s, which is debuting with the Surface laptops. Microsoft seems to target the education sector with this product, where it claims that the laptop is appropriate for students and can easily fit into a backpack along with books, notepads, pens, keys etc, as it bares a sleek, light weight and durable design.
The Surface Laptop sports a 13.5 inch Pixel-sense touch screen LCD display with edge-to-edge Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. The screen offers a display resolution of 2256 x 1504 pixels with 201 ppi pixel density. The Laptop is available in two variants, one with Intel Core i5 processor and 4 GB/ 8 GB RAM coupled with 128 GB/ 256 GB SSD, and another with Intel Core i7 processor and 8 GB/ 16 GB RAM coupled with 256 GB/ 512 GB SSD. The Laptop packs a sleek design with 14.47 mm thickness and 2.76 lbs weight. The company claims it to deliver 14 hours of battery life which proves to be quite handy during long hours of use.
For connectivity, the Surface Laptop has a USB 3.0 port and a Mini display port. The USB Type-C port which was introduced in 2015 with the Surface 3 is however absent. Apart from this, there is Wifi and Bluetooth connectivity as well. The laptop sports a Windows Hello IR camera for facial recognition login coupled with a 720p web cam. The Surface laptop also bares “OmniSonic” stereo speakers with Dolby Audio Premium, to provide top notch audio experience as well.
Talking about the price and availability, the Surface laptop with Intel Core i5 processor, 4 GB RAM and 128 GB SSD is the base model and is priced at $999 (Rs. 64,000 approx). A slightly higher variant with i5 processor, 8 GB RAM and 256 GB flash storage will be available at $1299 (Rs. 83,200 approx). Coming to the variants with Intel Core i7 processor and Intel’s Iris graphics start at $1599 (Rs. 1,02,00 approx) for 8 GB RAM and 256 GB flash drive, where as its 16 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD model comes at price of $2199 (approximately Rs. 1,41,000).
The Surface laptop is already up for pre-orders in a few countries and will be available from June 15th, however its availability in India is unknown as of now. The laptop comes bundled with some launch offers that include a one-year subscription to Office 365 Personal and 1TB of free storage on OneDrive, providing you full access to Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.