Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on May 6, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 24, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleMicrosoft launches affordable AI laptops and tablets with Qualcomm chips, featuring Copilot+ for students and professionals, competing with Apple's offerings.
By Stephen Nellis
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Microsoft on Tuesday said it will release a new laptop and tablet with chips from Qualcomm at lower prices than before, aiming to get new AI features to a broader set of customers.
The newest Surface 13-inch laptop and Surface Pro 12-inch tablet will go on sale on May 20, with the laptop starting at $899 and the tablet starting at $799.
Both will feature Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Plus chips, and they will be priced slightly between competing products from Apple such as its MacBook Air, which starts at $999 and its iPads, where Air Pro models start at $649 and $999.
But Microsoft's new offerings will be its lowest-priced yet with support for what it calls "Copilot+" features that it introduced last year. That bundle of features includes things like the ability to ask how to change the computer's settings as a natural language question rather than sifting through settings menus or the ability to ask for an AI-generated first draft of a word document.
Microsoft has set performance computing chip requirements for the new Copilot+ label, which has meant that most of those AI features are only available on machines that cost $1,000 or more.
Pavan Davuluri, corporate vice president of Windows and Devices at Microsoft, said the new Surface devices are aimed at getting those features to a broader set of users, especially students or young professionals at the start of their careers.
"We think these new Surface Pro and laptops are for a set of customers for whom affordability is going to be important," Davuluri told reporters during a press briefing on April 28.
(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San FranciscoEditing by Shri Navaratnam)
The article discusses Microsoft's launch of affordable AI laptops and tablets with Qualcomm chips.
The new Surface devices offer Copilot+ AI features, including natural language settings queries and AI-generated document drafts.
The devices are aimed at students and young professionals seeking affordable AI-enabled technology.
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