Microsoft Surface PCs Are Getting Big Price Hikes, and the Cheaper Models Are Going Away
If you have been While we wait for Microsoft to update its Surface PC line, perhaps with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X2 Elite processors, I have some bad news for you.
Microsoft East it’s shaking up its PC lineup, but it’s doing so by instituting steep price increases. That means you’ll pay at least $1,500 for Surface devices that launched for $1,000 just two years ago, and Microsoft no longer offers new Surface devices for less than $1,000 at all.
The 12-inch Surface Pro tablet, which originally sold for $799, and the 13-inch Surface Laptop, which launched at $899, now cost $1,049 and $1,149, respectively, a price increase of $250. The high-end Surface Laptop and 13-inch Surface Pro from 2024 both started at $999, but increased to $1,199 in 2025 when their entry-level versions with 256GB of storage were discontinued; both now start at $1,499, an increase of $300.
As Windows Central initially reported, Microsoft attributes the price hike to “recent increases in memory and component costs.” Supply shortages of RAM and storage chips in particular have wreaked havoc on consumer technology all year, delaying some launches, depleting the stock of existing products and raising prices for companies large and small.
The Surface 2024 updates were a major change for Microsoft’s first-party PCs. They were the first flagship Surface models to move from Intel and AMD chips to Arm-based processors, where Arm chips had previously been stuck in side projects like the Surface Pro
Arm-based PCs still appear to be doing well, based on the large number of retail listings, but these price increases make any further comparisons between Microsoft’s line and Apple Silicon Macs particularly unflattering. An equivalent M5 MacBook Air now costs $400 less than a similarly specced Surface Laptop, and nothing in Microsoft’s lineup comes close to the MacBook Neo’s value for money. If we see a Snapdragon
This story was originally published on Ars Technica.
