The Microsoft Surface Laptop 6 was unveiled during this month’s Microsoft Surface event and will begin shipping on May 8 for a starting price of $1,199.
Are you going to buy one?
It’s a complicated question unless you need one for work, in which case someone at your company is probably planning to buy them in bulk. That’s certainly who Microsoft is targeting with these laptops, which sport characteristically simple Surface Laptop designs with comfortable keyboards and tall displays with a 3:2 aspect ratio.
But anyone can buy a Surface Laptop 6, and if you love Surface Laptops, it may be worth upgrading from an older model to get the new features. While Microsoft hasn’t radically redesigned the Surface Laptop, this sixth version offers some minor updates that could really appeal to the right customers.
I know this because I reviewed the last two Surface Laptops, and since my disappointing moment with the Surface Laptop 5, I’ve been eager to see Microsoft put a shine on this entry-level laptop. In my Surface Laptop 5 review, I mentioned the conveniences of this foldable design, but criticized the poor battery life, low-quality webcam, and glare-prone display.
Now Microsoft is making a bunch of claims about the new Surface Laptop 6 that make me wonder if they’ve addressed all of my concerns about the previous model. If you’re also on the fence about whether to get your hopes up for a new Surface Laptop, let me quickly go over some of the biggest upgrades you get on the Surface Laptop 6 vs. Surface Laptop 5.
Surface Laptop 6 vs Surface Laptop 5: Matte Screen Upgrade
The Surface Laptop’s design is simple and a bit sober at the moment, having barely changed in recent years. The basic clamshell construction seems like a productivity boost, as you get a good keyboard and a touchscreen with a tall 3:2 aspect ratio, but there’s one major drawback to that screen that I discovered as soon as I tried using it on a café. patio: glare.
As you can see from the photo above or the ones in my Surface Laptop 5 review, the Surface Laptop’s PixelSense touchscreen can’t outshine direct sunlight. That’s not a deal-breaker for most of us, but it is frustrating if you like to work in bright light or outdoors, since even at maximum brightness, the Surface Laptop’s screen emits significant glare.
A screen that gets brighter would solve this problem, but unfortunately, the Surface Laptop 6’s screen is rated to reach the same 400 nits maximum brightness as its predecessor. And when we took the Laptop 5 into our test lab and pointed our Klein K10-A colorimeter at it, we found that it did, in fact, reach an average brightness of almost 400 nits (393.8, to be precise), so no is that the Surface team can bring this screen much closer to the advertised maximum brightness.
But Microsoft has specifically noted that the new Surface Laptop 6’s display comes with a new matte anti-reflective coating, which is nice to hear. I don’t know how much difference that will make in real-world use, but I’m looking forward to finding out when we get one to test and review.
Surface Laptop 6 vs Surface Laptop 5: Better webcam
While I was perfectly happy writing articles and emails on the Surface Laptop 5, I always felt a little unhappy when it came time to participate in a team meeting.
The 720p camera mounted on the Surface Laptop 5 never did me any favors in the vanity department, and especially during morning calls, I often felt better turning off my video stream rather than trying to look presentable through the blur. grainy webcam.
This has been a problem with Surface Laptops for years, and thankfully it looks like Microsoft is bringing them into the modern era with the Surface Laptop 6. I say this because the Laptop 6 will ship with a 1080p webcam, so I hope it captures Images and videos that look much sharper and more detailed than previous models.
Surface Laptop 6 vs Surface Laptop 5: Meteor Lake muscle
The Surface Laptop 5 was powerful enough to get work done and a little gaming here and there, but it wasn’t a speed demon.
Worse, it offered mediocre battery life which was somewhat disappointing, as the Laptop 5 actually performed worse in our battery drain test than its predecessor and couldn’t even go a full ten hours without running out of battery.
Better battery life has been one of the big benefits of Meteor Lake touted by Intel, and I hope those claims are true because Apple’s MacBooks have surpassed even the best Windows laptops in terms of battery life.” .
I’m hopeful that the Surface Laptop 6 will do better on both fronts, as it will be the first Surface Laptop to ship with one of the new Intel Meteor Lake CPUs built in. You can order a Surface Laptop 6 with one of two CPUs, the Intel Core Ultra 5 135H or the Intel Core Ultra 7 165H, which are some of the most powerful Meteor Lake chips released yet.
Not only could a better CPU offer better performance when you’re checking 30+ work tabs or switching between spreadsheets, streaming music, and playing games, but it could also improve battery life.
Better battery life has been one of the big benefits of Meteor Lake touted by Intel, and I hope those claims are true because Apple’s MacBooks have surpassed even the best Windows laptops in terms of battery life.
The best MacBooks can easily last 15 hours in our battery drain test, so it would be nice to see a new Meteor Lake laptop like the Surface Laptop 6 with at least 12 hours or more. And I think that’s very possible with the new Surface Laptop 6, especially if you listen to Microsoft, which claims you can get 18 to 19 hours of use out of these laptops on a single charge.
The company made similar claims about previous models that never held up in our testing or real-world use, but hope springs eternal. The Surface Laptop 6 really needs to be significantly better than its predecessor in terms of raw processing power and power efficiency if it wants to compete with the best laptops on the market, and this Meteor Lake update could do just that.
Surface Laptop 6 vs. Surface Laptop 5: Outlook
We can’t know for sure if the Surface Laptop 6 is worth upgrading for Surface Laptop owners because we haven’t had a chance to review it yet. I really want to try one because I would really love to see Microsoft make a great laptop, and I still don’t feel that way about a Surface laptop.
But these Windows productivity machines have their fans, and the fact that Microsoft first unveiled the Surface Laptop 6 for business during a business-focused livestream should tell you a lot about who buys these laptops. But I like their keyboards and displays, and I hope Microsoft plays to those strengths to release a Surface Laptop 6 that feels like a Windows flagship.
Hopefully, we’ll find out soon. Stay tuned!
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