Microsoft’s Revised Surface Laptop Is Cheaper—and Worse—Than Before

Here’s the good news: Microsoft is selling a Surface Laptop in 2026 that—once again—costs less than $1,000. The bad news: it only has 8GB of RAM (half what it used to) with last-gen performance.

As spotted by Windows Central, Microsoft quietly released an $850 Surface Pro 12-inch and a $950 Surface Laptop 13-inch with pared-back RAM, Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus chips, and 256GB of SSD storage. The company previously hiked prices on all its pre-2026 Surface devices that used to start with 16GB of memory.

Of course, in order for the Surface Pro 12-inch to function as a convertible laptop, you still need to buy a separate $150 keyboard, which brings the actual total to $1,000.

These prices are higher than they were in 2025—for worse specs. The Surface Pro 12-inch launched for $800 last May. The Surface Laptop 13-inch originally released for $900 with the same chip and 16GB of RAM, but then Microsoft raised it to $1,200 in April. This new 8GB model is cheaper than the new MSRP but also more than what it originally cost.

Each new Surface config seems like a worse value than many of the other low-cost PC options cropping up to counter the $600 MacBook Neo. For example, the new Dell XPS 13 starts at $700 with 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.

The ongoing RAM pricing crisis has already decimated the entire PC pricing landscape. With AI data centers eating up all the capacity for memory, even the father of Windows itself isn’t faring any better than other laptop makers. The irony is that Microsoft pushed 16GB of RAM on Windows 11 for the sake of new AI integrations like Copilot. Based on previous standards, none of these 8GB laptop models can be considered Copilot+ certified.

Since the launch of Windows 11 in 2021, Microsoft has set 16GB as standard for the OS. Now, it needs to make concessions for lower-end systems. Windows Central reports that Microsoft is trying to optimize Windows 11 for 8GB machines. It may even disable certain widgets to ensure these systems run smoothly. Gizmodo reached out to Microsoft for more details about its plans for 8GB Surface devices and Windows optimizations, and we’ll update this post if we hear back.

Just last week, Microsoft debuted new Surface Pro 13-inch and Surface Laptop models with the more recent Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 platform. The new Surface Laptop 13-inch starts at a whopping $1,600 with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. Microsoft obviously knows it can’t sell low-end models at such obscene prices, but its Surfaces are struggling to make sense for the consumer who can’t possibly afford a $1,000+ device.