Microsoft's MacBook-rivalling Surface Laptop Ultra now available to pre-order

Quick summary

The Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra is available for pre-order with big cash back incentives if you trade-in a MacBook Pro.

This is the more powerful Surface Laptop Ultra yet, designed for developers and those running intensive AI tasks.

Microsoft has gone on the offensive, offering its new Surface Laptop Ultra for pre-order, while offering huge incentives for those who trade in their MacBook Pro.

The RTX Spark-equipped Surface Laptop Ultra is the most powerful Surface device and Microsoft is dangling up to $1000 cash back trade-in on a MacBook Pro for those who pre-order the Surface Laptop Ultra.

While the trade-in is highlighted on the Microsoft Store in the US, it isn't explicitly mentioned on the UK store, but you can still trade-in a MacBook Pro to get cash back from Microsoft. Those who pre-order in the UK get a free 140W charger.

Latest Videos FromT3

Watch full video here:

That leaves no doubt about what Microsoft sees this device rivalling as it looks to divert power users from macOS and get them onto Windows. The company has already outlined changes coming to Windows to support what it calls "world builders" and this is the hardware that Microsoft thinks you'll use to do it.

Core to the Surface Laptop Ultra is the Nvidia RTX Spark, the next-gen chip that piles in an ARM-based N1X CPU, a Blackwell GPU and has up to 128GB of unified memory onboard. It's the most powerful Surface Laptop ever.

There's a 15-inch display on the Surface Laptop Ultra, with touchscreen support, but also claiming to offer the highest HDR brightness of any laptop. Microsoft says it has 25% higher peak brightness than the MacBook Pro M5, coming in at 2000 nits.

Microsoft has also designed a clever power connector for the Surface Laptop Ultra, with a magnetic USB-C plug. This combines the benefit of MagSafe - it clips right into place and releases if someone walks into the cable - but there's a fully-functional USB-C port at the centre.

That means less compromise, but it's a little larger than most USB-C plugs. Additionally there are two USB-C ports, HDMI, USB-A, SD card reader and a 3.5mm audio socket.

The Surface Laptop Ultra claims to offer 2.5x better thermal capacity than previous Surface Laptop models, with a 18mm thick chassis and weighing 2.05kg.

This is all designed to give you the optimal device for running local AI models or for sustained performance, while RTX Spark will also benefit from wider game support in the future as Windows looks to bolster gaming on ARM devices.

The most powerful Surface Laptop ever comes with a price however, starting at £2,599.00 or $2,599.99 on Microsoft.com, for the 18-core, 24GB, 512GB SSD model. It's worth noting that the SSD is user replacable, so you can make your own upgrades.

At top specifications the Surface Laptop Ultra comes with a 20-core CPU, 128GB and 1TB SSD, all for £5,899.00 or $5,899.99.

Chris has been writing about consumer tech for over 15 years. Formerly the Editor-in-Chief of Pocket-lint, he's covered just about every product launched, witnessed the birth of Android, the evolution of 5G, and the drive towards electric cars. You name it and Chris has written about it, driven it or reviewed it. Now working as a freelance technology expert, Chris' experience sees him covering all aspects of smartphones, smart homes and anything else connected. Chris has been published in titles as diverse as Computer Active and Autocar, and regularly appears on BBC News, BBC Radio, Sky, Monocle and Times Radio. He was once even on The Apprentice... but we don't talk about that.