Microsoft Surface Laptop 6 price, specs and more

Microsoft announced the Microsoft Surface Laptop 6 as part of its "New Era of Work" event in March of 2024. This live-streamed presentation showcased products like the Surface Pro 10 and services aimed squarely at enterprise and business clients. To that end, the Surface Laptop 6 is a commercial model that Microsoft hopes to sell in bulk to business and enterprise customers.

I've been covering laptops for years, and I can tell you there aren't a lot of differences between the Surface Laptop 6 and its consumer counterpart, the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7. The main differences are pricing and configurations, as these laptops are priced for buying in bulk and made available to big businesses with more business-friendly features, like an optional NFC card reader for enterprise security.

With that in mind, here's a quick rundown of everything we know about the Microsoft Surface Laptop 6.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 6: Price and availability

The Microsoft Surface Laptop 6 is sold in two different sizes, just like its predecessors: a 13.5-inch model and a 15-inch version.

As with prior generations, they start at $999 for the 13-inch Surface Laptop 6 and $1,299 for the 15-inch model.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 6: Design

The Surface Laptop 6 looks an awful lot like the Surface Laptop 5, which is a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you feel about the Surface Laptop design.

I've reviewed the past two (Surface Laptop 4 and Surface Laptop 5) in both 13-inch and 15-inch varieties, and I've always kind of liked the simple design of these Windows 11 laptops. 

The Surface Laptop 6 is about the same size and weight as its predecessors, with the 13.5-inch model coming in at 12.1 x 8.8 x 0.66 inches and weighing roughly 3.06 pounds while the 15-inch Laptop 6 is a heftier 3.7 pounds, as befits its larger 13.4 x 9.6 x 0.67 size.

These will also be some of the first Surface computers to ship with a Copilot key on the keyboard, though those keys will be optional since Copilot isn't available worldwide yet.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 6: Display

The Surface Laptop 6 offers (at least in terms of size) the same display as its predecessors, which means either a 13.5-inch or 15-inch touchscreen with 201 pixels per inch (PPI). 

That translates to display resolutions of 2256 x 1504 on the 13-inch or 2496 x 1664 on the 15-inch, and in my experience that's plenty good enough for getting work done. 

But after reviewing the last two generations of Surface laptops, I wish Microsoft had upped the brightness of these screens. When I used older Surfaces, they were easy to use indoors, but outside in direct sunlight they can throw off a lot of glare and be awfully hard to see, even with brightness cranked to the max.

Thankfully, the Surface Laptop 6 (and Laptop 7) get significantly brighter than their predecessors and also come with anti-reflective coatings that reduce reflections by up to 50%. This makes the latest Surface Laptops much easier to use outdoors.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 6: Ports

Surface Laptops have always been light on ports, like a lot of ultraportables. And they're actually a bit better than a MacBook Air, in my opinion, because with the Surface Laptop, you get USB-C, USB-A and a headphone jack, whereas on an Air you just get USB-C and no headphone jack.

That trend continues unabated with the Surface Laptop 6, which comes with basically the same port array as its predecessors.

On the 13.5-inch Surface Laptop 6 you once again get a Thunderbolt 4/USB 4 port (which supports fast charging via USB-C as well as support for up to 1 8K external monitor via DisplayPort 2.1), a USB-A 3.1 port, a 3.5mm headphone jack and a Surface Connect port for the charger or Surface accessories.

The 15-inch Surface Laptop 6 comes with all that plus an additional Thunderbolt 4/USB 4 port, which is nice to have. Business customers can also order the 15-inch Laptop 6 with an integrated smart card reader, for enhanced security.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 6: Performance

The Surface Laptop 6 for Business is available with your choice of two CPU options: The Intel Core Ultra 5 135H or the Intel Core Ultra 7 165H.

These are some of the more powerful Intel Meteor Lake chips available, which is good news for folks who care about performance or AI. These are Intel's latest laptop CPUs, and they're built using a new (to Intel) "chiplet" design that includes a dedicated NPU (Neural Processing Unit) optimized for the kinds of tasks we increasingly ask "AI" to do. 

Since Microsoft's Copilot "AI" chatbot is a big part of its ongoing business strategy, it's good to see these Surfaces come with NPUs onboard. Whether we see a lot of software that takes full advantage of these new chips remains to be seen.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 6: Audio

Microsoft's Surface Laptop 6 offers Omnisonic speakers with support for Dolby Atmos and Bluetooth audio. The laptops also include a pair of studio mics for video calls and voice commands.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 6: Webcam

The Surface Laptop 6 ships with a redesigned Surface Studio Camera embedded in the top bezel that's capable of capturing 1080 images and video. It can also log you in via facial recognition if you enable Windows Hello.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 6: Bottom line

The Surface Laptops are respectable, serviceable Windows laptops that look good on a desk for not a lot of money. The Surface Laptop 6 for Business follows in their footsteps, delivering a solid Windows laptop without a lot of frills for not too much cash.

Thanks to the spec bump and slight redesign, the Surface Laptop 6, like the Surface Laptop 7, is a solid upgrade over its predecessors.