Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra review: RTX Spark in a straight-up beautiful Windows PC

It's been a few years since we've seen a Surface focused on performance. With Nvidia's entry into mobile SoCs, Microsoft is one of several hardware partners that have developed an ultra-premium PC designed around the RTX Spark.

The Surface Laptop Ultra is the most beautiful laptop Surface has ever produced. The screen is gorgeous. The port selection is strong, and the metal chassis feels luxurious. It's heavy, but that's the price of cooling an SoC designed to run AI models.

This is also one of the first Windows on Arm laptops that isn't using a Qualcomm chip. It benefits greatly here from years of work by Microsoft and Qualcomm, and hopefully Nvidia's involvement raises the bar for everyone. Windows on Arm works better here than ever before.

And yet, this system is expensive. If you want to run mobile AI workloads on the go, you will see, the Surface Laptop Ultra is a serious contender. But if you're just a Windows power user, you won't get a ton out of RTX Spark besides better software and gaming compatibility than previous Arm-based laptops. This is a lovely laptop waiting for Windows 11 to catch up to it.

Design of the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra

The Surface Laptop Ultra is, without a doubt, the nicest system that Microsoft has ever built. The company has made some nice designs across both its Surface Pro and Laptop lines, but the Laptop Ultra really is something else.

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(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

The Ultra very much looks like Surface Laptops of old, with a spartan design, including a tone-on-tone reflective Microsoft logo. Our system came in Microsoft's new "nightfall" color (a very dark shade of gray), though a more traditional platinum is available in select configurations. The aluminum chassis is rock solid.

The keyboard deck is just as spare, with room for a large haptic touchpad and backlit chiclet keys. The Mini-LED display has a minimal bezel surrounding it.

Unfortunately, the closed laptop is difficult to open with one hand. It's doable, but you have to really get a grip with your thumb, and there's no cut-out notch for easy lid lifting.

The bottom of the laptop is on a bit of a pedestal, likely to make room for cooling. It reminds me a lot of the Surface Laptop Studio, which also had the main part of the chassis on top of a raised portion covered in vents.

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(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

There's a ton of ports on the Ultra. My favorite are three USB4 Type-C ports, each of which supports 140W charging, 40 Gb/s data transfer, DisplayPort 2.1, and fast charging. In addition, there's also an HDMI 2.1b port, USB Type-A 3.1, an SD card reader, and a headphone jack. Wirelessly, connectivity is based around Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4.

But the system is heavy. The 4.4-pound laptop feels premium, but it’s also extremely noticeable in a backpack. Apple's 14-inch MacBook Pro with its top-end M5 Max chip is nearly a pound lighter, at 3.56 pounds. And that's before you add in Microsoft's 140W charger.

Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra Specifications

Magnetic Connect Charger

I've long loathed Microsoft's Surface Connect chargers. They fall out easily and take up space that could be useful for other ports. Microsoft's new charger for the Surface Laptop Ultra, Magnetic Connect, is far superior.

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(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

It works much like Apple's MagSafe, but with a small USB-C-shaped stub that fits into just the USB-C port on the top right, which is wider than your traditional port. (That also means that this charger doesn't fit in the other USB-C ports). There are magnets on both sides of the port, and the stub fits partway into the port to deliver power. If you trip over the cord, it should come out with pulling a laptop off a desk or table.

But the connection is also strong and satisfying to click into place. Unlike Surface Connect, I never worried it would come loose. You can still charge with a standard USB-C cable on any USB-C port on the laptop.

Because Magnetic Connect is a bit larger than a standard USB-C port, I did find some devices, like my go-to USB stick, dangling a bit out of the port, but there are two other USB-C options here if you don’t want to deal with that.

Productivity Performance on the Surface Laptop Ultra

The Surface Laptop Ultra we reviewed came with a top-end RTX Spark N1X chip, including 20 CPU cores, 6,144 CUDA cores, 32GB of unified memory, and 1TB of storage.

We compared this system to a MacBook Pro running an M5 Max, a Dell XPS 16 with Intel's "Panther Lake" Core Ultra X7, an Asus Zenbook A16 with Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme (a fellow Windows on Arm machine), and the Asus TUF Gaming A14 with an implementation of AMD's Strix Halo in a laptop.

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(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

On Geekbench 6, the Surface earned a single-core score of 3,151 and a multi-core score of 20,203. That fell well short of the MacBook Pro, and also proved less than the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme-based machine — at least, in this bursty workload.

When it came to transcoding a 4K video to 1080p in Handbrake, the Surface Laptop Ultra was the fastest, beating the MacBook Pro by one second. The next closest, the Zenbook with Snapdragon, came in at 2:08. Panther Lake fell behind hard here.

The Surface Laptop Ultra was speedy when it came to transferring files, completing a 25GB transfer at a rate of 1,998.59 MBps. The MacBook Pro took the crown, though, at 3,835.38 MBps.

On our Cinebench R26 gauntlet, running the rendering test 10 times, the Surface was largely consistent. Running in the mid 6,700's with the system's beefy cooling. Cinebench estimates that the RTX Spark CPU runs at 2.81 GHz. In our testing, the cores reached 3.35 GHz, on average, during this test, though HWinfo, which we use for logging, isn't yet updated to discriminate between the 10 performance and 10 efficiency cores.

For AI testing specifically, check out our RTX Spark N1X platform overview from GPU guru, Jeffrey Kampman, which highlights the difference between RTX Spark and M5 Max ( spoiler alert, RTX Spark often won). Just note, his unit had 128GB of RAM, while our 32GB of memory was tight for AI. With the 12GB of memory this review unit had dedicated out of the box for the GPU (you can adjust it), I needed to opt for smaller models like Google's Gemma 4 12B or Qwen 3.6 35B Q2 to run in a harness like Hermes.

Gaming and Graphics on the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra

The RTX Spark has a GPU with 6,144 CUDA cores. For the average Windows user, you really just need to know this: yes, it can play games.

This is a big deal for Windows on Arm. Gaming has made decent strides on Snapdragon, but it never came far enough. Unsurprisingly, there is much better support with Nvidia on board. Nvidia and Microsoft have more games coming natively (Call of Duty is coming for RTX Spark platforms next year), while Microsoft's Prism emulator, which emulates x64 instructions for Arm64, has gotten much better, including working with more games with anti-cheat.

I've been playing a lot of God of War: Ragnarok in my spare time, so I tried it on the Spark to see how it works. At 2560 x 1440 with ultra settings and DLSS, the game ran between 41 and 47 frames per second during an ambush fight in Vanaheim. When I switched down to 1080p with the same settings, it ran anywhere between 51 fps and 79 fps.

I did experience one glitch: one time, when I paused the game, a Steam menu started showing through the game window. So while it was otherwise a good experience, there's still some work to be done.

Still, not all of our standard gaming laptop benchmarks worked. Red Dead Redemption 2, for instance, would not run.

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(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

On Shadow of the Tomb Raider at highest settings at 1080p, the Surface ran the game at 89 FPS, beating out the TUF Gaming A15 with Ryzen AI Max+ 392. But a much cheaper Gigabyte Aero X16 won at 109 fps at 1080p and 64 fps at 4K.

In Cyberpunk 2077 at very high settings, the Surface and Aero X16 were neck and neck, running at 32 fps and 34 fps at 1080p, respectively.

On Far Cry 6, the Surface hit 56 fps at 1080p, but the Aero X16 did 85 fps at 1080p and 70 fps at 4K.

For more gaming details, check out our RTX Spark platform overview.

Is Windows even ready for this?

Windows on Arm has been a mixed bag for a long time. It saw massive growth between the first and second generations of Snapdragon X chips, and the RTX Spark feels like a more polished platform from all the work that has been done before. Nvidia's own expertise and influence surely added to that, as well.

But Windows on Arm is still not perfect. There are some apps that don't work exactly, and some parts of Windows even still feel laggy compared to x86.

There are far more native apps than ever before, including all of the major browsers, VLC, Spotify, Slack, Microsoft Office, LibreOffice, Blender, DaVinci Resolve, Dropbox, Visual Studio, Zoom, and more, and Nvidia has more games working than ever before.

Most of Adobe's software, including After Effects, Photoshop, Lightroom, and Premiere, are Arm-native now. But InDesign, Illustrator, and Lightroom Classic are still running via emulation, so they may not be as speedy or stable.

Windows 11 includes an emulator, Prism, that runs apps built for x86 processors and converts the instructions, which does take care of a lot of the rest. But some advanced professional tools, like AutoCAD, aren't considered officially supported, though emulation may still work.

The other issue — which will probably never be totally cleared up — is for those who are using legacy peripherals that require drivers. The same goes for old software that is no longer updated.

But what isn't here yet is glaring: anything in Windows itself to take advantage of a chip that is designed to be an AI powerhouse. There's no sign of Nvidia OpenShell running in Windows 11 (26H1 came on the review unit, which is specific to Windows on Arm). Even the new Copilot hasn't rolled out broadly yet, and the Autopilot feature for a persistent agent isn't ready in time for launch. Microsoft's recently revealed feature that uses plain language search in the taskbar isn't here yet, and while that doesn't need Spark, it would at least have been an AI-specific change to Windows in time for this AI chip to make a splash.

Some off these features can be accessed through the Windows Insider program, but they should have been ready for general availability for a launch this big. This isn't limited to the Surface laptop, but also machines from other OEMs like Dell, Asus, Lenovo, HP, and MSI.

There's nothing that RTX Spark does that makes Windows itself better yet. This is not an operating system designed for local AI, and it doesn't feel like one. If you're interested in local models and running them, Spark has plenty of power. But there's nothing new in this AI PC for regular people using Windows unless you put preview software on your PC. Microsoft built a gorgeous, capable laptop here, but if the average person (or even a power user who doesn't rely on AI models and wants the most stable version of Windows 11) bought one, they wouldn't get anything dramatically special in the Windows experience, at least for now.

Display on the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra

The 15-inch, mini LED screen on the Surface Laptop Ultra is really, really good. The 3:2, 2370 x 2180 panel gets exceptionally bright.

I'm talking "944 nits on our light meter" bright. That's so far above everything else (the MacBook Pro hit 529.4 nits) that we had to adjust the X axis on our chart. For most things I could see people using this type of laptop for, (which for me, involves a lot of dark mode), it's probably overkill.

When I watched the trailer for Avengers: Doomsday, the many shades of emerald green were vivid, and a white light surrounding Johnny Storm and his nephew Franklin Richards was nearly blinding.

The Surface's display covers 74.1% of the DCI-P3 gamut and 104.6% of the sRGB gamut, which is slightly behind every other system in the pack.

Keyboard and Touchpad on the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra

The keys on Microsoft's chiclet keyboard are a bit on the mushy side for my taste, but the keys don't bottom out. On the MonkeyType typing test, I reached 117 words per minute and a 98% accuracy rate.

The massive haptic trackpad feels great. It's smooth and responsive to Windows gestures. I liked the default "medium" sensitivity, but you can adjust it in Windows settings.

Audio on the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra

Microsoft outfitted the Surface Laptop Ultra with quad speakers with support for Dolby Atmos.

Listening to Chvrches new single, "Roses," I was impressed with the sheer amount of volume the Surface Laptop Ultra drove, easily filling a small room with sound, though it could get a bit muddled at the highest volumes. At more reasonable levels, vocals, drums, and even synths on the low end were all clear.

I did find the EQ to be too flat to my tastes. Microsoft doesn't include any audio customization software, though Dolby's software is available from the Microsoft Store.

Upgradeability of the Surface Laptop Ultra

At first, you might think you can't upgrade this laptop, as there are no visible screws on the Surface Laptop Ultra. Those are hidden underneath the feet, which you can pry off with a guitar pick or pry tool. There's no adhesive there, which is appreciated, though it's easy to ding up the soft feet. I wish Microsoft just used exposed screws.

Below those feet are recessed Torx T5 screws. From there, a pry in the vent lifts the whole bottom off, with no clips to deal with. Instead, parts of the bottom case are aligned with magnets.

Inside, the laptop looks great. It's clean and labeled with a variety of QR codes and symbols for part labeling, as well as which screws hold parts down. The battery also has a QR code that goes to the Service Guide, though the Laptop Ultra's isn't ready yet. It's nice to see the inside receiving as much care as the outside of the laptop.

The battery and the SSD appear to be the major replaceable parts. The latter is important, as Microsoft is only offering 1TB configurations of the Ultra as of this writing. But looking closely along the sides, you can also see that most of the ports are held in by screws, too. The RAM, of course, is part of the SoC, so that's non-negotiable; get what you need when you buy it.

While Microsoft puts fine print all over the place that only authorized service technicians are supposed to make repairs, it's nice to see the company has put so much work into precisely labeling the parts so that third-party technicians and enthusiasts can make some repairs or upgrades, too. Now we're just waiting for that repair manual.

Battery Life on the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra

The Surface Laptop Ultra isn't a battery life champion. At 10 hours and 43 minutes on our test, which involves web browsing, video streaming, and OpenGL tests over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness, it can get through a day.

It just beat the Zenbook A16 (10:26) with Snapdragon X Elite and surpassed the TUF Gaming A14 (9:07) with Strix Halo. But the XPS 16 with Intel's Panther Lake ran for 13:03, and the MacBook Pro led the pack at 17:58.

That being said, like a gaming laptop, you won't want to run AI workloads unplugged for too long. Without making battery efficiency setting changes, you can easily see the battery icon drop quickly when running demanding tasks.

Heat on the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra

We took temperature measurements while running our Cinebench stress test. The Surface Laptop Ultra can get toasty.

The center of the keyboard reached 110 degrees Fahrenheit, which you can definitely feel on the keys, though the touchpad was cooler at 88.5 F. On the bottom, the hottest point reached 110 F.

The fans have the capacity to get quite loud, especially when utilizing the GPU. Having Hermes work on some coding projects created consistent fan noise.

Internally, HWinfo hasn't been updated to be clear on which sensors are measuring what. We could make educated guesses, but we'll have more specifics when the software is updated.

Webcam on the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra

The Surface Laptop Ultra features a 1080p webcam. Given the price, I would've liked to see even higher resolution. Many laptops, including several Arm-based competitors using Qualcomm chips, have nicer cameras.

Stills had some graininess to them, even in our well-lit office. But in the video I appeared crisp, with a color-accurate powder-blue shirt and some unfortunate gray hairs poking out of my brown hair.

An infrared camera adds support for Windows Hello.

Nvidia's RTX Broadcast has some neat effects that make this system better for streaming or video calls. Under video effects, you can use RTX Super Resolution and RTX Video Frame Generation to make for smoother, higher-quality images. Eye Contact is particularly good here, though I found that the virtual key light had a smoothing effect that made me look unrealistic, like a video game character. That being said, this all can push the GPU (especially the key light) and make the system run noisily during your calls.

Software and Warranty on the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra

Microsoft includes one major piece of software on top of Windows 11: the Surface app. It's a one-stop shop to check that your firmware is up to date, change your battery setting preferences, adjust the haptic touchpad, and customize the Copilot key. Much of this is available elsewhere.

The Nvidia App is also onboard to make customizations for gaming, update Nvidia's drivers, and adjust how much of the unified memory is reserved specifically for the GPU.

Otherwise, there are a few extras in the Start menu, including WhatsApp and LinkedIn.

Microsoft sells the Surface Laptop Ultra with a one-year warranty. If you purchase on Microsoft's website, Microsoft Complete for more protection starts at $249 for two years, $319 for 3 years, or $399 for four years, including coverage for hardware failures, battery wear, and accidental damage.

Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra Configurations

The Surface Laptop Ultra has many configuration options. The system starts at $2,599.9 with a cut-down version of the RTX Spark, using an 18-core CPU and GPU with 5,120 CUDA cores, along with 24GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and Windows 11 Home.

Our review unit is a nice step up, using the version of RTX Spark N1X with a 20-core CPU and 6,144 CUDA cores, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and Windows 11 Pro. That pushes the price to $3,699.99. (All systems with 24GB of RAM have Windows 11 Home, while 32GB through 128GB get Windows 11 Pro).

The highest-end configuration uses the same RTX Spark chip as our review unit, but features 128GB of unified memory and 1TB of storage. That's $5,899.99, and it sold out almost immediately during pre-orders on Microsoft's website.

Bottom Line

If you want the nicest Surface Laptop Microsoft has ever released, the Surface Laptop Ultra is for you. The system definitely copies the MacBook Pro in some areas, but is a luxury machine with a solid build, exceptionally bright display, a clever charging connector, and powerful components. It's the most exciting Surface hardware in years, and I hope it’s a signal that Microsoft is looking at the brand for more reinvention.

Nvidia's RTX Spark offers a decent CPU and a strong GPU, but it's also not a high-end gaming laptop. Where its strongest performance lies is in running local AI models, though that is a niche market right now. Windows on Arm, while not perfect, is better than it's ever been, and Nvidia is benefiting from years of work done before its entry into the market.

If you're a regular power user, you won't be getting any features in Windows that actually take advantage of the RTX Spark yet, unless you're diving into Windows Insider builds. If Microsoft has AI-grade hardware, it's time to start putting features into Windows that let everyone, not just people who care about local models, take advantage of this compute power. Some of those features should have been ready to show at launch.

And that's what you pay for with this machine — Nvidia's latest, a bunch of RAM, and a lovely design. This laptop is a status symbol, proof of either wealth, devotion to Surface hardware, or a serious interest in local AI. But it also suffers from a bit of an identity crisis, as Windows and RTX Spark aren't a true marriage feature-wise. This is a Copilot+ PC on steroids, where some software engineering and imagination could potentially allow the Surface and the other Windows-based RTX Spark PCs to be a new generation of computers. But we're not quite there yet.