The Surface Laptop 5 ditches AMD for a simpler lineup

Microsoft has announced the Surface Laptop 5 at its annual fall Surface event. There aren’t many changes from the outside, but inside, Microsoft has made a drastic change to the hardware by pulling support for AMD Ryzen processors in this generation.

The Surface Laptop 4 was the first (and only) Surface device to provide an option for Ryzen processors. Notably, it was a highlight of the laptop, providing better multi-core performance and longer battery life than its Intel rival.

With the improvements made in Intel’s 12th-gen processors, the decision to stick with Team Blue doesn’t feel like as much of a gut punch. It should be noted, however, that Microsoft has chosen to use Intel’s U-series chips.

In particular, you get the choice of either the Core i5-1235U or Core i7-1255U on the 13.5-inch model and just the Core i7 for the 15-inch model. These are all 15-watt chips, but only include two Performance cores (and eight Efficiency cores).

The Surface Laptop line of laptops has never been workhorses for performance, and the Surface Laptop 5 doesn’t look like it’s changing that.

The available color options are the only other significant change to the Surface Laptop 5 this year. Like the Surface Laptop Go 2 from earlier this year, the Surface Laptop 5 now comes in Sage green. This is in addition to the Platinum Alcantara, Matte Black, and Sandstone, all of which are options for the 13.5-inch model only. The Surface Laptop 5 15-inch still only comes in Platinum or Matte Black.

The Surface Laptop 5 still only comes with a 720p webcam, unfortunately, despite many laptops moving to 1080p this year.

The 13.5-inch Surface Laptop 5 starts at $1,000, for an entry-level configuration that comes with the Core i5-1230U, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage. The 15-inch model starts at $1,300 for the Core i7-1250U, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage.

As part of the Surface hardware launch, Microsoft also announced the Surface Pro 9, Surface Studio 2+, some new accessories, and more.

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