Microsoft has announced the Surface Laptop 4, a machine designed for hybrid working that the company claims is up to 70% faster than the Surface Laptop 3.
As expected, both the 13.5in and 15in Surface Laptop 4 models will ship with either an 11th-gen Intel Core chip or an AMD Ryzen Microsoft Surface Edition processor, following a decision in March to support configurations from multiple hardware vendors.
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Unfortunately, the laptop won’t come with AMD’s newest Ryzen 5000 mobile processors, with the ‘Surface Edition’ chips instead based on AMD’s Ryzen 5 4680 or Ryzen 4980U CPUs.
Microsoft says this internal upgrade makes the Surface Laptop 4 up to 70% faster than its last-gen model, with a noticeable improvement in battery life too; while Microsoft claimed up to 11.5-hours of battery on the Surface Laptop 3, it says this latest model will last up to 19 hours.
Fast Charging is also supported on the Surface Laptop 4, which the company claims will see the laptop refuel from 0% to 80% in just one hour.
The other main hardware change is an access hatch so that the PCIe-NVMe-SSDs can be easily changed, like on the Surface Pro 7+.
The Surface Laptop 4, which Microsoft says has been designed to support the future of hybrid work, also features a HD front-facing camera with low light capabilities and a studio microphone array, up to 1TB of SSD storage, and enterprise-grade security.
For business users, the Surface Laptop 4 comes with a hardware TPM 2.0 chip for enterprise security and Bitlocker support, along with Windows Hello support for secure logins.
The Surface Laptop 4 ships with either Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro, and is available in the US, Canada, and Japan from today with a starting price of $999.99. UK availability has not yet been confirmed, but we’ve contacted Microsoft for further information.
This wasn’t the only hardware Microsoft announced during its Surface event on Tuesday. The firm also unveiled the Surface Headphones 2+ for Business, which have been designed for those continuing to work from home, as well as those preparing to adopt hybrid work going forward, according to the company.
The over-ear headphones feature 13 levels of active noise cancellation, an advanced 8-microphone system, and a rechargeable battery that offers up to 15 hours of voice calling time. The headphones are also certified for Microsoft Teams with the included dongle, which provides on-ear Teams controls and improved remote calling.
The firm has also unveiled a range of “Modern” branded peripherals designed with remote working in mind, including the Microsoft Modern USB and Wireless Headsets, the Microsoft Modern USB-C speaker, and the Microsoft Modern Webcam. The latter features support for 1080p video, a 78-degree field of view optimised for video conferencing, and an integrated privacy shutter.
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