Engadget review: Surface Laptop Ultra brings RTX Spark speed at a flagship price

Engadget has reviewed Microsoft's Surface Laptop Ultra, a 15-inch notebook positioned as a flagship for NVIDIA's RTX Spark platform. The review describes a premium machine with strong build quality, a bright mini-LED display and capable local-AI hardware, alongside a price that puts it out of reach for many buyers. This summary reflects Engadget's reporting and the reviewer's hands-on impressions; pricing and benchmark figures are as published by Engadget and have not been independently verified.

What the review reports - The Surface Laptop Ultra starts at $2,599. Engadget's test unit, with 32GB RAM, 1TB storage and the top RTX Spark configuration, sells for $3,700. A 64GB version is listed at $4,300 and a 128GB version at $5,900. Storage tops out at 2TB, which the reviewer calls a limitation for an "Ultra" device. - The RTX Spark is an Arm-based system-on-chip. Engadget says the top version has 20 CPU cores and 6,144 GPU cores; the base model has 18 CPU cores and 5,120 GPU cores. Memory is unified across CPU and GPU. - The 15-inch screen uses a 3:2 aspect ratio, mini-LED backlighting, 2,000 nits HDR brightness and a 120Hz refresh rate. The reviewer found it excellent for HDR video and games. - Ports include three USB-C, HDMI, an SD card slot, a headphone jack and USB-A. The review highlights a magnetic USB-C charging cable that detaches if pulled, while still allowing standard USB-C charging. - Engadget measured 13 hours 25 minutes in PCMark 10's battery test and about seven and a half hours of mixed workday use. The laptop weighs 4.4 pounds.

Performance and AI Engadget reports that RTX Spark graphics perform roughly like an RTX 5070 laptop GPU, making the Surface suitable for 1440p gaming. In the review's Cyberpunk 2077 test at 1440p with maximum settings, path tracing and 4x frame generation, it reached 87 fps; 6x frame generation produced 117 fps but occasional visual artifacts. In Cinebench 2024, the Surface scored 1,553 in multi-threaded and 120 in single-threaded tests. Engadget compares those results with 2,188 and 192 for an M5 Pro MacBook Pro, and 210 single-threaded for an M6 14-inch MacBook Pro. The review also notes the Surface trailed an ASUS ProArt P16 by about 1,000 points in PCMark 10 Applications despite using the same RTX Spark chip, possibly because the ASUS unit had 128GB RAM versus the Surface's 32GB.

On local AI, Engadget's 32GB review unit could not run the largest models possible on a 128GB machine, but the reviewer ran OpenClaw with Qwen3.6 35B-A38 to fetch news, transcribe podcast audio and generate an audio podcast from a written review. The reviewer says more memory would make the laptop a better fit for agentic AI workloads.

Arm compatibility The review says Windows on Arm emulation has improved substantially. Some kernel-level anti-cheat software initially caused problems on Snapdragon X PCs, but Engadget reports Microsoft and NVIDIA have addressed enough of those issues that Fortnite is playable. The reviewer still warns that older or niche Windows software and third-party drivers can encounter bugs.

The verdict Engadget's interpretation is that the Surface Laptop Ultra is a refined, expensive flagship for Windows users who need local AI capacity and want premium hardware. The reviewer recommends it mainly for that narrow group. Gamers and content creators are told a capable gaming laptop could cost about $1,000 less, while Apple's MacBook Pros remain ahead on raw performance. The review also notes the Surface is heavier than some rivals, including Dell's XPS 16 and Apple's 16-inch MacBook Pro.

Confirmed facts are those Engadget reports: pricing, specifications, ports, weight, benchmark scores and the reviewer's own tests. The buying recommendation and comparisons to rival machines are the reviewer's judgments rather than independent lab results.