Microsoft’s new Surface lineup takes on Apple with design and firepower

The tech giant is shaking off criticism that it’s tasteless with no original ideas, releasing its most powerful and inclusive Surface laptop yet.

Brett Ostrum (R), Microsoft corporate vice president for Surface devices, with Solomon Romney, demonstrating how the company’s has produced its most powerful and inclusive laptop yet.

Microsoft has upped the ante in its rivalry against Apple, declaring it not only has the “ultimate device for creators” that’s almost two times faster than the M2 Max chip but also bolsters its diversity and inclusion credentials.

The Seattle-based software giant, which Apple founder, the late Steve Jobs, once branded as having “absolutely no taste” or “original ideas”, left the M2 Max Macbook Pro in the dust when it unveiled its new Surface Laptop Studio 2.

Microsoft corporate vice president of Surface devices Brett Ostrum tested the company’s latest flagship laptop against the Macbook Pro with 38 core GPU at a relatively understated event in New York overnight last Thursday.

The test involved a 3D rendering in Blender – an open source 3D creation app – on both devices in real time. The Surface Studio 2, completing the job in 37.4 seconds, while the Macbook took more than one minute and 12 seconds.

“This is Surface Laptop Studio 2, the most powerful Surface we have ever built, unmatched productivity, versatility and creativity all in a single laptop,” Mr Ostrum said.

“The original Surface Laptop Studio was the most performant device we’ve ever shipped, and this one is twice as fast.”

The new range of Microsoft Surface laptops.

Apple unveiled its M2 Pro and M2 Max, two next-generation SoCs (systems on a chip) in January with enior vice president of hardware technologies Johny Srouji saying that they elevated Apple silicon to new heights.

“Only Apple is building SoCs like M2 Pro and M2 Max. They deliver incredible pro performance along with industry-leading power efficiency,” Mr Srouji said at the time.

“With an even more powerful CPU and GPU, support for a larger unified memory system, and an advanced media engine, M2 Pro and M2 Max represent astonishing advancements in Apple silicon.”

The new Surface Studio features an improved Intel 13th Gen Core H-class processor, and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 and 4060 GPUs.

“For designers, engineers or 3D artists who need professional workloads, we also offer Nvidia’s RTX 2000. All that to say this device powers graphics and intensive workloads with ease,” Mr Ostrum said.

But he said the latest Surface laptop did not only deliver speed, but was also the “most inclusive touchpad on any laptop today”.

He invited Solomon Romney, who was born with no fingers on his left hand, from Microsoft’s design team to demonstrate this.

Mr Romney said his right hand was “wearing out” given it had to perform “double duty” his entire life. “I’m developing issues that most folks get later in life, arthritis, repetitive stress injuries and a weaker grip. To rest my right hand, I need to move activities to the left,” Mr Romney said.

“Mousing is a struggle. Touchpads don’t respond to my left hand. As I move my hand across the touchpad, the cursor does not. This is a barrier. As a mobile professional, I can’t carry an entire ergonomic setup with me everywhere I go. It forces me and others dealing with similar disabilities to just work through the pain.”

But Mr Romney said when he tested the Surface’s new haptic touchpad, he became emotional.

“I cried the first time I got to use this, because as a product maker, it showed me the amazing things we can do when we include the disability community. And as a member of that community, it was amazing to see myself reflected in the products that we make.

“For the first time ever, this new precision haptic touchpad makes it possible for people like me to use a laptop in the way that is most natural to us. I toggle on adaptive touch, and all of a sudden, it responds to my hand. I can even resize the right click regions to turn the touchpad into a large, two button mouse.”

Microsoft also launched its cheaper Surface Laptop Go 3, which Mr Ostrum said was the company’s lightest, most portable.

It weighs less than two and a half pounds (1134 grams) with a 12.4 inch touchscreen, a fingerprint power button, which Mr Ostrum said was 88 per cent faster than the original, claiming “all day battery life” or 15 hours.

The Studio 2 and Go 3 will retail from $3,519 and $1,429 respectively. Both will be available from October 3.

Jared Lynch travelled to New York as a guest of Microsoft