Microsoft Says New Surface Pro is Faster Than 15" M3 MacBook Air

Microsoft is going all in on AI, today introducing a series of Copilot+ PCs that have AI-focused hardware. The new Surface Pro is one of the first Copilot+ PCs, equipped with Qualcomm's Arm-based Snapdragon X Elite processor.

Microsoft is already pitting the Surface Pro against Apple's M3 MacBook Air, and in marketing materials, claims that the Surface Pro has superior processing power and battery life. Compared to the 15-inch ‌MacBook Air‌ with 8-core CPU and 10-core GPU, the Surface Pro and other Copilot+ PCs with 12-core and 10-core processors offer 58 percent better sustained multithreaded performance (based on Cinebench benchmarks).

As for battery life, Copilot+ PCs support up to 15 hours of web browsing or 22 hours of local video playback. The ‌MacBook Air‌ models offer the same 15 hours of wireless web browsing, but only 18 hours of local video playback.

According to The Verge, Microsoft's demonstrations for media included several comparisons of the Surface Pro compared to the ‌MacBook Air‌, and the Surface Pro came out on top in many of them. Windows PCs have struggled to keep up with Apple silicon in recent years, but it appears that Qualcomm's technology is catching up.

The Surface Pro is a 2-in-1 laptop that runs Windows, and it has an OLED display, much like Apple's newly launched iPad Pro models. It weighs under two pounds, supports Wi-Fi 7, and has advanced AI capabilities enabled by the neural processing unit.

Pricing on the Surface Pro starts at $1,000, but the version with ‌OLED‌ display and Snapdragon X Elite chip, 16GB RAM, and a 512GB SSD is priced starting at $1,500. Microsoft today also introduced the Surface Laptop with the same Snapdragon X Elite chip, with pricing that starts at $1,299.

The Surface devices will arrive to customers starting on June 18.