Microsoft used an October 7 keynote in San Francisco to finally put numbers on the Surface Laptop Ultra it had been teasing for months. Pre-orders opened the same day, shipping starts October 16, and the pitch is blunt: a 15-inch machine built around Nvidia’s new RTX Spark chip, priced to sit under Apple’s MacBook Pro while chasing the exact same buyer.
A Windows laptop aimed squarely at the MacBook Pro
The 15-inch Surface Laptop Ultra is priced starting at $2,599, undercutting Apple’s $2,999 16-inch MacBook Pro, and it targets the same creator and developer market. Microsoft says it is built for “demanding creative, software development, AI, engineering, and 3D workloads.” That’s a deliberate shot: this isn’t being sold as a better everyday Windows laptop, it’s being sold as the machine you buy instead of a MacBook Pro.
Microsoft calls this its first “builder class” PC, built for developers and AI researchers rather than for people who want a nice Windows laptop. At $2,599 to start, it sits well outside normal Surface territory. The base config gets you a cut-down chip and modest memory; the real argument for buying one shows up further up the price ladder.
Microsoft’s new laptop uses an Nvidia RTX Spark chip, which includes an Nvidia Blackwell RTX GPU with up to 6,144 cores and an Nvidia Grace CPU with up to 20 cores. It supports up to 128GB of unified memory and has a new thermal architecture to support the hardware. The RTX Spark is an Arm-based chip, so the laptop runs Windows on Arm with x86 apps using Microsoft’s Prism emulation. That last point matters for anyone weighing this against a Mac: Apple finished its Intel-to-Arm transition years ago, Microsoft is still mid-transition, and app compatibility on Arm-based Windows has historically been the weak link.
The entry configuration gets you 512 GB of storage, 24 GB RAM and the 18-core RTX Spark variant. $5,899.99 will get you the full machine with the 20-core RTX Spark, 128 GB RAM and 1 TB storage. That’s a wide spread for one laptop family, and it mirrors how Apple spreads MacBook Pro configurations from M5 Pro up to M5 Max.
Screen, ports and the MagSafe clone
The Surface Laptop Ultra comes with a 15-inch PixelSense Ultra mini-LED touchscreen with a 3:2 aspect ratio, a pixel density of 262 PPI, and peak HDR brightness of up to 2,000 nits. The laptop features a 15-inch PixelSense Ultra Mini-LED touchscreen with a 3:2 aspect ratio, 3,270 x 2,180 resolution, and a 120Hz refresh rate. Microsoft says its 2,000 nits of peak HDR brightness is the brightest of any laptop. That’s a touchscreen, which no current MacBook offers.
On the body itself, the Surface Laptop Ultra measures less than 18mm thick and weighs under 4.5 pounds (around 2kg). Microsoft has also increased the size of the precision haptic touchpad by more than 30% compared to the Surface Laptop 7th Edition. Cooling got a rework too: Microsoft has developed a new cooling system that offers up to 2.5 times the thermal capacity of the 15-inch Surface Laptop 7th Edition.
Ports are where Microsoft is making the loudest noise. The device has three USB-C ports, a USB-A port, an HDMI port, an SD card reader, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Microsoft even adopted a MagSafe equivalent, adding support for Magnetic Connect, which it calls the “world’s first built-in magnetic USB-C charging on a laptop.” Magnetic Connect replaces Surface Connect, the proprietary charging port Surface has used for years. In effect, Microsoft has built its own MagSafe, a decade after Apple dropped the original and five years after Apple brought MagSafe back to the MacBook Pro.
Spec for spec against the 16-inch MacBook Pro
Apple’s answer is the 16-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro or M5 Max, a design that hasn’t fundamentally changed since 2021. Here’s how the base configurations line up.
| Spec | Surface Laptop Ultra | MacBook Pro 16″ (M5 Pro) | Dell XPS 16 Creator Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $2,599 | $2,999 | $3,799 |
| Chip | Nvidia RTX Spark N1X, 18-core CPU, 5,120-core GPU (base) | Apple M5 Pro, 18-core CPU, 20-core GPU | Nvidia RTX Spark N1X |
| Memory | 24GB to 128GB unified | 24GB to 48GB unified | Up to 128GB unified |
| Display | 15″ mini-LED touchscreen, 3,270×2,180, 2,000 nits peak | 16.2″ mini-LED, 3,456×2,234, 1,600 nits peak, no touch | 16″ Tandem OLED, HDR 600 |
| Weight | Under 2kg | 2.14kg | Not yet published |
| Ships | October 16, 2026 | Available now | October 16, 2026 |
On paper the Surface Laptop Ultra wins on screen brightness and touch input; it has the “brightest, sharpest, and most vivid display” Microsoft has used in a Surface device, with peak HDR brightness that’s 25% higher than the M5 MacBook Pro’s. The mini-LED display is a touchscreen, and it supports gestures and navigation, but not pen input. The laptop is lighter than the 16-inch MacBook Pro, with a large haptic trackpad and upgradeable storage. Apple’s 16-inch MacBook Pro still has the edge in battery estimates, with Apple rating the machine for 17 to 24 hours depending on workload, a figure Microsoft hasn’t yet matched with independent testing on the Arm-based chip.
The rest of the RTX Spark field costs even more
Surface Laptop Ultra isn’t the only RTX Spark laptop launching this month, and it isn’t even the cheapest. Six other brands have confirmed pricing on their own N1X machines, and most of them cost more than Microsoft’s entry point.
Prices start at $2,599.99 for the ASUS ProArt P14 and $2,799.99 for the ProArt P16. HP’s OmniBook X 14 starts at $2,999.99 and is expected to ship beginning November 4, 2026. Lenovo’s Yoga 9n starts at $3,099.99, with models expected to begin shipping on October 16, 2026. HP’s larger OmniBook Ultra 16 starts at $3,199.99, with shipments expected to begin on November 4, 2026. MSI’s Prestige N16 Flip AI+ features the RTX Spark platform and a Tandem OLED display, with prices starting at $3,299.99. Dell’s XPS 16 with RTX Spark features a 3.2K OLED display and the usual premium XPS styling, with prices starting at $3,799.99 and units expected to begin shipping on October 16, 2026.
Put next to that field, Microsoft’s $2,599 starting price looks less like aggressive discounting and more like table stakes. Apple’s $2,999 MacBook Pro sits comfortably in the middle of this new pack rather than at the top of it, which is itself a shift: Apple’s pro laptop used to be the expensive option by default.
Price and availability
During its October 7th keynote in San Francisco, Microsoft confirmed that Surface Laptop Ultra would begin shipping on October 16, with pre-orders going live the same day starting at $2,599. The base model, as noted above, pairs 24GB of RAM and 512GB of storage with the lower-spec 18-core chip; stepping up to the full 20-core RTX Spark with 128GB of memory and 1TB of storage pushes the price to $5,899.99. Microsoft is selling the laptop in Platinum and Nightfall finishes, and pre-orders are live now on Microsoft’s own site as well as retail partners.
Also this week
Apple’s own MacBook Pro overhaul is reportedly close. The MacBook Pro introduced the notch to the Mac line in 2021, and the redesigned model that’s about to launch will reportedly remove it, with a small camera cutout and Dynamic Island built in instead. The overhaul is expected to debut within a month or so, and it should be the first touchscreen MacBook, as well as the first with Tandem OLED. A separate Omdia report said the redesigned MacBook Pro will come in 14.3-inch and 16.3-inch sizes, a very slight increase over the current 14.2- and 16.2-inch models.
On the software side, Apple pushed out another round of security housekeeping. Alongside releasing macOS 27.2 Golden Gate public beta 2, Apple is rolling out the first Release Candidates of macOS Sequoia 15.8.2 and macOS Tahoe 26.7.2. Apple isn’t including any new features in these updates, but they will contain the typical mix of bug fixes, performance improvements, and security fixes that Apple usually recommends for all users. If you’re still on Sequoia or Tahoe rather than the newer Golden Gate release, install it once it leaves the beta channel.
What this means for you
If you’ve been eyeing a 16-inch MacBook Pro and don’t need macOS specifically, the Surface Laptop Ultra is the first Windows machine in years that competes on price rather than just specs. Its base config is cheaper, its screen is brighter and touch-enabled, and the Magnetic Connect port solves the cable-snag problem Apple users have had solved since 2021.
The trade-off is software maturity. Windows on Arm has improved, but Prism emulation for x86 apps is still a layer of translation that Apple finished stripping out of macOS years ago. If your workflow depends on specific pro apps, check whether they have native Arm builds before ordering, not after.
If you already own a March 2026 MacBook Pro with M5 Pro or M5 Max, there’s no reason to look sideways at this launch. But if you were about to buy a new MacBook Pro this month, it’s worth knowing Apple’s own redesigned model, with a Dynamic Island cutout and possibly Apple’s first touchscreen, is reportedly weeks away rather than months.
Sources
- MacRumors: Microsoft Launches $2,599 Surface Laptop Ultra to Take on MacBook Pro
- Neowin: Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Ultra is now available for pre-order for $2599
- Gear Live: Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra Is Official and Starts at $2,599
- Notebookcheck: Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra debuts with RTX Spark, 128 GB unified memory and $2,599 starting price
- Windows Central: I rounded up all the RTX Spark laptops you can preorder
- Windows Central: Microsoft finally confirms Surface Laptop Ultra pricing and release date
- EveryMac: MacBook Pro “M5 Pro” 18 CPU/20 GPU 16″ Specs
- 9to5Mac: Redesigned MacBook Pro will reportedly include these three changes
- 9to5Mac: Redesigned MacBook Pro with OLED to feature ‘significantly lighter’ design
- 9to5Mac: First RCs for macOS Sequoia 15.8.2 and macOS Tahoe 26.7.2 now available
- AppleInsider: Release candidates of macOS Tahoe, Sequoia updates are out for testing