The Surface Laptop Ultra delivers on most of Microsoft's promises

Ars Technica’s Nick Indge spent a week with Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Ultra on NVIDIA’s RTX Spark platform. Starting price $2,599, up to $5,899; reviewed 64GB config at $4,299.99. The machine ran a 70B Llama 3.3 model via Ollama at 6.26 tokens/sec, played AAA games on ARM with large unified-memory VRAM allocations, and impressed on a 15-inch mini-LED 3270×2180 display. Geekbench AI couldn’t use a proper GPU/NPU path yet; Microsoft’s AI Dev Gallery preview left many chat models on CPU; Phi Silica access needs developer registration; Copilot+ features like Recall are slated for late 2026 or early 2027. Microsoft claims about 85% of Game Pass is playable on ARM. Q3 2026 PC shipments were down 20% year over year in cited industry numbers.

This is the honest review Spark needed. The silicon can run serious local models and games; the Windows AI story is still half-built. Paying MacBook Pro money for a machine whose Copilot+ badge arrives later is a bet on drivers and galleries maturing.

For CUDA developers who need a portable test bed, Indge says it’s genuinely exciting. For everyone else, patience. We agree. Useful local AI on Windows ARM is close enough to taste and not finished enough to standardize on.

I’m watching when NVENC shows up in HandBrake-class apps, when Geekbench sees the Blackwell path, and whether Copilot+ lands before buyers feel bait-and-switched.

Base 24GB models ship with Windows 11 Home; higher configs get Pro. Magnetic USB-C charging is a first for that connector style on a laptop, per Microsoft’s claim.