Microsoft Surface Laptop (2025, 13-Inch)

Microsoft's first Surface Laptop with Qualcomm's Arm-based Snapdragon X processors, in 2024, made one thing clear: Efficiency is king. However, Microsoft didn't appear to have cost efficiency in mind—but that changes this year. The 2025 13-inch Surface Laptop starts at $899.99, and our review configuration is just $999.99. Qualcomm's lower-power Snapdragon X Plus chip plays a role in the price cut, so expect a haircut on performance, too. So-so speeds aside, the laptop 's battery life is exceptional, its metal build is higher-quality than most, and it's still a Copilot+ PC with full access to the Copilot AI software. An upgraded screen or OLED option would be welcome, and you shouldn't buy this system expecting much power, but the 13-inch Surface Laptop fills its niche well. Still, we point to the Editors' Choice-award-winning Asus ZenBook 14 OLED Touch (an x86 model) and Apple MacBook Air 13-Inch as the best laptops for most people.

Components: Surface Goes Snapdragon Again

I was familiar with the 13-inch Surface Laptop before even handling it, having reviewed the same design around this time last year. Microsoft's design is mostly unchanged, but the key difference here is cost. Don't be confused—Microsoft still sells a slightly larger 13.8-inch Surface Laptop (in addition to the 15-inch model), which I reviewed in 2024 . Regardless, we're looking at the newest and smallest of the current Surface Laptops here.

Like this model, the 2024 edition ran on Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor platform—an Arm-based alternative to traditional Intel and AMD x86 processors. The difference this time? Our configuration of this model has a less powerful Snapdragon chip, and thus, a much more appealing starting price.

The 13-inch Surface Laptop starts at $899.99 for an eight-core Snapdragon X Plus chip, 16GB of memory, and a 256GB solid-state drive. Our model bumps up the storage to 512GB for $999.99, but everything else remains the same. The Snapdragon X Plus (X1-P42-100) chip in this new edition is the lower-power X Plus option, so don't expect quite the verve of the X Elite.

Three color options are available: platinum, ocean (pale blue), and violet (light purple). The caveat is that the base model comes only in platinum, while the $999.99 version comes in all three colors. The review model I have is the pale blue "ocean" color, which is subtle under some lighting (and looks more silver in the photos here than in person), while the violet (at least in photos from Microsoft's website) looks more vibrant.

In addition to being slightly larger and more fully featured, the 2024 model I reviewed was much more richly configured: $1,999.99 for a Snapdragon X Elite chip, 32GB of memory, and a 1TB SSD. While the core laptop is mostly the same, the components and pricing put them in totally separate categories. You still can't argue that $1,000 constitutes a budget laptop, but considering the metal build and Copilot+ PC qualifications, it's a fine deal.

The 2024 Surface Laptop 13 model was, in fact, the first Copilot+ PC we reviewed at PCMag. As such, that review contains all of the explanations, caveats, and qualifiers regarding Copilot, neural processing units, and Arm. It has been a year, so some of that has changed, but read my rundown there if you are unfamiliar with the platforms.

In short, Arm-based systems don't have the full compatibility with Windows applications that x86-based PCs (AMD and Intel chips, mainly) do. They may run through emulation , and thus slightly more slowly, but more Windows apps are receiving native support for Arm chips all the time. Compatibility is better now than at launch, but if you work with any specific software, check for compatibility before jumping into this or any Arm-based system.

Design and Features: A Metal Windows Alternative to the MacBook Air

As mentioned, Microsoft's design here is essentially the same as before, plus the new color options—a different set than last year. The metal finish feels high-end, which is especially lovely at the price, and it's just the feel I prefer for an ultraportable you can carry in one hand. At only 2.7 pounds, this is an exceptional daily travel companion. The larger Surface Laptop options exist if you want to shift the balance of screen real estate and portability, while this comes off like the PC world's answer to the 13-inch Apple MacBook Air .

Microsoft's display is decent, even if relatively small. The 3:2 aspect ratio used in some Surface systems means a squarer shape and resolution, coming in at 1,920 by 1,280 pixels. While uncommon, this is a full HD equivalent in practical terms (1200p for 16:10 screens and 1080p for 16:9 screens), and the pixel count is only really something for creative types to be aware of. The screen is sharp, clear, and bright enough, supporting touch input as well. I have no complaints with the screen as it is. However, considering some laptops in this price range come bearing OLED panels (or at least an upgrade option), this is arguably display tech on the basic side.

The rest of the build is impressive, as we've come to expect from Surface machines. The keyboard is small (with only so much you can do on a 13-inch laptop), but the keys deliver satisfying feedback. Microsoft's touchpad is a reasonable size and scrolls smoothly. As with all Copilot+ PCs, this system has a dedicated Copilot key to quickly pull up the suite of AI tools, including the Copilot chatbot.

While many smaller laptops have transitioned to USB Type-C ports only, the Surface Laptop 13 holds on to the more traditional USB Type-A—barely. You'll find one USB-A port on the left side and two USB 3.2 Type-C ports on the right side, which should be enough for this type of laptop. Any other physical connectivity (like video out) must come through the USB-C ports and/or an adapter.

The laptop also includes Wi-Fi 7 for quick wireless connectivity and Bluetooth for additional device connections. Microsoft's camera of choice is 1080p, another welcome feature at this price. This camera resolution is becoming more common, but many laptops still feature only 720p webcams, and the difference is clear.

Camera resolution alone doesn't always make for clear images, but Surface devices usually produce superior video quality, which carries through to this model. Video sessions are sharp, the camera handles dimmer lighting well, and built-in AI assistance improves visuals further. Qualcomm's onboard neural processing unit in its Snapdragon X chips enables these effects, now built into Windows 11 . Even the basic camera app can deploy automatic framing, eye contact correction, lighting fixes, and more. In addition to Copilot itself and per-app enhancements, these are examples of AI PC features at the moment. These Copilot AI functions will only increase in number and efficacy over time.

Performance Testing: A Gold Star for Snapdragon's Battery Life

To gauge the performance of this value-focused version of the Surface Laptop, I put it through a range of benchmark tests. Its results will be compared with those of the following laptops…

The Asus Zenbook A14 ($999 as tested) is a very similar alternative to the Surface based on the same processor, while the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus ($999 as tested) runs on a faster Snapdragon X Plus chip. Joining those two Qualcomm-based options are the Acer Aspire 14 AI ($879.99 as tested) with Intel inside and the 13-inch MacBook Air ($1,199 as tested) with Apple's own M4 silicon.

Productivity and Content Creation Tests

Our primary tests for Arm-based laptops are CPU-centric or processor-intensive. Maxon's Cinebench 2024 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Primate Labs' Geekbench 6.3 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we see how long the freeware video transcoder HandBrake 1.8 takes to convert a 12-minute clip from 4K to 1080p resolution.

Other tests we usually use on Windows systems, like UL's PCMark 10 and Adobe Photoshop (via Puget Systems' PugetBench utility), aren't available for Arm-based CPUs in a way that we can measure, so they're excluded from this comparison. Windows on Arm has far better app compatibility than before, but it can't run everything that x86-based PCs can. That includes some of our standard benchmark tests.

The Surface Laptop was a little pokey overall on these tests compared with the broader scope of laptops, but in the context of its peers here, the Surface fell right in line. None of these laptops—focused on portability and battery life as they are—is an especially fast performer or meant for media workloads, save for perhaps the MacBook Air.

Microsoft's latest Surface traded blows with the Zenbook using the same chip and occasionally outpaced some other systems, but it all roughly comes out as a wash. There's no one apparent general performance reason to pick the Surface over the other PCs, or vice versa. However, the MacBook Air notably took pole position in every test at a similar price.

Graphics Tests

We challenge laptops' graphics with a quintet of 3D animation and gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark test suite. Wild Life (1440p) and Wild Life Extreme (4K) use the Vulkan graphics API to measure GPU speeds, while Steel Nomad's regular (4K) and Light (1440p) subtests focus on APIs more commonly used for game development, like DirectX 12, to assess gaming geometry and particle effects. We usually run a fifth test, Solar Bay, which emphasizes ray-tracing performance, but it would not run on this laptop, so we've omitted the results entirely. (Unlike Macs, most Arm-based Windows laptops are compatible with all five of these benchmarks.)

Our conclusion about the Surface's processing speeds generally applies again here, though Microsoft's laptop took last place in three of four benchmarks, and the fourth was a mere technical win by 1%. Using integrated graphics, a handful of these laptops put up more muscle for 3D tasks (especially the MacBook). Still, you'll want a more specialized machine with a discrete GPU to complete graphically demanding workloads or to play PC games. That's not what this machine is about.

Battery Life and Display Tests

We test each laptop's battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel ) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.

To gauge display performance, we also use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and software to measure a laptop screen's color saturation, or what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show. We also measure each screen's 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).

Battery life is where the Surface Laptop sings, but you don't need me to tell you that if you simply look at the chart. A 30-hour battery life result is precisely why you'd consider a Snapdragon system. What you lose in moderate degrees of performance and some compatibility, you gain in unparalleled efficiency. This laptop is more than an all-day work and travel companion, so long as you keep the demands reasonable.

The Surface's screen testing results are less impressive, with relatively low color coverage in two of the three gamuts we test, but at least it shines with acceptable brightness. Professional creatives would avoid a screen like this, anyway, but it's worth noting.