Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio 2 Unveiled; Brings Massive Specs Upgrade!
Sep. 21, 2023Surface Laptop Studio 2: Design and Display
Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Studio 2 succeeds theprevious-gen Studiolaptop. The innovative design, with the body featuring aDynamic Woven Hinge Design, is carried forward in this second-generation Studio. Surface Laptop Studio 2 can be used in various orientations, essentially being different modes that the user can transform the laptop into based on their preference.
First, there’s the traditionallaptop modein which users can use the Surface Laptop Studio 2’s Windows Precision touchpad with haptic support and a full-size keyboard. Pulling the laptop screen lets the users put it intostage mode, where the screen can be positioned right above the touchpad offering a highly immersive experience with optimized viewing angles. The keyboard is not available in this mode, but the touchpad still is.
The final mode offered in the Surface Laptop Studio 2 is thetablet mode, in which the laptop can be rotated fully making the keyboard & trackpad now rest at the back. Laptop Studio 2 has a14.4-inch Pixelsense touch display, enabling a comfortable tablet experience that runs on Windows 11. The display resolution is 2400 x 1600, and the refresh rate is 120Hz so it will look quite smooth in daily usage.
This display is also brighter now, supportingVESA DisplayHDR 400with a peak brightness of 650 nits and a typical brightness of 500 nits. This means it should offer better outdoor visibility. The touch display also supports the SurfaceSlim Pen 2, which can magnetically attach to the device. With this, Surface Laptop Studio 2 can be used for many creative use cases and also for students who love to do their note-taking on apps like OneNote.
Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Studio 2 features Intel13th-GenRaptorLake mobile processors, which are a little old now considering the14th-Gen CPUs are coming out soon. Still, Surface devices are on a slightly different timeline with unique hardware features, so this is normal to see on Surface laptops.
Talking about the RAM, Surface Laptop Studio 2 will be available in different variants with three capacities – 16GB, 32GB, and for the first time, 64GB as well. With the highest-end 64GB LPDDR5 RAM configuration, the Surface Laptop Studio 2 becomes quite a capable machine that wouldn’t slow down any of the user’s workloads even during heavy multitasking.
Talking about the CPU configuration, Surface Laptop Studio 2 is available with Intel Corei7-13800HRaptor Lake processor (boost clock up to 5.2GHz). The higher-end Core i7 CPU will give usersslightly better multi-core performance, but both of them are similar otherwise. Talking about the boost clock & core count of these i7 13th-Gen laptop CPUs, both of them have a configuration of14 cores & 20 threadswith 6 P-cores and 8 E-cores.
If you’re wondering what these P-Cores & E-Cores mean, the full forms of these are Performance (P) Cores and Efficiency (E) Cores. As the name suggests, these cores are part of Intel’s hybrid performance architecture that’s in Intel 13th-Gen processors. Accordingly, the P-Cores handle heavier workloads like content creation, games, etc., while the E-Cores handle background tasks & assist in distributing workloads effectively.
There’s also an NPU chip on the Surface Laptop Studio 2. This is the Intel Gen3 Movidius 3700VC VPU AI Accelerator. You canread more about Intel’s latest NPU chip here, which accelerates AI workloads and allows for on-device, offline usage of certain AI models. NPU is part of 14th Gen Meteor Lake, but Microsoft has added a separate Intel NPU chip alongside the 13th Gen Raptor Lake processors.
The RTX 40 series by Nvidia encompasses their latest technologies as well as architectural improvements. So, the latest Surface Laptop Studio 2 gets all the features that are in RTX 40 series graphics cards. These include 4th-gen Tensor Cores, 3rd-gen RT Cores,AV1 codec, superior power efficiency, and more.
In case you’re interested in the Surface Laptop Studio 2 but don’t need the higher GPU performance, the Intel Xe graphics variant will suit you best.
Speaking of the ports, the Surface Laptop Studio 2 has a USB-A port, a microSD card slot, and two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports on the left side. The battery size here is 58Wh, and Microsoft says its flagship Surface Laptop Studio 2 can last up to19 hoursfor the i5 model. The weight of the machine is 2.0kg, and it also supportsWi-Fi 6Eas well as Bluetooth v5.2 for optimum connectivity.
This flagship laptop by Microsoft packs in one of the best speakers, being aquad omnisonic speakerthat supportsDolby Atmos. The storage capacities available here start from 512GB. There are also variants with 1TB/ 2TB SSD capacities. The storage here is a PCIe Gen 4 SSD, offering fast storage performance and quick boot times.
You can pre-order the Surface Laptop Studio 2 starting today in the US. We will update this section soon when the pre-order links go live. For availability in India, we will update you when the laptop officially launches.
Highly passionate about technology. Major expertise in PC hardware, the VR industry, esports-centric gear, and other gadgets. In my spare time, I’m usually researching exciting hardware breakthroughs or playing competitive games.
