Microsoft’s Lunar Lake Surface Laptop is rumored to be arriving very late

The Microsoft Surface Laptop has its fans. It’s thin, it’s fast, and it works. The latest version of the laptop also carries the flag of a new generation of Qualcomm’s ARM-based Snapdragon Elite chips in Windows PCs. But it looks like Microsoft could be in for a surprise for all those who want an Intel x86 Lunar Lake chip that can go head to toe in performance and battery life without sacrificing software compatibility.

A Microsoft Surface Laptop … appeared on Chinese website Goofish with an Intel Lunar Lake chip made for ultra-small laptops. Redditors and Windows Central first spotted the leak, but it’s not something Gizmodo can independently confirm, as the post has since been deleted. Based on anonymous sources; Windows Central noted that Microsoft is testing Lunark Lake Surface Laptops. These new models could arrive as early as 2025 if anonymous sources are to be believed.

We don’t know if Microsoft would simply repeat the Surface Laptop 7 or release a new Surface Laptop 8, but we’re much more curious to know how this specific Surface was carrying an Intel Core Ultra 7 268V. This is a significant step up from many of the first laptops under 16 inches with Lunar Lake, such as the Asus Zenbook S 14, which contained either a 256V or 258V Core Ultra 7, while larger laptops such as the Acer Swift 16 still unreleased. The AI ​​is supposed to have the Core Ultra 9 288V.

If Microsoft is considering releasing a next-generation Surface Laptop, it would be at the top of its class. The 268V has four cores and four threads, plus a 5.0 clock speed and the second highest frequency Arc 140V GPU in the Ultra 2 line. It has the same memory as the high-end Core Ultra 9 288V, all and that doesn’t have nearly the same base TDP.

This specific listing on Goofish noted that the price of this alleged Surface Laptop was CNY 19,000, or US$2,600. You should take this price with a grain of salt, although the specs are interesting. It had 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, so it would be one of the high-end configurations. A current 13.8-inch Surface Laptop 7 with the Snapdragon Elite CPU, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB SSD starts at $2,000, while the 15-inch version costs $2,100.

The previous version of the Surface Laptop with first-generation Meteor Lake chips was only available in the company’s business line. Business laptops tend to be more expensive than consumer devices, so there may be a reason why the price listed on Goofish was as high as it was.

While we at Gizmodo weren’t all that thrilled with the Surface Pro 11’s form factor and battery life, the Qualcomm Snapdragon Elite chip is no joke. It easily outperforms Meteor Lake and Apple M3 Chips in various benchmarks in multi-core configurations. Intel’s Arrow Lake chips were hoping to prove that ARM isn’t the future, but we’re still waiting for high-end chips in a real laptop to prove that point.