This Black Friday on Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 13in makes it good value – at last

• The Microsoft Surface Laptop 13in at its original price of £899 was too expensive
• Now that this price has been cut to £599, though, it’s a much better deal
• It’s lovely laptop with great build quality and phenomenal battery life
• It’s also one of the most compact 13in laptops around, thanks to its taller-than-usual 3:2 aspect ratio screen

When we reviewed the latest Microsoft Surface Laptop 13in earlier this year, we loved everything about it – apart from the price. Well, that hurdle has now been removed, with Microsoft slashing the price from £899 to just £599.

For that money, you’re getting a lovely little laptop with incredible battery life for not much more money than a budget clunker. This model comes with a Snapdragon X Plus 8-core processor, 16GB of RAM and a 256GB of RAM – a specification that wasn’t enough to impress us at the original price, but delivers the perfect combination of power and efficiency at this far cheaper price.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 13in quick specs

• CPU: 8-core Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus X1P-42-100
• Graphics: Qualcomm Adreno
• RAM: 16GB
• Storage: 256GB
• Screen: 13in 3:2 aspect ratio Pixel Sense display, 1,920 x 1,280
• Dimensions: 286 x 214 x 15.6mm (WDH)
• Weight: 1.22kg

This is a laptop that lasted an incredible 23hrs 40mins in our video playback tests: that’s longer than any other laptop we’ve reviewed this year – longer than the M2, M3 and M4 MacBook Air – and nearly as long as the amazing Snapdragon-based Acer Swift 14 AI laptop, which lasted 24hrs 2mins.

Not only that, but this is also one of the neatest, most compact 13in laptops around, thanks in the main to its near-square 4:3 aspect ratio 1,920 x 1,080 touchscreen. Despite the fact that it has only a slightly smaller screen on paper than the M4 MacBook Air, it actually takes up noticeably less room in your bag, and it’s lighter, too, at 1.22kg.

In general, I really enjoyed using the Surface Laptop. I found the keyboard “a pleasure to type on” while the large mechanical touchpad was “reliable, sensitive and … reasonably smooth under the finger”.

The screen itself was a joy, too: I found it reasonably bright and colour-accurate and I particularly appreciated its ability to adapt its colour temperature to match the ambient lighting in your immediate environment.

It isn’t without its flaws. It’s not as repairable as its more expensive 13.8in and 15in siblings, it lacks Windows Hello facial login (although it does have a fingerprint reader), its USB-C ports are limited to 10Gbits/sec speeds and don’t support Thunderbolt or USB 4.

But those limitations are far easier to swallow at £599. In fact, I’d go so far as to say this is one of the best laptop deals around this Black Friday week. If you’re in the market for a lightweight laptop with good battery life. Look no further.

• For more Black Friday deals on everything from toothbrushes and mattresses to smartphones and tablets, check out our main Black Friday deals page
• For laptop deals specifically, check out our Best Black Friday Laptop deals page

Written By

Jonathan Bray

Head of reviews at Expert Reviews, Jon has been testing and writing about products since before most of you were born (well, only if you were born after 1996). In that time he’s tested and reviewed hundreds of laptops, PCs, smartphones, vacuum cleaners, coffee machines, doorbells, cameras and more. He’s worked on websites since the early days of tech, writing game reviews for AOL and hardware reviews for PC Pro, Computer Buyer and other print publications. He’s also had work published in Trusted Reviews, Computing Which? and The Observer. And yet, even after so many years in the industry, there’s still nothing more he loves than getting to grips with a new product and putting it through its paces.

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