The new, faster Surface Pro is Microsoft’s all-purpose AI PC

Microsoft just announced the new Surface Pro, the latest in its lineup of tablet / laptop hybrid devices and the first in a new generation of what Microsoft is calling Copilot Plus PCs. The numbers are gone from the model names, which seems to signify a full reboot of the lineup. “Compared to previous Surface generations, it isn’t even close,” said Brett Ostrum, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Surface, at a launch event.

Powered by Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X processors (the Elite and the Plus versions), Microsoft says this new Pro is up to 90 percent faster than the previous model. It also has optional 5G, which tends to come with Qualcomm support. As does better battery life: Microsoft says the Pro will get up to 14 hours of video playback, which isn’t quite as good as the 20 hours it claims for the new Surface Laptop but is still a good sign for the device.

There’s also a new, optional OLED screen, Wi-Fi 7 support, and a new keyboard attachment called the Surface Pro Flex Keyboard. It has two USB 4 ports and comes in four colors, including a very nice-looking new shade of blue. It also comes with vastly improved cameras: an ultrawide; quad HD system on the front that Microsoft intends to use for lots of AI purposes; and a 10-megapixel sensor on the back. The whole thing weighs a hair under two pounds, and is otherwise exactly the same size as the previous Pro. The story here is very much inside the device.

The Pro starts at $999, which gets you an LCD display, an X Plus processor, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. If you want the X Elite and the OLED screen, you’ll have to spend at least $1,500, and the fully specced version of the new Pro — with 32GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, and the platinum color — will run you $2,100.

The new Flex Keyboard, which costs $450 and comes with a Slim Pen, works both attached and detached to the Pro and should be sturdier than the previous model. Microsoft says there’s also a new option with bold keys and a 14 percent larger touchpad in an effort to make the devices more accessible to more users.

The Surface Pro’s hardware has been solid for a while now — the full kit with keyboard and stylus can be expensive, and power users have been asking for more ports, but the Surface Pro 9’s design and build quality didn’t get much wrong. The problem, as ever, was the chip. You could buy a Pro 9 with a Qualcomm processor inside, which came with some extra camera features, 5G connectivity, and a series of pretty brutal performance tradeoffs. Windows on Arm has steadily improved over the years, but it was still a laggy, glitchy, problematic experience, even in 2022. The Intel model offered significantly worse battery life but significantly better and more reliable performance.

The new Pro, in theory, is the best of all worlds. With the Snapdragon X processor lineup, Qualcomm has been promising that its chip is finally fast enough to rival Apple, AMD, and Intel. Microsoft appears to be confident that this is the year Windows on Arm works out for real.

All that performance exists in the service of AI, of course. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella kicked off Monday’s event by talking about building computers that “not only understand us but anticipate what we want” and said that the next phase of Windows and computing starts with Copilot. The event also included a new AI feature called Recall and more Copilot integrations in File Explorer, notifications, and elsewhere around Windows. With better devices, Nadella said, you can solve problems with latency and privacy and give AI systems better power. He called Copilot Plus PCs “the fastest, most AI-ready PCs ever built.”