Microsoft has announced a couple of new products in its Surface lineup. One of these is an updated 13 laptop, while the other is a wholly new Surface Pro two-in-one device. The catch? The thing keeping the company’s pricing down is a simple fix — less RAM.
Surface tension
Both new slabs of hardware start with just 8GB of RAM. Anyone who has used Windows 11 knows that the company’s own guidance of at least 4GB of RAM is a joke. 8GB also doesn’t meet Microsoft’s updated suggestion of at least 16GB (and up to 32GB if you can swing it). For extra fun, Microsoft appears to have disappeared the original post that offered this information from its website.
Still, the semiconductor shortage means it must be done if anyone is going to shift any retail units. At least the new 12in Microsoft Surface Pro looks good. It’s landing with a Snapdragon X Plus processor, the aforementioned 8GB of RAM, and at least 256GB of storage. The starting price for this one is around R14,000 ($850). Shifting RAM up to a more sensible 16GB bumps the price tag to around R17,500 ($1,050), without any increase to storage space.
The 13in Microsoft Surface Laptop update (calling it an upgrade is a bit misleading) fares a little better. That unit also gets one of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Plus processors, 8GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, and a starting price of around R15,500 ($950). As with the new two-in-one, upgrading to 16GB of RAM will jack the price hard, to R19,000 or so.
Which is… fine, we suppose. It’s a little concerning that the Windows operating system has been ‘optimised’ to use as much RAM as possible. Stepping back from the previous standard configuration isn’t all downside, though. These machines are not Copilot+ certified, which means there may be less space for invasive AI. Or, if it’s stuffed in there, it’s not going to work as well.
