A specification leak suggests Microsoft plans on releasing a gaming variant of its ultra-sleek Surface Laptops featuring rather beefy Intel and Nvidia components under the hood.
Though we don’t yet have any images of the fabled laptop to feast our eyes upon, a rather extensive tech spec sheet has been unveiled by Prime Gaming, and lucky for us it leaves little to the imagination.
Starting with dimensions and weight, the laptop maintains a thin design measuring 357mm x 245mm x 19.6mm and depending on what’s inside, the Intel Core i5 version weighs a sultry 1,957 grams while its beefed-up Intel Core i7 sibling fractionally tips over the 2kg mark. In comparison, the most recent Surface Laptop 4 15in measures 340mm × 244mm × 14.7mm and weighs 1,542 grams.
A 16in PixelSense Flow Display is a new variant added to the list of Microsoft’s deeply-rich and vibrant PixelSense display tech and features a resolution of 2560×1440, a refresh rate of 165Hz and support for Dolby Vision. Rounding off the top half of the chassis is a 1080p front-facing camera ensuring you look your utmost best on Twitch and also features Windows Hello Face authentication.
Microsoft’s most powerful Surface Gaming Laptop will feature up to an Intel Core i7-12700H processor and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti graphics with 8GB GDDR6 memory, and the lesser variant is no slouch either, pairing an Intel Core i5-12500H with Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti 4GB graphics. Typical usage will reportedly get you up to 16 hours of battery life, though its best to remain close to a wall socket when gaming. Surprisingly, there’s no mention of 13th Gen Intel processors, or any AMD Ryzen variants for that matter.
Moving on to I/O, we can expect three USB Type-C ports with USB 4.0/Thunderbolt 4, a single 3.5mm headphone jack and one Surface Connect port for power, while wireless connectivity includes industry standard Wi-Fi 6 with Bluetooth 5.1. Audio features dual studio mics with Voice Clarity support, ensuring clear and crispy voice input, and Quad Omniosonic speakers with Dolby Atmos support for the best audio fidelity in gaming or Netflix-and-chill situations.
Rounding out the specs, users will have a choice between 16GB or 32GB of LPDDR4x RAM, and storage space comes in at everywhere between 256GB or 2TB of removable SSD options. Choose wisely. Additionally, the laptop will come preinstalled with Windows 11 Home right out the box, and a few incentives including a one-month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate trial and access to Microsoft 365 Home 30-day trial to get you started.
Surface Gaming Laptop pricing and availability remains unknown, though rumours point toward an unveiling at Microsoft’s Autumn Hardware event on September 22 alongside the next-generation Surface Laptop 5, Surface Pro 9, Surface Pro 9 5G and Surface Studio 3. Until then.
