Microsoft’s new Surface Laptop Studio might actually be your next gaming laptop

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Earlier this week, Microsoft announced the all-new Surface Laptop Studio. The spiritual successor to the Surface Book, this new laptop is an ultra-powerful machine that has been completely redesigned.

Unlike the previous Surface Book, the Surface Laptop Studio takes an all-new approach to productivity. With this laptop, Microsoft has abandoned the detachable screen, instead opting for a hinge mechanism to help the Surface Laptop Studio operate in its three different layouts.

Of course, the first layout is the traditional laptop mode, with full access to the keyboard and touchpad. Then, there’s studio mode, which takes advantage of the Dynamic Woven Hinge to fold the laptop down into more of a tablet (though the Surface Laptop Studio isn’t really a tablet, weighing in at around 4 pounds). This mode is designed for more creative projects, like drawing and sketching.

The third layout presented with the Surface Laptop Studio is called Stage Mode, and that’s where this laptop begins to become unique. In Stage Mode, you can pull the screen forward and rest it nicely above the touchpad. This mode cuts off access to your keyboard and is most likely best used for watching Netflix or playing certain games.

Design isn’t the only upgrade that comes with the Surface Laptop Studio

Speaking of gaming, the Surface Laptop Studio packs in it a bunch of powerful components that make it a substantial gaming laptop for most of today’s most popular games. The laptop comes with either a Core i5 or i7 Intel processor, and the i7 version even comes with an Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti GPU with 4GB of VRAM.

Pair that with either 16 GB or 32 GB of RAM and up to 2 TB of SSD storage and you’ve got yourself a pretty capable gaming machine. Of course, you won’t get the same performance as some of today’s high-end gaming-specific PCs, but the Surface Laptop Studio is definitely a capable gaming laptop.

The laptop has a 14.4 inch 2400 x 1600 display and is capable of running up to 120 frames per second. If that’s not enough for you, there are also four Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports so you can connect your own display.

You can preorder the Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio today starting at $1,599.99 and they’ll begin shipping out starting October 5th.

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