• Last night Microsoft held its “special event” showcasing new Surface hardware and AI features for Copilot and Bing.
• On the hardware side of things, two notebooks and one tablet hybrid saw the light of day.
• Leading the lineup is the Surface Laptop Studio 2, which features a unique display and serious bump in specs.

Microsoft held a “special event” last night, where three new Surface devices were expected. True to the rumours, three new pieces of hardware were unveiled on the night, with the Surface Laptop Studio 2 leading the pack.

The other two devices were the Surface Laptop Go 3 as an affordable notebook option and the Surface Go 4 as a tablet hybrid that’s suited for work.

At the time of writing, it remains to be seen when or indeed if Microsoft South Africa chooses to bring the new hardware to our shores, but we can still take a look at what’s on offer, focusing on the Suurface Laptop Studio 2 in particular.

The new notebook is a bit of a hybrid in its own right, featuring a hinge on the 14.4″ HDR touchscreen display (2400×1600) that allows it to be positioned forward or flat for creative or design work in conjunction with a Surface Pen stylus.

As such, Microsoft is aiming this device squarely at creatives, which is why is has received a noticeable bump in specifications compared to the previous iteration.

To that end, the Surface Laptop Studio 2 is powered by a 13th Gen Intel Core™ i7-13800H processor. It can also be fitted with either an NVIDIA RTX 2000 Ada Generation GPU or an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 and 4060 Laptop GPUs.

Added to this is up to 64GB of LPDDR5x RAM, up to a 2TB SSD, and up to 18 hours of battery depending on the GPU running on the notebook.

“We also heard from our customers not only about the need for more performance but more ports, so we redesigned the chassis of this device to add both a USB-A port and microSD card slot to help keep your employees productive with all their accessories without needing extra dongles,” writes Microsoft in a blog post.

“With the shift to more hybrid workplaces, we know our business customers spend a lot of time on video calls on apps like Microsoft Teams. With Surface Laptop Studio 2, your teams will always look and sound their best in meetings or calls with customers.  With the AI-enhanced field of view full HD Studio Camera, face-to-face video calls feel more natural with Eye Contact correction and Automatic Framing to always keep users in the center of the frame,” it adds.

In terms of pricing, the Surface Laptop Studio 2 starts at $1 999 (~R37 865).