Surface Laptop Studio is now available: Microsoft’s portable powerhouse
The brawniest Surface to date wants to do it all
The star showing of Microsoft’s big October 2021 Surface range refresh was the flagship Surface Laptop Studio.
Like the Surface Book it’s replacing, the Surface Laptop Studio’s transforming design sees it effortless flit between laptop, tablet and entertainment orientations, while the spec sheet suggests it’ll be beefy enough to tackle all but the most demanding of tasks.
Although the laptop-tablet combo is unashamedly aimed at creators like the Surface Book, the specs are powerful enough for top games, too, so there’s universal appeal – providing you can afford the not-insignificant outlay – the laptop starts at £1,529 in the UK and $1,600 in the US.
The 14.4in touchscreen has Dolby Vision and a 120Hz refresh rate, while inside you can kit it out with up to 32GB of LPDDR4x RAM, an 11th Gen Intel Core i7 processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti laptop graphics and up to 2TB of removable SSD storage.
And, also like the Surface Book, there’s a bespoke hinge design, known as the Dynamic Woven Hinge. Microsoft says it is super durable and can easily transform. We’re expecting the keyboard to be decent, as on other Surface devices and as with the Surface Book, it’s a laptop first and forward.
Microsoft clearly expects Stage mode to be a key way the new device is used, with the screen pulled over the keyboard in stand-style and the touchscreen display used for control. You can completely fold down the display for Studio (tablet) mode.
A slim version of the Surface Pen comes along for the ride, clicking magnetically under the front edge and charging when not in use.
The Surface Laptop Studio was announced alongside the Surface Go 3, Surface Duo 2, Surface Pro 8, Surface Pro 7+ and Surface Pro X.
We’ll bring you a Surface Laptop Studio review very soon.
Sam Kieldsen
Contributor 
