Is it worth paying almost $6,000 for a laptop for local AI? The first analyzes of the Surface Laptop Ultra leave no room for doubt
The first analyzes of the Surface Laptop Ultra. After reading them carefully, everyone agrees that this is Microsoft’s most ambitious laptop to date. After its official presentation during Computex, this model was presented as the main showcase of NVIDIA’s RTX Spark processors under ARM architecture.
Now, in-depth tests of reference media agree on something. And the industrial design and graphic power reach notable levels, but the local AI ecosystem still appears green for the general public.
For example, in the analysis published by The Verge, Tom Warren summarizes that, while the technical proposal is attractive, “the reality of local AI is much more chaotic.” The system invites the user during the initial configuration to choose between autonomous assistants such as Hermes or OpenClaw.
However, when running heavy local models such as Qwen 3.8-27B, The device fires the fans at maximum power and requires prior knowledge to resolve configuration errors, which distances these functions from an accessible experience for users who do not know how to program.
Large memory reserve with a Windows 11 to mature
From Tom’s Hardware, Andrew E. Freedman emphasizes that “if you don’t run AI models, there is nothing new that the average Windows user can take advantage of.” That is, Windows 11 still lacks tools integrated into the system to take advantage of such computing capacity on a day-to-day basis.
In practice, those looking for local inference find a solvent acceleration thanks to the Blackwell GPU with 6,144 CUDA cores and configurations up to 128 GB of unified memorybut outside of that specialized environment, the behavior is not far from that of a conventional laptop.
For his part, Kyle Barr highlights in Gizmodo that the laptop offers the advantage of maintaining almost the same performance with battery as connected to its 140 W adapter. The analyst values the possibility of processing confidential data locally without resorting to servers in the cloud, although he points out that x86 emulation through Prism in professional applications or games not adapted to ARM is still somewhat cumbersome.
A praised design, but penalized by weight
There is something that all three publications agree on. They all speak of the 15-inch mini-LED touchscreen as one of the best on the market, recording a measured brightness of 944 nits in laboratory tests.
The magnetic connector also receives praise Magnetic Connectwhich adapts a reversible USB-C using magnets without rendering the port unusable, along with a selection of connections unusual for Surface that includes HDMI 2.1b and SD card reader.
However, there are things that are not so popular. One of them is that they talk about a weight of 2.0kga very noisy thermal behavior when the GPU works at maximum and, above all, a price range for few pockets. With a rate that starts from $2,599 For the 24 GB version, the ticket shoots up to $5,899 in the 128 GB variant.
As you can see, after reading these first reviews, the idea that the Surface Laptop Ultra is a niche machine for developers and researchers of local models is reaffirmed. It is also confirmed that, for these advanced tasks, the team looks directly at Apple’s MacBooks. However, it is waiting for the Microsoft software to reach the maturity of its hardware or to be able to take advantage of the power of this equipment in an integrated way (perhaps with a local Copilot ready to use?).
