The Surface Laptop and Surface Pro are both getting an upgrade this year, as Windows 11 AI improves alongside a refreshed design and battery life.
It’s normal to expect computers to change over time. The hardware improves and your laptops get faster, thanks in part to new chips and capabilities, while the operating systems get new features overall.
This tends to happen each year — year on year — and every subsequent update makes things a little better, even if the design doesn’t change.
Designs are one of those things that often stick around for quite some time, as manufacturers adhere to the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix” logic. New designs often come for a reason, and a simple upgrade isn’t it.
Usually it’s to make something more portable, such as is the case with an update Microsoft is making this week to its Surface line.
What’s new with Surface in 2025?
In 2025, the changes to the Surface are about design and portability, as a newly refreshed design arrives on the Surface Pro and Surface Laptop.
For the former, Microsoft is definitely taking its tablet and applying a new look. The edges are less flat as a curve is applied, all while keeping the adjustable kickstand a part of the design.
The idea of the Surface Pro is still the same, but the new model is one inch smaller, making it a 12 inch Surface Pro rather than the 13 inch Surface Pro you’ve found previously.
It still doesn’t come with a keyboard or mouse — they’re optional extras — but the new keyboard attaches using magnets, and can fold back flat against the 12 inch Surface Pro, making it easier to hold and sketch on.
If you do use the Surface Slim Pen, you’ll find the pen can now magnetically attach to the back of the tablet for charging, similar to how the pen on Galaxy Tab models magnetically sticks to the back of Samsung’s tablets.
Inside, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Plus powers everything, essentially providing speed and battery optimisation, supporting as much as 12 to 16 hours of battery life, though its life will depend on what you use the hardware for. The whole thing weighs 686 grams, making it a super slim Windows machine, though the keyboard could add a few more grams to the package.
Meanwhile, the Surface Laptop redesign will come to the 13 inch Surface Laptop, but not the 15 inch equivalent, at least not yet. The new model is slightly slimmer and less flat on the edges, with a slightly curved edge in an aluminium case that comes in three colours. A little heavier than the Surface Pro 12 inch, the 2025 Surface Laptop is twice the weight at 1.22kg.
The screen sees a 13 inch Full HD display and a battery capable of handling up to 23 hours of video playback or up to 16 hours of web browser, basically giving you an idea of what the 2025 Surface Laptop is gunning for: the MacBook Air. A similarly high-end battery in a similarly slick design tells you this is Microsoft’s take on some of Apple’s best.
Microsoft notes the Snapdragon X Plus inside is faster than the chip in the Surface Laptop 5, as well as the M3 MacBook Air (which would be a great comparison if the M4 MacBook Air wasn’t out also).
Windows 11 gets more AI
The updates to the Surface line arrive with some changes on the horizon for Windows 11, as the OS grows to cover more AI.
Artificial intelligence is something coming to so many devices, and last year’s first batch of AI PCs showed that AI in Windows could be more than just adding the CoPilot key to Windows keyboards.
This year, Microsoft is finally launching its Windows Recall feature, and is adding an automatic agent to help you fix settings on your PC.
In AI, an “agent” is an AI process that does something for you. So if you need help fixing a driver or finding a setting, Microsoft’s AI agents can do these things for you.
The feature will roll out first on Snapdragon-based Copilot+ PCs like the new Surface laptops, and will eventually arrive on Windows 11 laptops running on AMD and Intel further down the track, with English supported initially.
At the same time, Windows search will get better, as will the AI tools built into Photos, Paint, and the screenshot-snapping Snipping Tool. Photos will get a way to relight images using artificial intelligence, Paint gets a sticker generator going from text to digital sticker as well as an object selection tool that uses AI to extract an image, while the screenshot app will let you take text directly from the screen, all while capturing an image.
Microsoft promises more AI features are on the way, with a visual-based AI coming in Copilot Visual later on down the track, while other app makers work out how to take advantage of the Neural Processing Unit in AI PCs to improve the speed of what they’re doing. That includes the TikTok video editing app Capcut, the Gigapixel AI image upscaling app from Topaz Labs, and the video editing app Davinci Resolve from Australia’s Blackmagic.
Australian pricing and availability
Australians will get to see the new Surface machines shortly, too, arriving from May 20 priced from $1499.
Officially, the 12 inch Surface Pro starts with 16GB RAM and 256GB storage from $1499 without a keyboard or Surface Pen, adding $275 or $455 (together with keyboard) to the package respectively.
Meanwhile, the Surface Laptop clearly comes with the keyboard because it’s a laptop, not a tablet, and starts from $1699 with 16GB RAM and 256GB storage.
