Kalakshar US

It was Microsoft’s turn to step up to the plate and hold a fall hardware event on Thursday. Although Surface devices were the name of the game, there was a heavy — and I mean heavy — focus on AI. In the company’s first event since longtime Chief Product Officer Panos Panay departed this week (reportedly for Amazon), Microsoft revealed a pair of new consumer laptops and a whole lot of Copilot AI news.

Copilot and other AI updates

Microsoft spent most of the event talking about AI and Copilot. In fact, the hardware almost seemed like an afterthought. The company is unifying the Copilot AI assistant across its suite of products. Copilot will be available more broadly as part of a Windows 11 update that will arrive on September 26.

Copilot is built into Windows and it will appear in apps such as Edge. You’ll be activate Copilot with your voice or a right click. You might use Copilot to organize windows on your desktop, delete the backgrounds from photos or even generate a Spotify playlist.

The assistant will be able to pull context from your phone. For example, by reading information you receive from your airline via text message, Copilot can pull up your flight information. A shopping-focused version of Copilot is on the way too.

Copilot works with a new feature called Windows Ink Anywhere. You’ll be able to use a pen to, for instance, snip a screenshot of a math problem. Copilot can then solve the problem and explain how it reached that solution.

Enterprise users will need to wait a little longer to make use of Copilot in the Microsoft 365 suite. It will be generally available starting on November 1 for $30 per user per month. Microsoft says Copilot can summarize meetings and prioritize tasks based on what’s in your inbox. In Outlook, it will be able to draft emails in a way that mimics your writing style and voice, according to the company.

Elsewhere, Bing Image Creator will soon employ the DALL-E 3 model to generate more realistic-looking images. It will include an attribution to note that an image was AI generated.

Bing will also be able to prioritize search results based on your chat history. If you often ask the Bing chatbot about a certain sports team, the search engine may prioritize results accordingly. You can switch this function off, if you prefer (or you can simply avoid using the chatbot).

Surface Laptop Go 3 

Oh yes, there was some pesky new hardware to discuss too. Microsoft showed off the Surface Laptop Go 3, a 12.4-inch touchscreen notebook designed for portability. It weighs just 2.49 pounds and it has a 12th-gen Intel Core i5 CPU. Microsoft says it’s 88 percent faster than the original Surface Laptop Go from three years ago.

The Surface Laptop Go 3 will be available in four colors — Platinum, Sage, Sandstone and Ice Blue — and it starts at $799. You can get your hands on the system on October 3. We’ve already had the chance to try it, so be sure to check out our first impressions.

Surface Laptop Studio 2

On the higher end is the Surface Laptop Studio 2. Microsoft says this is the most powerful Surface it has built to date. It has an Intel 13th-gen i7 H class processor and up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 GPU. You can have up to 2TB of storage and 64GB of RAM as well. 

The Surface Laptop Studio 2 has a 14.4-inch display with a 120Hz refresh rate. The screen can tilt forward this time around. Elsewhere, there’s a trackpad that seemingly rolls in some features from Microsoft’s accessibility-focused Adaptive Mouse as well as a slot for a microSD card. 

Notably, the Surface Laptop Studio 2 has a neural processing unit that can power AI effects. Microsoft says this is the first Intel NPU in a Windows laptop. Meanwhile, the company is bundling in the Surface Slim Pen 2.

The Surface Laptop Studio 2 will be available on October 3. It starts at $1,999. 

Follow all of the news live from Microsoft’s 2023 Surface event right here.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/everything-microsoft-announced-at-its-surface-and-ai-event-171043141.html?src=rss 

The Surface Laptop Studio is sort of a unique PC thanks to its innovative hinged display, stylus support and well-rounded specs. In some ways it’s the ultimate jack-of-all-trades but master of none system. And now a sequel has arrived sporting a much-needed spec bump and the addition of some long-requested features including a microSD card slot. 

Now, some folks may be dismayed to see that the exterior of the just-announced Surface Laptop Studio 2 is largely unchanged. But as someone who’s been using the previous model as my main travel notebook for the last couple of years, I’m not that bothered. You still get clean, minimalist lines along with a 14.4-inch 2,400 x 1,600 120Hz PixelSense display that can tilt like an easel. I’m even happy to see little quirks like its two-tiered base return, which keeps the system’s vents cleverly hidden and away from the edges of the system while also offering a shelf for Surface Slim Pen 2 to latch onto. 

As you can see, Microsoft hasn’t messed around much with the new Surface Laptop Studio 2’s design (left) when compared to the original (right).

However, along the sides are some very important updates: a new USB-A port and a microSD card slot. This is the first time either of these has been available on this line, and while it might not sound like a big deal, for a system that’s geared toward artists and content creators, this change represents a major quality-of-life upgrade. Just being able to quickly transfer photos from a camera to your laptop without needing a cable or an adapter is extremely useful. And with the addition of a USB-A port along with the two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C jacks, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to leave all your dongles at home without sacrificing connectivity. 

There are also some subtle design changes including a new aluminum chassis instead of magnesium like you got on the original. This results in a very slightly thicker body (just 1 or 2mm), a more silvery hue and a smoother finish. 

As for performance, I really like the Surface Laptop Studio 2’s updated components. Even at launch, the original felt somewhat underpowered due to a middling quad-core chip despite being billed as Microsoft’s most powerful laptop. But now, with support for up to an Intel Core i7-13800H chip, 64GB of RAM, 2TB of storage and an RTX 4060 GPU (or an RTX 2000 card on commercial models), this successor feels like a more well-rounded machine. Sure, it’s not as fast as a similarly-priced gaming laptop and it’s not quite as thin as a typical 14-inch ultraportable. However, the combination of a high-res touchscreen with pen integration and a spec refresh delivers way more versatility than almost all of its rivals. 

One last big change is the addition of Microsoft’s Adaptive Touch feature, which brings increased accessibility. The tech uses a new touch algorithm that makes it easier for differently-abled people to mouse around and use the touchpad. And while I might not get a ton of use out of it, I appreciate how simple it is use. All you have to do is open the Surface app and you are immediately presented with options for enabling Adaptive Touch and adjusting things like click sensitivity and double-click speed. 

Granted, there aren’t a ton of major changes on Surface Laptop Studio 2 aside from refreshed specs and some new ports. But I think that’s OK, as this feels like a case of not messing with an already tested and still very innovative design. The main drawback is that with a starting price of $1,999, Microsoft’s latest flagship laptop costs a lot more than a typical 14-inch rival. But that may just be the cost for a system that can do a lot of everything. 

The Surface Laptop Studio 2 goes on sale on October 3. 

Follow all of the news live from Microsoft’s 2023 Surface event right here.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-surface-laptop-studio-2-hands-on-more-ports-and-a-much-needed-spec-bump-171733141.html?src=rss 

The Surface Laptop Studio is sort of a unique PC thanks to its innovative hinged display, stylus support and well-rounded specs. In some ways it’s the ultimate jack-of-all-trades but master of none system. And now a sequel has arrived sporting a much-needed spec bump and the addition of some long-requested features including a microSD card slot. 

Now, some folks may be dismayed to see that the exterior of the just-announced Surface Laptop Studio 2 is largely unchanged. But as someone who’s been using the previous model as my main travel notebook for the last couple of years, I’m not that bothered. You still get clean, minimalist lines along with a 14.4-inch 2,400 x 1,600 120Hz PixelSense display that can tilt like an easel. I’m even happy to see little quirks like its two-tiered base return, which keeps the system’s vents cleverly hidden and away from the edges of the system while also offering a shelf for Surface Slim Pen 2 to latch onto. 

As you can see, Microsoft hasn’t messed around much with the new Surface Laptop Studio 2’s design (left) when compared to the original (right).

However, along the sides are some very important updates: a new USB-A port and a microSD card slot. This is the first time either of these has been available on this line, and while it might not sound like a big deal, for a system that’s geared toward artists and content creators, this change represents a major quality-of-life upgrade. Just being able to quickly transfer photos from a camera to your laptop without needing a cable or an adapter is extremely useful. And with the addition of a USB-A port along with the two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C jacks, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to leave all your dongles at home without sacrificing connectivity. 

There are also some subtle design changes including a new aluminum chassis instead of magnesium like you got on the original. This results in a very slightly thicker body (just 1 or 2mm), a more silvery hue and a smoother finish. 

As for performance, I really like the Surface Laptop Studio 2’s updated components. Even at launch, the original felt somewhat underpowered due to a middling quad-core chip despite being billed as Microsoft’s most powerful laptop. But now, with support for up to an Intel Core i7-13800H chip, 64GB of RAM, 2TB of storage and an RTX 4060 GPU (or an RTX 2000 card on commercial models), this successor feels like a more well-rounded machine. Sure, it’s not as fast as a similarly-priced gaming laptop and it’s not quite as thin as a typical 14-inch ultraportable. However, the combination of a high-res touchscreen with pen integration and a spec refresh delivers way more versatility than almost all of its rivals. 

One last big change is the addition of Microsoft’s Adaptive Touch feature, which brings increased accessibility. The tech uses a new touch algorithm that makes it easier for differently-abled people to mouse around and use the touchpad. And while I might not get a ton of use out of it, I appreciate how simple it is use. All you have to do is open the Surface app and you are immediately presented with options for enabling Adaptive Touch and adjusting things like click sensitivity and double-click speed. 

Granted, there aren’t a ton of major changes on Surface Laptop Studio 2 aside from refreshed specs and some new ports. But I think that’s OK, as this feels like a case of not messing with an already tested and still very innovative design. The main drawback is that with a starting price of $1,999, Microsoft’s latest flagship laptop costs a lot more than a typical 14-inch rival. But that may just be the cost for a system that can do a lot of everything. 

The Surface Laptop Studio 2 goes on sale on October 3. 

Follow all of the news live from Microsoft’s 2023 Surface event right here.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-surface-laptop-studio-2-hands-on-more-ports-and-a-much-needed-spec-bump-171733141.html?src=rss