Microsoft's Surface Laptop 7 debuted in mid-June, and reviewers were thoroughly impressed with its Snapdragon X Elite-powered performance and superb battery life. Some Surface Laptop fans weren't as impressed, and instead expressed interest in a non-Windows-on-ARM laptop, one that could run any app without compatibility issues.
For those people, we've got some great news. According to a since-deleted listing on a second-hand Chinese Marketplace called Goofish (via Windows Central), a new Surface Laptop decked out with Intel's Core Ultra 7 268v CPU (a Lunar Lake chip) is set to release in 2025.
With an Intel-based Surface Laptop on the way, will Qualcomm's impressive chips take a back seat?
What kind of AI performance could this new Surface Laptop promise?
Although the Goofish listing has since been taken down, Windows Central thankfully managed to grab a translation of the listing:
"Surface Laptop 7 Ultra 7 268V processor, latest, not yet on Microsoft Store! Latest, very narrow bezel, not the old Laptop 6, not the old Ultra 7 (Meteor Lake), it's the latest! It will hit Microsoft Store soon for a price at about 19000 CNY. 32 GB RAM + 1 TB SSD, Latest 2024 version to be released in 2025"
Based off the listing, this appears to be a higher-end Surface Laptop configuration, packed with 32GB of RAM for incredible multitasking capabilities and a healthy 1TB of SSD storage. All in all, this configuration supposedly costs about 19,000 CNY, which converts to around $2600 USD.
But here's the big question: will the Lunar Lake chip's AI power be worthy competition for Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite chip?
The Surface Laptop 6, equipped with Intel's Meteor Lake chips, didn't have a strong enough NPU to carry out Microsoft's AI-powered Copilot+ features. The new Lunar Lake chips, however, seem to blow the competition out of the water when it comes to NPU benchmarks.
Our sister site Tom's Guide took the time to compare Lunar Lake chips against current-gen chips from Qualcomm, AMD, and Apple. While Intel's Lunar Lake chips fell behind AMD, Apple, and some Snapdragon X Elite-powered configurations in terms of performance benchmarks, they were easily top dog in NPU testing.
In the Geekbench AI NPU: Precision benchmark, both Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite and Apple's M3 chips scored below 2,500. Meanwhile, Intel's Lunar Lake chips soared past 18,000, indicating much stronger AI performance.
So if you're looking for one of the best AI-powered Windows laptops (with possibly even better battery life than a Snapdragon X Elite-powered Surface laptop), it might be worth waiting for Microsoft to launch this new Surface Laptop in 2025, possibly in January at CES 2025.
