Were you tempted by the Surface Laptop, but found the price a bit too rich for your wallet? Then you might want to take the plunge with a new entry-level version of the notebook Microsoft has introduced priced at $799 (around £560, AU$1,000).
The new spin on the Surface Laptop, which is now on sale in the US, does come with a compromise to knock that price down, unsurprisingly – it runs with an Intel Core m3-7Y30 processor (1GHz base clock, capable of Turbo up to 2.6GHz).
The previous entry-level model was built around an Intel Core i5 chip, which is a considerably more powerful CPU. That version is priced at $999 (around £705, AU$1,250).
The new model has the same base level of system RAM and storage as with the Core i5, namely 4GB and 128GB respectively. The difference is you can’t specify any more than this with the new Core m3 notebook, but the Core i5 spin lets you double the system RAM to 8GB should you wish.
Note that the new Surface Laptop is only available in one color – platinum – at least at the time of writing.
And as we already mentioned, it’s only on sale in the US, although we’d expect it to become available in the UK and other territories in time. Hopefully sooner rather than later, although as we’ve seen in the past, there can sometimes be quite a delay when it comes to Microsoft’s hardware getting sold outside of the States.
Surface sales
This is an interesting development coming hot on the heels of news that Microsoft’s Surface range suffered from stagnant sales in the last quarter (Q2). As we observed yesterday, during the previous quarter to that (Q1), Microsoft saw boosted sales to the tune of 12% which the firm said had been driven by folks buying the new Surface Laptop.
Therefore we theorized that Q2’s lackluster sales might point to the initial interest in the Surface Laptop waning. And the release of a cheaper entry-level model does fit in neatly as a piece of that particular sales puzzle.
That’s all completely in the realm of speculation, of course. What isn’t speculation is the fact that you can now get yourself a considerably cheaper Surface Laptop if you’re in the US, and come future discount events like Black Friday, we could see some seriously tempting bargains.
Via Windows Central
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