The Microsoft Surface Laptop 8 delivers snappy performance, exceptional battery life, and an excellent new haptic touchpad that maximizes the Windows 11 experience.
However, it arrives with a hefty price increase driven by the rising cost of memory and chips.
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As a direct replacement for the seventh edition from 2024, this new generation of ARM-based, Qualcomm-powered PCs is designed to rival thin and light machines like Apple's MacBook Air.
Design and Display
Apart from a few new colors, including a fetching jade green, the exterior remains virtually unchanged from its predecessor.
It retains a solid aluminum body, a satisfying keyboard, and a crisp, 120Hz LCD screen available in 13.8-inch or 15-inch variants.
The display is bright and supports HDR and Dolby Vision, though its glossy coating is highly susceptible to glare from office lights.
It is one of the first machines to support Windows 11's haptic signals feature via a generous haptic touchpad, which delivers subtle finger taps during actions like mousing over the close button or snapping windows.
Performance and Battery Life
Equipped with a choice of Qualcomm ARM chips starting with the Snapdragon X2 Plus, the tested X2 Elite version showed a 16% to 20% increase in single-core processor performance and roughly 10% faster graphics than the previous generation.
While it feels highly responsive and handles light gaming easily, it still lags behind rivals like Apple's M5 MacBook Air.
