Microsoft trades two CPU cores for a faster NPU in the smallest Surface Pro

Six cores where the previous model had eight, and a neural processing unit rated at 80 trillion operations per second against 45 ^[3][6][4]. CNET calls that nearly double, and the ratio works out to about 1.78 to one ^[4][5]. Microsoft's own summary promises a tick up in application performance and battery life, a larger leap in graphics and a giant jump in local AI capability ^[24]. The one application Microsoft is shipping preinstalled to use that AI capability is Ink Canvas, a new app for sketching, annotating, generating images and summarizing text on screen with the Slim Pen ^[10].

The $1,150 starting price buys a tablet ^[11]. Microsoft has not divulged accessory pricing, and CNET notes that the keyboard for the first-generation 12-inch Pro, which it calls "very much needed," adds $150 ^[12]. On that basis an entry configuration someone can type on lands near $1,300 ^[13], roughly $101 over the 13-inch Surface Laptop's $1,199 ^[14][15]. Both screens keep their existing resolutions and go from 400 to 500 nits ^[8][20].

On battery, Microsoft says to expect up to 22.5 hours from the second-generation 13-inch Laptop ^[17]. CNET measured more than 24 hours on the model it replaces, and wrote that the new figure "would actually be slightly shorter if our tests bear that out" ^[18][22]. The distance between the claim and the older machine's measured result is at least an hour and a half ^[19].

Add the two new machines to the 13-inch Pro and the 13.8- and 15-inch Laptops, which have offered Snapdragon X2 since May or June, and five Surface configurations in CNET's account run second-generation Qualcomm silicon ^[2][23]. That puts the Windows-on-Arm compatibility question on the two cheapest machines here, at $1,150 and $1,199 ^[11][14]. CNET's article covers Snapdragon configurations and does not take up Intel-based Surface models, so the stronger version of this story, that the whole Surface catalog is now Arm, goes past this record ^[25].

One list is the applications someone has already launched on a Snapdragon Surface and watched behave; the larger Laptops have been shipping X2 parts since May or June, so machines to test against are already in the field ^[2]. The other is the applications that would put 80 TOPS to work, and on this record that list has Ink Canvas on it ^[4][10].