Of all the devices announced during today's Surface event, Microsoft's new flagship 2-in-1 is by far the most unexpected and bizarre. The Surface Laptop Studio features a unique floating display that you can perch behind its trackpad for an immersive gaming or streaming experience or fold into tablet mode for drawing and note-taking.

Be sure to check out all the products revealed at today's Surface event, including the new Surface Pro 8, the upgraded Go 3, the more affordable Pro X tablet, and the incredible Surface Duo 2 Android phone. Microsoft also announced some cool new accessories that are genuinely worth taking a look at.

Microsoft calls the Surface Laptop Studio an ideal product for "developers, creative pros, weekend gamers, and designers." Its floating display certainly seems to fit in all use-cases, and with support for 11th Gen Intel Core processors (i5 or i7) and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPUs (only available with i7 configurations), the Surface Laptop Studio is more than powerful enough to run professional software, AAA games, and creative applications. In fact, it's the most powerful Surface device to date.

You can get the Surface Laptop Studio with 16GB or 32GB of LPDDR4x RAM, and its removable SSD drive comes with a maximum 2TB of storage. Like the new Surface Pro 8, the Laptop Studio packs two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports, a Surface connect jack, and a headphone jack. And of course, Microsoft managed to pack the Laptop Studio with both Windows Hello and Wi-Fi 6 support.

When in laptop mode, the Surface Laptop Studio looks and feels like a modern PC. It sports a large keyboard and haptic trackpad, and its 14.4-inch 120Hz PixelSense display is extremely slim despite the integrated hinge.

This hinge, dubbed the Dynamic Woven Hinge, is a completely new design. Microsoft touts its durability and ease of use, emphasizing just how quickly it can fold into new orientations. The unique "Stage" mode places the display behind the trackpad, covering the keyboard and providing a comfortable, immersive experience for gaming, streaming, docking, drawing, or taking notes.

Another orientation, called "Studio" mode, flattens the laptop's display against its keyboard and trackpad for a tablet experience. It's an interesting and sleek alternative to the backward-folding design of most 2-in-1s.

And while you can't really see it in Microsoft's press photos, the Surface Laptop Studio features a magnetic storage and charging slot for the Surface Slim Pen 2. This slot is tucked underneath the Laptop Studio's keyboard, providing easy access in the "Studio" tablet mode.

While the Surface Laptop Studio specs look impressive, I want to point out one glaring issue that will turn off a lot of people---this thing is a bit heavy. The i5 configuration weighs 3.83 pounds, while the i7 model is a whopping 4 pounds. That's comparable to devices like the 15-inch MacBook Pro, but about three times the weight of even the largest tablets. (Though to be fair, the Laptop Studio is more of a laptop than a tablet.)

The Surface Laptop Studio starts at $1,600 and is available for pre-order at Microsoft's webstore. It ships with Windows 11, with general availability opening on October 5th (the same day that Windows 11 launches).

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Surface Laptop Studio

The new Surface Laptop Studio features a bizarre floating display for three immersive orientations. It's also the most powerful Surface device yet, running 11th Gen Intel Core processors and NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPUs. Pre-order it now starting at $1,600.

Source: Microsoft