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Photo: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

If you’re waiting to see the Pixel 9, Pixel Watch 3, or other new Google hardware, then August 13th could be a big day for you because look what just hit our inboxes:
You’re invited to an in-person Made by Google event where we’ll showcase the best of Google AI, Android software and the Pixel portfolio of devices.

Image: Google

The keynote will take place at 10AM PT / 1PM ET, and you can be sure we’ll be there to see what’s new. It’s coming earlier in the year than last year’s Made by Google showcase, where Google revealed the Pixel 8 phones, the Pixel Watch 2, and AI enhancements for Google Assistant.
Moving the date up does mean there’s less time for pre-event leaks, which have typically been an issue for the Pixel lineup. Maybe this is a hedge against that, maybe Google is just way ahead of schedule in 2024, or maybe we won’t see any of the things we’re expecting, and this is all about a new Pixel Fold or Pixel Tablet?

Photo: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

If you’re waiting to see the Pixel 9, Pixel Watch 3, or other new Google hardware, then August 13th could be a big day for you because look what just hit our inboxes:

You’re invited to an in-person Made by Google event where we’ll showcase the best of Google AI, Android software and the Pixel portfolio of devices.

Image: Google

The keynote will take place at 10AM PT / 1PM ET, and you can be sure we’ll be there to see what’s new. It’s coming earlier in the year than last year’s Made by Google showcase, where Google revealed the Pixel 8 phones, the Pixel Watch 2, and AI enhancements for Google Assistant.

Moving the date up does mean there’s less time for pre-event leaks, which have typically been an issue for the Pixel lineup. Maybe this is a hedge against that, maybe Google is just way ahead of schedule in 2024, or maybe we won’t see any of the things we’re expecting, and this is all about a new Pixel Fold or Pixel Tablet?

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Image: Elgato

The Elgato Stream Deck XL is once again selling for $199.99 ($50 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and B&H Photo. The jumbo-sized macro pad has 32 customizable LCD keys for controlling various functions on a Windows PC or Mac. It’s a staple among enthusiast and high-level Twitch streamers, but its customizability makes it incredibly handy for all sorts of desktop and laptop users.
Want a button for quickly muting yourself on a Zoom call or to promptly summon Spotify? No problem. How about a series of buttons for controlling audio functions or emotes in your favorite game? With 32 keys, you have enough for a whole bunch of helpful tools at your disposal, or you can fill some with silly and superfluous things like popping fake bubble wrap. (We’re certainly not going to judge!)
While the newer $100 Stream Deck Neo with eight keys and capacitive page-scrolling buttons may be a more logical choice for most, there’s something about the Stream Deck XL’s massive four-by-eight lineup of keys that seems impressively cool on a desk.

Fewer buttons but more deals:

The third-gen Google Nest Learning Thermostat is on sale at Wellbots for $164 ($85 off) through July 15th when you use code VERGE85 at checkout. Google’s flagship thermostat may be a little long in the tooth, but it remains a great option for a smart home gadget designed to save you money on your heating and cooling bills. The third-gen model allows you to closely monitor your energy consumption from your phone, and it’s designed to learn your routines to keep you comfortable when you’re home and not waste energy cooling or heating an empty house when you’re away.

LG’s 65-inch C3 OLED TV is $1,377.99 (about $217 off) at Woot. That price is also about $119 better than the C3’s typical discounted price in this size. The C3 is last year’s midrange OLED from LG, but it remains an excellent option for watching movies, TV shows, or playing games. It’s got excellent color contrast with HDR, and in addition to those deep, inky blacks on most OLEDs, it also supports up to 120Hz on each of its four HDMI 2.1 ports. This model also added some nifty menu settings to guide you step by step on customizing the color exactly to your taste.
The SteelSeries Arena 9 surround sound desktop computer speakers are selling for $439.99 ($110 off) at Amazon. The 5.1 speaker setup has some boomy bass thanks to its 6.5-inch subwoofer, and its RGB lighting can match the colors of the game you’re playing thanks to SteelSeries’ software.

Image: Elgato

The Elgato Stream Deck XL is once again selling for $199.99 ($50 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and B&H Photo. The jumbo-sized macro pad has 32 customizable LCD keys for controlling various functions on a Windows PC or Mac. It’s a staple among enthusiast and high-level Twitch streamers, but its customizability makes it incredibly handy for all sorts of desktop and laptop users.

Want a button for quickly muting yourself on a Zoom call or to promptly summon Spotify? No problem. How about a series of buttons for controlling audio functions or emotes in your favorite game? With 32 keys, you have enough for a whole bunch of helpful tools at your disposal, or you can fill some with silly and superfluous things like popping fake bubble wrap. (We’re certainly not going to judge!)

While the newer $100 Stream Deck Neo with eight keys and capacitive page-scrolling buttons may be a more logical choice for most, there’s something about the Stream Deck XL’s massive four-by-eight lineup of keys that seems impressively cool on a desk.

Fewer buttons but more deals:

The third-gen Google Nest Learning Thermostat is on sale at Wellbots for $164 ($85 off) through July 15th when you use code VERGE85 at checkout. Google’s flagship thermostat may be a little long in the tooth, but it remains a great option for a smart home gadget designed to save you money on your heating and cooling bills. The third-gen model allows you to closely monitor your energy consumption from your phone, and it’s designed to learn your routines to keep you comfortable when you’re home and not waste energy cooling or heating an empty house when you’re away.

LG’s 65-inch C3 OLED TV is $1,377.99 (about $217 off) at Woot. That price is also about $119 better than the C3’s typical discounted price in this size. The C3 is last year’s midrange OLED from LG, but it remains an excellent option for watching movies, TV shows, or playing games. It’s got excellent color contrast with HDR, and in addition to those deep, inky blacks on most OLEDs, it also supports up to 120Hz on each of its four HDMI 2.1 ports. This model also added some nifty menu settings to guide you step by step on customizing the color exactly to your taste.
The SteelSeries Arena 9 surround sound desktop computer speakers are selling for $439.99 ($110 off) at Amazon. The 5.1 speaker setup has some boomy bass thanks to its 6.5-inch subwoofer, and its RGB lighting can match the colors of the game you’re playing thanks to SteelSeries’ software.

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Blokus, Tumblin’ Monkeys, and UNO are just three of the games Mattel is making colorblind accessible. | Image: Mattel

In an effort to make its games accessible to a wider audience and “create more inclusive play experiences,” Mattel has announced that 80 percent of its gaming portfolio — including iconic titles like UNO — will be made accessible for those with a color vision deficiency by the end of the year, with a push to 90 percent by the end of 2025.
For UNO and its many variants, the four colors used in the game will be distinguished by simple symbols added to each card: a circle for red, a square for blue, a triangle for green, and a star for yellow. For Blokus, a game that has players arranging Tetris-like shapes on a game board, each color will be distinguished by a unique three-dimensional pattern added to the plastic tiles. For games like Tumblin’ Monkeys and KerPlunk, the colors of the sticks that players are tasked with removing will be distinguished with added 3D details.

Image: Mattel
Games that Mattel has made colorblind accessible will be distinguished with a new badge on the packaging.

The initiative will also expand to the mobile app versions of the company’s card games, with updates to UNO! Mobile, Phase 10 Mobile, and Skip-Bo Mobile that will add the colorblind identification symbols.
This isn’t the first time Mattel has made efforts to expand the accessibility of some of its more popular games. In 2019, the toy maker partnered with the National Federation of the Blind to create a version of UNO featuring braille on every card, allowing blind and low-vision players to participate.
This also isn’t the first time Mattel has made efforts to accommodate the 350 million people around the world affected by colorblindness. In 2017, the company partnered with ColorADD, an organization that developed a unique code, based on five symbols, that allows those with color blindness to identify and distinguish the colors of an object. That partnership resulted in a version of UNO featuring the ColorADD code added to the cards, but Mattel’s latest efforts take a more streamlined approach that’s easier for players of all ages to quickly learn.
According to Mattel, its first colorblind accessible games were released in March, including UNO Flex, UNO All Wild, ​​UNO Minimalista, and DOS, and the updated versions of Blokus, Phase 10, Skip-Bo, and KerPlunk will also be available by year’s end.

Blokus, Tumblin’ Monkeys, and UNO are just three of the games Mattel is making colorblind accessible. | Image: Mattel

In an effort to make its games accessible to a wider audience and “create more inclusive play experiences,” Mattel has announced that 80 percent of its gaming portfolio — including iconic titles like UNO — will be made accessible for those with a color vision deficiency by the end of the year, with a push to 90 percent by the end of 2025.

For UNO and its many variants, the four colors used in the game will be distinguished by simple symbols added to each card: a circle for red, a square for blue, a triangle for green, and a star for yellow. For Blokus, a game that has players arranging Tetris-like shapes on a game board, each color will be distinguished by a unique three-dimensional pattern added to the plastic tiles. For games like Tumblin’ Monkeys and KerPlunk, the colors of the sticks that players are tasked with removing will be distinguished with added 3D details.

Image: Mattel
Games that Mattel has made colorblind accessible will be distinguished with a new badge on the packaging.

The initiative will also expand to the mobile app versions of the company’s card games, with updates to UNO! Mobile, Phase 10 Mobile, and Skip-Bo Mobile that will add the colorblind identification symbols.

This isn’t the first time Mattel has made efforts to expand the accessibility of some of its more popular games. In 2019, the toy maker partnered with the National Federation of the Blind to create a version of UNO featuring braille on every card, allowing blind and low-vision players to participate.

This also isn’t the first time Mattel has made efforts to accommodate the 350 million people around the world affected by colorblindness. In 2017, the company partnered with ColorADD, an organization that developed a unique code, based on five symbols, that allows those with color blindness to identify and distinguish the colors of an object. That partnership resulted in a version of UNO featuring the ColorADD code added to the cards, but Mattel’s latest efforts take a more streamlined approach that’s easier for players of all ages to quickly learn.

According to Mattel, its first colorblind accessible games were released in March, including UNO Flex, UNO All Wild, ​​UNO Minimalista, and DOS, and the updated versions of Blokus, Phase 10, Skip-Bo, and KerPlunk will also be available by year’s end.

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Illustration: The Verge

Threads will now let people like and see replies to their Threads posts that appear on other federated social media platforms, the company announced on Tuesday.
Previously, if you made a post on Threads that was syndicated to another platform — like Mastodon, for example — you wouldn’t be able to see responses to that post while still inside Threads. That meant you’d have to bounce back and forth between the platforms to stay up-to-date on replies. Thanks to this upgrade, you’ll probably do less of that, though you’ll still have to be on the other platform to actually reply to the replies.
In a screenshot, Meta notes that you can’t reply to replies “yet,” so it sounds like that feature will arrive in the future.

Image: Meta
Screenshots showing Meta’s fediverse improvements to Threads.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also revealed that Threads’ fediverse integration will be available starting today in more than 100 countries, a significant expansion from its initial availability in the US, Canada, and Japan.
Meta has been vocal about its plans to integrate with the decentralized social networking protocol ActivityPub since launching Threads nearly a year ago, with first testing starting in December.

Illustration: The Verge

Threads will now let people like and see replies to their Threads posts that appear on other federated social media platforms, the company announced on Tuesday.

Previously, if you made a post on Threads that was syndicated to another platform — like Mastodon, for example — you wouldn’t be able to see responses to that post while still inside Threads. That meant you’d have to bounce back and forth between the platforms to stay up-to-date on replies. Thanks to this upgrade, you’ll probably do less of that, though you’ll still have to be on the other platform to actually reply to the replies.

In a screenshot, Meta notes that you can’t reply to replies “yet,” so it sounds like that feature will arrive in the future.

Image: Meta
Screenshots showing Meta’s fediverse improvements to Threads.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also revealed that Threads’ fediverse integration will be available starting today in more than 100 countries, a significant expansion from its initial availability in the US, Canada, and Japan.

Meta has been vocal about its plans to integrate with the decentralized social networking protocol ActivityPub since launching Threads nearly a year ago, with first testing starting in December.

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A new way to keep tabs on your luggage. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Motorola’s tracking tag is officially here, and if you’ve wanted an AirTag for your Android phone, this new Moto Tag might be it. This item tracker costs $29 and works with Google’s newly upgraded Find My Device network to help you locate a lost item. In addition to Bluetooth, it also offers ultra wideband, which means that if your phone is equipped with a UWB chip — like the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra — you can track down the tag’s precise location. You know, just like you can with an AirTag.
The Moto Tag comes with an IP67 rating, so it should survive a dunk in fresh water. The tag is powered by a CR2032 coin cell battery and should last a full year before it needs a new one. And in the event that you have your tag on hand but can’t find your phone, pressing a button on the Moto Tag will ring your phone to help you find it. The multifunction button can also be used as a remote shutter for your Motorola phone’s camera.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
Moto Tags will probably fit in third-party AirTag cases.

It also seems that the Moto Tag will work with cases designed to hold an AirTag; according to Motorola’s press release, the tag was “designed specifically to fit perfectly with most third-party accessories already on the market so that users can easily attach it to all their valuables.”
There you go — AirTag, but make it Android. The Moto Tag will go on sale on August 2nd; you can buy one for $29 or a four-pack for $99.

A new way to keep tabs on your luggage. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Motorola’s tracking tag is officially here, and if you’ve wanted an AirTag for your Android phone, this new Moto Tag might be it. This item tracker costs $29 and works with Google’s newly upgraded Find My Device network to help you locate a lost item. In addition to Bluetooth, it also offers ultra wideband, which means that if your phone is equipped with a UWB chip — like the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra — you can track down the tag’s precise location. You know, just like you can with an AirTag.

The Moto Tag comes with an IP67 rating, so it should survive a dunk in fresh water. The tag is powered by a CR2032 coin cell battery and should last a full year before it needs a new one. And in the event that you have your tag on hand but can’t find your phone, pressing a button on the Moto Tag will ring your phone to help you find it. The multifunction button can also be used as a remote shutter for your Motorola phone’s camera.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
Moto Tags will probably fit in third-party AirTag cases.

It also seems that the Moto Tag will work with cases designed to hold an AirTag; according to Motorola’s press release, the tag was “designed specifically to fit perfectly with most third-party accessories already on the market so that users can easily attach it to all their valuables.”

There you go — AirTag, but make it Android. The Moto Tag will go on sale on August 2nd; you can buy one for $29 or a four-pack for $99.

Read More 

More screen equals more fun. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Foldable season is back, and Motorola is leading the way with refreshed versions of its Razr Plus and Razr flip phones. They’re arriving next month in some poolside-worthy colors, with upgraded screens — a big upgrade in the case of the 2024 Razr — and IPX8 ratings for full resistance against water immersion. And you know what else is pretty hot? The prices haven’t gone up.
The Motorola Razr Plus 2024 still starts at $999 and comes with a Snapdragon 8S Gen 3 chipset and 12GB of RAM. The cover screen now measures four inches, a significant upgrade from the 3.6-inch panel on the previous generation. It’s an LTPO display with up to 165Hz refresh rate; the inner screen is still a 6.9-inch 1080p OLED. The main rear camera features an updated 50-megapixel sensor, and the ultrawide lens on the previous model has been swapped out for a 2x telephoto.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
The 2024 Razr has a much bigger cover screen than its predecessor.

Honestly, though, the standard 2024 Razr might be the more compelling device this time around. It’s still $699 with a 6.9-inch inner screen, but its new 3.6-inch cover screen now matches the size of last year’s Razr Plus. The previous-gen Razr offered a small 1.5-inch screen that seriously limited its functionality. It was the cheapest flip-style foldable sold in the US, but that didn’t mean much when the cover screen was so limited. This time around with a bigger cover screen — and a beefier water resistance rating — it starts looking like a seriously good deal. And that spritz orange color option? So sweet.
The Razr makes a few concessions — there’s a MediaTek Dimensity 7300X chipset and 8GB of RAM. Wired charging tops out at a (still pretty speedy) 30W compared to the Razr Plus’ 45W, though both models get a welcome upgrade to 15W wireless charging, up from 5W on last year’s models. The Razr gets the new 50-megapixel main camera, too, but carries over the 13-megapixel ultrawide that wasn’t very good in last year’s model.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
Motorola claims that the new hinge makes the phone easier to close with one hand.

Both models use a new hinge that claims to offer better dust resistance. Motorola has made some tweaks to the cover screen software, too. There’s a new widget panel, which seems like a handy addition, and now you can zoom out to see all of your panels at once. There’s a clever new desk display mode so you can set your phone up in flex mode and play a photo slideshow on the cover screen, which sounds StandBy-ish.
There’s now support for an always-on display, which rules. And one more great piece of news for me, personally: you can now download Google’s Gemini Assistant and run it on the cover screen, which will come in handy if you want to turn the Razr into a Humane-style AI wearable (don’t do this). If you do turn this foldable into a wearable, the hot pink and spring green color options will definitely make a statement.
Staying on trend for 2024, Motorola is also announcing a suite of new AI tools that sound helpful but aren’t shipping yet. It’s a thing. You’ll be able to say “Catch me up” to get an AI-generated summary of high-priority notifications — sounds familiar. Or you’ll say “Remember this” to have the phone capture something on the screen that you want to reference later.

There’s also a command to “Pay attention” to have it automatically record a conversation, transcribe it, and provide a summary. The company also has intentions of making this all context-aware, so it will tailor responses based on where you are and what you’re doing. Sounds nice, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
The 2024 Motorola Razr and Razr Plus will be available for preorder on July 10th and go on sale on July 24th.

More screen equals more fun. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Foldable season is back, and Motorola is leading the way with refreshed versions of its Razr Plus and Razr flip phones. They’re arriving next month in some poolside-worthy colors, with upgraded screens — a big upgrade in the case of the 2024 Razr — and IPX8 ratings for full resistance against water immersion. And you know what else is pretty hot? The prices haven’t gone up.

The Motorola Razr Plus 2024 still starts at $999 and comes with a Snapdragon 8S Gen 3 chipset and 12GB of RAM. The cover screen now measures four inches, a significant upgrade from the 3.6-inch panel on the previous generation. It’s an LTPO display with up to 165Hz refresh rate; the inner screen is still a 6.9-inch 1080p OLED. The main rear camera features an updated 50-megapixel sensor, and the ultrawide lens on the previous model has been swapped out for a 2x telephoto.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
The 2024 Razr has a much bigger cover screen than its predecessor.

Honestly, though, the standard 2024 Razr might be the more compelling device this time around. It’s still $699 with a 6.9-inch inner screen, but its new 3.6-inch cover screen now matches the size of last year’s Razr Plus. The previous-gen Razr offered a small 1.5-inch screen that seriously limited its functionality. It was the cheapest flip-style foldable sold in the US, but that didn’t mean much when the cover screen was so limited. This time around with a bigger cover screen — and a beefier water resistance rating — it starts looking like a seriously good deal. And that spritz orange color option? So sweet.

The Razr makes a few concessions — there’s a MediaTek Dimensity 7300X chipset and 8GB of RAM. Wired charging tops out at a (still pretty speedy) 30W compared to the Razr Plus’ 45W, though both models get a welcome upgrade to 15W wireless charging, up from 5W on last year’s models. The Razr gets the new 50-megapixel main camera, too, but carries over the 13-megapixel ultrawide that wasn’t very good in last year’s model.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
Motorola claims that the new hinge makes the phone easier to close with one hand.

Both models use a new hinge that claims to offer better dust resistance. Motorola has made some tweaks to the cover screen software, too. There’s a new widget panel, which seems like a handy addition, and now you can zoom out to see all of your panels at once. There’s a clever new desk display mode so you can set your phone up in flex mode and play a photo slideshow on the cover screen, which sounds StandBy-ish.

There’s now support for an always-on display, which rules. And one more great piece of news for me, personally: you can now download Google’s Gemini Assistant and run it on the cover screen, which will come in handy if you want to turn the Razr into a Humane-style AI wearable (don’t do this). If you do turn this foldable into a wearable, the hot pink and spring green color options will definitely make a statement.

Staying on trend for 2024, Motorola is also announcing a suite of new AI tools that sound helpful but aren’t shipping yet. It’s a thing. You’ll be able to say “Catch me up” to get an AI-generated summary of high-priority notifications — sounds familiar. Or you’ll say “Remember this” to have the phone capture something on the screen that you want to reference later.

There’s also a command to “Pay attention” to have it automatically record a conversation, transcribe it, and provide a summary. The company also has intentions of making this all context-aware, so it will tailor responses based on where you are and what you’re doing. Sounds nice, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

The 2024 Motorola Razr and Razr Plus will be available for preorder on July 10th and go on sale on July 24th.

Read More 

Photo: Fourthwall

We’ve been working on some better, cooler ways for you to rep The Verge — and look good doing it. We’ve made a lot of shirts, sweatshirts, and accessories for The Verge over the years. One of them said EMAILS in huge letters… for some reason. But none of them quite compare to our newest collection. We’ve developed a much smaller, curated set of high-quality apparel and accessories, all with one very simple goal: make great stuff, not just merch. We have some big plans for the lineup, but we’re really excited to show you what we’ve made so far.
You might notice the prices of all this new gear have gone up slightly. We’ve spent months trying to find the perfect balance of high-quality stuff and affordable prices, and we think we’ve found the best middle ground we can. And if you get in during our launch sale, it’s an even better deal — all apparel is $5 off through July 2nd (discount applied automatically).
Our new T-shirts look better and feel nicer than any we’ve made before. They’re understated, and that was very intentional. There are two designs: white with a black Verge monogram or black with a white monogram. (The Verge wordmark makes a cameo on the left sleeve.) They’re made out of 100 percent cotton, feature a ribbed collar, are pre-shrunk, and maintain a consistent fit.

The new gray Verge hoodie features an embroidered Verge monogram on the front. When you put the hood up, you’ll reveal the Verge wordmark underneath on the back. It’s made of 80 percent cotton and 20 percent recycled polyester fleece, so it’s super soft. For fans of pockets, there’s a kangaroo one right on the front.

We’re also offering two new accessories: a larger mug and holographic stickers. (The Verge’s David Pierce and Nilay Patel have been asking for larger mugs for months, so hopefully this will finally shut them up.) The new ceramic mug features a white exterior, black interior and handle, and two large Verge monograms, meaning you can see it — and show it off — no matter which hand you hold it with. The mug holds up to 15 ounces of your favorite beverage and is both microwave and dishwasher safe.

The Verge Holo Stickers come in packs of four and have a stunning multicolor holographic look. These are perfect for your laptop, water bottle, notebook, or really anything that you like to slap stickers on. Put a bunch on your new mug. We won’t stop you!

Today, we are also launching our second product collaboration with Nomad. You can learn more about our new limited-edition Blurple Sport Band for the Apple Watch here.
As we continue to build out the Verge apparel collection, our goal is to make cool products with partners we like, including more creators and startups. We’ll keep this line of essentials around all the time and then do limited-edition drops. We have some fun ideas about bringing back our favorite old designs, too. (We’re choosy about who we work with, and of course, these partnerships will never affect our coverage of these or any other companies and products.)
If there’s something you’d like to see us make or an item or design you wish we had on sale, let us know in the comments! We hope we see you repping your new Verge gear soon.

Photo: Fourthwall

We’ve been working on some better, cooler ways for you to rep The Verge — and look good doing it.

We’ve made a lot of shirts, sweatshirts, and accessories for The Verge over the years. One of them said EMAILS in huge letters… for some reason. But none of them quite compare to our newest collection. We’ve developed a much smaller, curated set of high-quality apparel and accessories, all with one very simple goal: make great stuff, not just merch. We have some big plans for the lineup, but we’re really excited to show you what we’ve made so far.

You might notice the prices of all this new gear have gone up slightly. We’ve spent months trying to find the perfect balance of high-quality stuff and affordable prices, and we think we’ve found the best middle ground we can. And if you get in during our launch sale, it’s an even better deal — all apparel is $5 off through July 2nd (discount applied automatically).

Our new T-shirts look better and feel nicer than any we’ve made before. They’re understated, and that was very intentional. There are two designs: white with a black Verge monogram or black with a white monogram. (The Verge wordmark makes a cameo on the left sleeve.) They’re made out of 100 percent cotton, feature a ribbed collar, are pre-shrunk, and maintain a consistent fit.

The new gray Verge hoodie features an embroidered Verge monogram on the front. When you put the hood up, you’ll reveal the Verge wordmark underneath on the back. It’s made of 80 percent cotton and 20 percent recycled polyester fleece, so it’s super soft. For fans of pockets, there’s a kangaroo one right on the front.

We’re also offering two new accessories: a larger mug and holographic stickers. (The Verge’s David Pierce and Nilay Patel have been asking for larger mugs for months, so hopefully this will finally shut them up.) The new ceramic mug features a white exterior, black interior and handle, and two large Verge monograms, meaning you can see it — and show it off — no matter which hand you hold it with. The mug holds up to 15 ounces of your favorite beverage and is both microwave and dishwasher safe.

The Verge Holo Stickers come in packs of four and have a stunning multicolor holographic look. These are perfect for your laptop, water bottle, notebook, or really anything that you like to slap stickers on. Put a bunch on your new mug. We won’t stop you!

Today, we are also launching our second product collaboration with Nomad. You can learn more about our new limited-edition Blurple Sport Band for the Apple Watch here.

As we continue to build out the Verge apparel collection, our goal is to make cool products with partners we like, including more creators and startups. We’ll keep this line of essentials around all the time and then do limited-edition drops. We have some fun ideas about bringing back our favorite old designs, too. (We’re choosy about who we work with, and of course, these partnerships will never affect our coverage of these or any other companies and products.)

If there’s something you’d like to see us make or an item or design you wish we had on sale, let us know in the comments! We hope we see you repping your new Verge gear soon.

Read More 

Image: Nomad

Your outfit has been missing a little blurple, and The Verge is here to fix that. We like nice things here at The Verge — and we know you do, too. That’s why we’re teaming up with a variety of partners to create delightful new products. Last year, we launched our first product collaboration with dbrand, and now we’re back with our second.
Meet the limited-edition Blurple Sport Band from The Verge and Nomad. Nomad is one of the best mobile accessory makers, and the company’s Sport Bands have particularly stood out among a sea of junky rubber straps. We wanted to introduce a new way for you to wear The Verge, so we combined our iconic branding with Nomad’s excellent bands.

The Blurple Sport Band is made out of the same high-quality FKM rubber that Nomad’s existing bands use. It’s durable, waterproof, resistant to oils, and easy to clean. If you use your Apple Watch to work out, this is the strap you need — especially if you’re pressing play on The Vergecast or Decoder when you hop on the treadmill.
The minimalist design is easily adjustable and very breathable, thanks to channels in the interior of the band. It features a pin-and-tuck closure to keep it looking sleek while remaining secure. The aluminum pin also features The Verge wordmark on the inside.

The Verge x Nomad Blurple Sport Band is available starting today for Apple Watches in 49mm, 45mm, 44mm, and 42mm sizes. You can order it now from Nomad’s website for $60.
This is only one part of The Verge’s new product plans. We’re also introducing a revamped merch store experience with a curated collection of higher-quality Verge apparel and accessories. Deck yourself out in The Verge by pairing the Blurple Sport Band with one of our slick new tees or a sweatshirt. We can’t say for sure that wearing The Verge will instantly make all your batteries last longer and your Instagram posts get more likes — but either way, you’ll look and feel great.

Image: Nomad

Your outfit has been missing a little blurple, and The Verge is here to fix that.

We like nice things here at The Verge — and we know you do, too. That’s why we’re teaming up with a variety of partners to create delightful new products. Last year, we launched our first product collaboration with dbrand, and now we’re back with our second.

Meet the limited-edition Blurple Sport Band from The Verge and Nomad. Nomad is one of the best mobile accessory makers, and the company’s Sport Bands have particularly stood out among a sea of junky rubber straps. We wanted to introduce a new way for you to wear The Verge, so we combined our iconic branding with Nomad’s excellent bands.

The Blurple Sport Band is made out of the same high-quality FKM rubber that Nomad’s existing bands use. It’s durable, waterproof, resistant to oils, and easy to clean. If you use your Apple Watch to work out, this is the strap you need — especially if you’re pressing play on The Vergecast or Decoder when you hop on the treadmill.

The minimalist design is easily adjustable and very breathable, thanks to channels in the interior of the band. It features a pin-and-tuck closure to keep it looking sleek while remaining secure. The aluminum pin also features The Verge wordmark on the inside.

The Verge x Nomad Blurple Sport Band is available starting today for Apple Watches in 49mm, 45mm, 44mm, and 42mm sizes. You can order it now from Nomad’s website for $60.

This is only one part of The Verge’s new product plans. We’re also introducing a revamped merch store experience with a curated collection of higher-quality Verge apparel and accessories. Deck yourself out in The Verge by pairing the Blurple Sport Band with one of our slick new tees or a sweatshirt. We can’t say for sure that wearing The Verge will instantly make all your batteries last longer and your Instagram posts get more likes — but either way, you’ll look and feel great.

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Microsoft and Qualcomm finally deliver the hardware Windows on Arm needed. The new Surface Laptop isn’t just a refresh. It’s Microsoft’s first clamshell laptop with Qualcomm chips inside, and it represents Microsoft’s most serious attempt yet at a transition to Windows on Arm. The company’s previous efforts at Arm-based Windows machines were flawed, with poor app compatibility and sluggish performance. Now, Microsoft is trying again to finely balance processing power and battery life in a way that only Apple has achieved in laptops so far.
This time around, Microsoft has nailed it. Everything about the new Surface Laptop feels way better. Microsoft has not only closed the MacBook Air gap but also raised the bar for what you should expect from a Windows laptop that starts at $999.99.

This new Surface Laptop is also one of the first Copilot Plus PCs, which leverage AI-focused chips to usher in an era of artificial intelligence features inside Windows. The flagship AI feature, Recall, is designed to let you recall memories and moments by taking screenshots of nearly everything you do on your PC. This controversial feature isn’t launching just yet, as Microsoft is reworking its security over concerns raised by researchers. That leaves unanswered some big questions about the future of Microsoft’s AI efforts in Windows that will have to wait.
While Microsoft loaned me a $2,099.99 15-inch Surface Laptop model with 32GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, and the 12-core Snapdragon X Elite processor, I purchased a $999.99 13.8-inch base model with 16GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, and the less-powerful 10-core Snapdragon X Plus. I fully expected the $999.99 option to disappoint me, as Surface base models have been really underpowered in the past. Instead, I’m keeping the $999.99 Surface Laptop because I’ve been so impressed with the phenomenal battery life over the past week.

The new Surface Laptop (13-inch) goes head-to-head with Apple’s MacBook Air (13-inch).

Hardware

Inside and out, Microsoft has made a lot of changes to the Surface Laptop 7th Edition that are subtle but don’t amount to a huge redesign. The most noticeable is the slightly larger 13.8-inch LCD display, which now has smaller bezels at the sides and top. The display’s corners have been rounded, and it supports HDR with Dolby Vision and up to a 120Hz refresh rate. The 15-inch model also has smaller bezels and rounded corners.
I’m glad that the bezels have finally been addressed, but I do wish this screen had some type of antireflective coating. Now that the summer has finally arrived in the UK, I’ve noticed plenty of reflections while using this laptop. Cranking up the brightness counters the reflections, but I’d just prefer a coating, personally.
Microsoft has also managed to integrate an upgraded 1080p front-facing camera into the top of the display without having to put a notch in. The image it produces is surprisingly good for a laptop — enough that a friend even asked me what camera I was using during a video call. This camera also has Windows Hello support so you can log in to the Surface Laptop with just your face.
Microsoft has also finally added a precision haptic trackpad, so you get consistent click feedback anywhere on the large touchpad surface. It’s fully customizable, and the haptics are so subtle on this new trackpad that when I briefly switched back to a Surface Laptop 4, it felt like the older trackpad was broken. The trackpads on the 13- and 15-inch Surface Laptop 7th Edition models are the same size, so you’re getting a nice and big trackpad either way.

The keyboard has a new Copilot key.

The keyboard is largely the same as prior Surface Laptop models, with the exception of a new Copilot key. It’s the first big change to Windows keyboards in 30 years, but all the key does is launch a Progressive Web App (PWA) version of Copilot. It’s far less functional than the Copilot integration that already existed in Windows 11, and I’m not entirely sure why Microsoft has made Copilot less useful on these new Copilot Plus PCs that have a dedicated button for the AI assistant.

The Surface Laptop 7th Edition also has a second USB-C port this time around, which is ideal if you want to charge over a USB-C port and still connect an accessory. Both USB-C ports are compatible with USB 4, and there’s even a USB-A 3.1 Gen 1 port if you haven’t quite moved into the USB-C era. Both the 13.8- and 15-inch models can also charge through the dedicated Surface Connect port. Microsoft has kept the 3.5mm headphone jack, and there’s a microSDXC card reader on the 15-inch model.
On the $999.99 13-inch model I’ve been testing, Microsoft picked Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Plus chip. It has two fewer CPU cores than the 12-core Snapdragon X Elite and lacks the dual-core boost option found on the two higher-end X Elite models, which dynamically adjusts the processor frequency on up to two cores to get more power when the CPU needs it. It has the same GPU and NPU otherwise, and all Surface Laptop 7th Edition models include Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 support.
Microsoft has also ditched the alcantara fabric options for the Surface Laptop this time around. It’s all metal now, with four color options to choose from: sapphire blue, a golden dune, and the regular black and silver options. The fancy color options aren’t available on the base $999.99 model, which only ships in silver.
The 15-inch model starts at $1,299.99 with a Snapdragon X Elite processor, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. If you want the X Elite on the 13.8-inch model, it starts at $1,399.99, though you do get 512GB of storage.

The new haptic trackpad feels great to use.

Windows on Arm and performance
Ahead of this review, I went back to the original Surface Pro X from 2019 for a few days to see where Windows on Arm was at. The last time Microsoft did a big Windows on Arm push, ARM64 support was terrible. Microsoft and Qualcomm have both been pushing software developers to support native Arm apps over the past couple of years, and things have noticeably improved. Chrome, Slack, and Spotify now all have native apps.
Native apps like Chrome feel great on this new Surface Laptop. Whereas the Surface Pro X always felt underpowered, Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon X Plus and Elite are far more capable of delivering the responsiveness you’d expect from a modern laptop. My time using the base Surface Laptop 7th Edition felt like any regular Intel- or AMD-powered laptop. Performance in everyday tasks also felt the same, though that experience could be mixed if you’re not in native ARM64 apps.
Discord always ran terribly on the Surface Pro X, but it’s definitely improved with the Prism emulator here. I still find a slight lag navigating between servers and some occasional stuttering, though. Discord tells me there are no plans for an ARM64 app right now but says that could change in the future if adoption of these Qualcomm-powered laptops becomes meaningful.
It’s not all perfect, though. Adobe doesn’t have an ARM64 version of Premiere Pro ready just yet, so it has blocked the installation of Premiere Pro on the X Elite, but it forgot to do the same for the X Plus initially. That allowed me to test a heavyweight app with Microsoft’s updated Prism emulator. Prism is designed to allow any regular Windows apps to run on these new Copilot Plus PCs, regardless of whether a developer has an optimized and native ARM64 app.
While Photoshop is ARM64 and feels responsive, I can understand why Adobe blocked the emulated Premiere Pro experience. I tried to edit a 20-second 4K video file, and the interface stuttered along, with playback skipping frames regularly. I gave up even trying to export the file as it was chugging along slowly with an expected completion of nearly five minutes. I ran the same export on my gaming PC with an RTX 4090 and Intel Core i9-14900K, and it exported in seven seconds.

Native browsers on Windows on Arm are key to the experience.

That’s not a fair comparison, but if you’re looking into one of these Qualcomm-powered laptops and you have a creativity or productivity app that you rely on daily, especially if it relies on GPU power, make sure an ARM64 version is available. Thankfully, the vast majority of other apps that I use daily have an ARM64 version or perform well enough on the new emulator.
Microsoft also made a lot of big claims about MacBook Air-beating scores in benchmarks like Geekbench and Cinebench. The Surface Laptop 13-inch Snapdragon X Plus model beat both the MacBook Air M3 13- and 15-inch models in Geekbench 6 multicore and Cinebench 2024 multicore tests. The MacBooks comfortably beat the Surface Laptops in single-core performance in Cinebench and Geekbench, though, with the 15-inch MacBook Air around 11 percent ahead of the 15-inch Surface Laptop in Geekbench single core and around 15 percent ahead in Cinebench single core. These benchmarks show that the Surface Laptop can be better than the MacBook Air at sustained performance in apps.
I ran a bunch of Blender tests, but the 3D app wouldn’t pick up the Snapdragon X Plus or Elite’s GPU, so the render was completed by CPU only and was much slower as a result. A 3DMark test also only ran emulated on the Surface Laptop, so the MacBook Air M3 was able to pull ahead by more than 30 percent in the result. The older Cinebench R23 only ran emulated on the Surface Laptop, but the 15-inch model with the X Elite still managed to outperform the 15-inch MacBook Air M3 by around 8 percent in the multicore test, with the MacBook Air more than 40 percent faster in the single-core test.
Microsoft also claims that its range of Copilot Plus PCs will be “58 percent faster than a MacBook Air M3,” but this is based on tests like Cinebench 2024, where I saw 55 percent faster performance on the 15-inch Surface Laptop over the 15-inch MacBook Air M3 in the multicore benchmark.
All of these benchmarks provided a good opportunity to hear the fans spin up or to feel the Surface Laptop getting toasty. It’s the only time I’ve ever heard the fans, and even at full speed, they’re not unbearable. The fans do give the Surface Laptop that extra headroom that the MacBook Air doesn’t have. During my regular use, I never felt the Surface Laptop heating up noticeably, either.
While the fans weren’t an issue, I did run into a couple of problems during my Surface Laptop testing. The 13-inch model failed to wake up from sleep once, where it was just a blank screen before it rebooted. It generated a crash dump that I shared with Microsoft, and the company was able to reproduce the problem and is working on a fix. I also noticed that the Windows Hello camera can be slow to wake after a long period of standby, which is something Microsoft is also looking to improve in a future update. “We are working on a solution that we’ll make available as soon as possible,” says Microsoft spokesperson Blake Manfre.

The new Surface Laptop has all-day battery life.

Battery life
All of this performance doesn’t come at the cost of battery life, thankfully. I’ve largely been using the 13-inch model over the past week, and the battery life has been phenomenal. On the first day, I was working outside with 100 percent screen brightness, downloading multiple Steam games, attending video calls, and working in Photoshop regularly. I managed to get around seven hours of battery life in total.
Then, in the evening, after topping up the battery, I used the Surface Laptop at 50 percent brightness inside for around four hours, and it only drained 25 percent. I closed the lid at 11PM with 72 percent battery and woke the laptop up at noon the next day. It turned on instantly with 70 percent still remaining. On lighter days when I was mainly using Slack, WhatsApp, Discord, and Chrome for a mixture of work tasks, I managed seven hours with 70 percent battery left. The last time I charged the 13-inch model was Friday, and I used it regularly over the weekend. I still had 27 percent battery on Monday morning. I can’t remember the last time I could trust a Windows laptop to go to sleep and not drain the entire battery or to be able to last the entire workday.
Much like the performance side, you really need to be using ARM64 native apps to get the best battery life, though. Using demanding emulated apps will eat through battery life a lot faster, so your battery life mileage is going to vary depending on the way you work and the native apps available. For me, this battery life has been transformative — allowing me to leave the house without a charger. I can even get from zero to 80 percent charge in an hour on the 65W Surface Laptop charger (which only comes with the larger 15-inch model). A capable USB-C charger will also deliver the same.
Windows AI
For all the improvements in battery life and performance, the Surface Laptop is also a Copilot Plus PC with a neural processing unit (NPU) for new built-in AI features in Windows. Microsoft has made a big deal about these, with Recall supposed to be the flagship feature on these new laptops. Recall has been delayed due to security concerns, and it’s a delay that has overshadowed the entire launch of Copilot Plus PCs. It’s why you’re only reading this review now and not on launch day last week.
What’s left of the AI-powered Windows 11 features aren’t nearly as controversial as Recall, but they’re also not that compelling. Cocreator lets you create images in Paint through a text prompt and by drawing what you want to see. Because the Surface Laptop 7th Edition no longer supports the Surface Slim Pen, this feature feels a lot less useful than it is on the new Surface Pro.

AI-powered features include webcam effects.

Microsoft is using local AI models for the Cocreator feature, and the results aren’t always that great as a result. I asked it to create a dog sitting on a beach with a ball, but after I sketched the outline of a dog, Cocreator refused to pick up my doodle of a ball, so I just got a lonely dog on a beach that looked very AI-generated. Paint also has a built-in image creator that uses DALL-E, and the results there are far more impressive.
Bizarrely, Microsoft has also added an image creator feature to the Photos app, which uses local AI models instead of the cloud-based DALL-E feature found in Paint. It uses a local Stable Diffusion model, so it’s quick to generate images on the Surface Laptop, but you’ll need an internet connection since Microsoft uses Azure to check your prompts and make sure you’re not trying to generate something bad. You’ll need an internet connection for the Cocreator feature, too, for the same reason.

The most impressive new AI-powered addition to Windows is translation in Live Captions. I can now easily watch foreign language YouTube videos or any live video and get captions that are instantly translated into English. You don’t need to click through a bunch of buttons to get this working, just launch Live Captions and it does it automatically. It’s rather magical, and while the translation isn’t always 100 percent perfect, it’s good enough to help you muddle through a video. I don’t think I’d rely on it for calls just yet, though.
All of these new AI features leverage the new NPU chip, so they’re not hitting the CPU or GPU. I think freeing up the CPU and GPU will be important for Recall once we get a chance to try it, as it can run in the background and use the NPU to process snapshots. It also sets Copilot Plus PCs up for a potential world of AI-powered apps and Windows features that can also use the NPU. It’s not a big deal for now, but it’s nice to have. If you believe Microsoft, it could eventually transform Windows.

The base model of the 13.8-inch Surface Laptop is a great option.

I’ve fallen in love with the Surface Laptop over the past week of using it. The battery life has blown me away, and the performance has mostly felt like using a regular thin and lightweight laptop. It no longer feels like Windows on Arm is being held back by underpowered hardware and major software issues.
But to really make this new Surface Laptop work at its best, you still need native ARM64 apps. That situation is a lot better than it was a few years ago, with more of the top apps now native, but if you still need to run emulated ones, performance will vary depending on how complicated the application is, and battery life will be impacted, too.
I don’t doubt that Premiere Pro will run a lot better when it finally comes to Windows on Arm later this year, but I think there will still be other app compatibility issues that some people will run into. There’s also the legacy of Windows on Arm emulation not being great, so some app developers have just blocked their apps from even running emulated on ARM64. Google Drive for desktop refuses to install with an error that says, “This Windows architecture is not supported.” It’s the same for many VPN apps, and if you need custom drivers for an old USB accessory, it’s unlikely those drivers are available.
Games also don’t “just work” on the Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus, despite Qualcomm’s assurances. The Surface Laptop isn’t a gaming laptop, so I wasn’t expecting much here, but I couldn’t get Shadow of the Tomb Raider to stop crashing until I put it into full-screen exclusive mode and lowered the settings. I also tried Microsoft’s new DLSS competitor (Auto SR) with Cyberpunk 2077, and all it did was force the resolution to 1024 x 768. I ran into similar issues with Auto SR in other games, which is probably why it’s only officially limited to a small handful of titles.
If you don’t venture beyond the top Windows apps, you’ll probably have a great experience like I did in terms of performance and battery life. For anything more, you’ll need to check to make sure your apps are compatible and run well. If this latest Windows on Arm push is as successful as Apple’s M1 silicon, that’s an issue that should eventually disappear.
Microsoft has created a great MacBook Air competitor here. At $999.99, the base-model 13-inch Surface Laptop is $100 less than Apple’s M3 laptop, with Microsoft offering 16GB of memory instead of 8GB. If all you’ve ever wanted is a Windows-powered MacBook Air, that’s pretty much what you’re getting.

Microsoft and Qualcomm finally deliver the hardware Windows on Arm needed.

The new Surface Laptop isn’t just a refresh. It’s Microsoft’s first clamshell laptop with Qualcomm chips inside, and it represents Microsoft’s most serious attempt yet at a transition to Windows on Arm. The company’s previous efforts at Arm-based Windows machines were flawed, with poor app compatibility and sluggish performance. Now, Microsoft is trying again to finely balance processing power and battery life in a way that only Apple has achieved in laptops so far.

This time around, Microsoft has nailed it. Everything about the new Surface Laptop feels way better. Microsoft has not only closed the MacBook Air gap but also raised the bar for what you should expect from a Windows laptop that starts at $999.99.

This new Surface Laptop is also one of the first Copilot Plus PCs, which leverage AI-focused chips to usher in an era of artificial intelligence features inside Windows. The flagship AI feature, Recall, is designed to let you recall memories and moments by taking screenshots of nearly everything you do on your PC. This controversial feature isn’t launching just yet, as Microsoft is reworking its security over concerns raised by researchers. That leaves unanswered some big questions about the future of Microsoft’s AI efforts in Windows that will have to wait.

While Microsoft loaned me a $2,099.99 15-inch Surface Laptop model with 32GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, and the 12-core Snapdragon X Elite processor, I purchased a $999.99 13.8-inch base model with 16GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, and the less-powerful 10-core Snapdragon X Plus. I fully expected the $999.99 option to disappoint me, as Surface base models have been really underpowered in the past. Instead, I’m keeping the $999.99 Surface Laptop because I’ve been so impressed with the phenomenal battery life over the past week.

Hardware

Inside and out, Microsoft has made a lot of changes to the Surface Laptop 7th Edition that are subtle but don’t amount to a huge redesign. The most noticeable is the slightly larger 13.8-inch LCD display, which now has smaller bezels at the sides and top. The display’s corners have been rounded, and it supports HDR with Dolby Vision and up to a 120Hz refresh rate. The 15-inch model also has smaller bezels and rounded corners.

I’m glad that the bezels have finally been addressed, but I do wish this screen had some type of antireflective coating. Now that the summer has finally arrived in the UK, I’ve noticed plenty of reflections while using this laptop. Cranking up the brightness counters the reflections, but I’d just prefer a coating, personally.

Microsoft has also managed to integrate an upgraded 1080p front-facing camera into the top of the display without having to put a notch in. The image it produces is surprisingly good for a laptop — enough that a friend even asked me what camera I was using during a video call. This camera also has Windows Hello support so you can log in to the Surface Laptop with just your face.

Microsoft has also finally added a precision haptic trackpad, so you get consistent click feedback anywhere on the large touchpad surface. It’s fully customizable, and the haptics are so subtle on this new trackpad that when I briefly switched back to a Surface Laptop 4, it felt like the older trackpad was broken. The trackpads on the 13- and 15-inch Surface Laptop 7th Edition models are the same size, so you’re getting a nice and big trackpad either way.

The keyboard has a new Copilot key.

The keyboard is largely the same as prior Surface Laptop models, with the exception of a new Copilot key. It’s the first big change to Windows keyboards in 30 years, but all the key does is launch a Progressive Web App (PWA) version of Copilot. It’s far less functional than the Copilot integration that already existed in Windows 11, and I’m not entirely sure why Microsoft has made Copilot less useful on these new Copilot Plus PCs that have a dedicated button for the AI assistant.

The Surface Laptop 7th Edition also has a second USB-C port this time around, which is ideal if you want to charge over a USB-C port and still connect an accessory. Both USB-C ports are compatible with USB 4, and there’s even a USB-A 3.1 Gen 1 port if you haven’t quite moved into the USB-C era. Both the 13.8- and 15-inch models can also charge through the dedicated Surface Connect port. Microsoft has kept the 3.5mm headphone jack, and there’s a microSDXC card reader on the 15-inch model.

On the $999.99 13-inch model I’ve been testing, Microsoft picked Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Plus chip. It has two fewer CPU cores than the 12-core Snapdragon X Elite and lacks the dual-core boost option found on the two higher-end X Elite models, which dynamically adjusts the processor frequency on up to two cores to get more power when the CPU needs it. It has the same GPU and NPU otherwise, and all Surface Laptop 7th Edition models include Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 support.

Microsoft has also ditched the alcantara fabric options for the Surface Laptop this time around. It’s all metal now, with four color options to choose from: sapphire blue, a golden dune, and the regular black and silver options. The fancy color options aren’t available on the base $999.99 model, which only ships in silver.

The 15-inch model starts at $1,299.99 with a Snapdragon X Elite processor, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. If you want the X Elite on the 13.8-inch model, it starts at $1,399.99, though you do get 512GB of storage.

Windows on Arm and performance

Ahead of this review, I went back to the original Surface Pro X from 2019 for a few days to see where Windows on Arm was at. The last time Microsoft did a big Windows on Arm push, ARM64 support was terrible. Microsoft and Qualcomm have both been pushing software developers to support native Arm apps over the past couple of years, and things have noticeably improved. Chrome, Slack, and Spotify now all have native apps.

Native apps like Chrome feel great on this new Surface Laptop. Whereas the Surface Pro X always felt underpowered, Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon X Plus and Elite are far more capable of delivering the responsiveness you’d expect from a modern laptop. My time using the base Surface Laptop 7th Edition felt like any regular Intel- or AMD-powered laptop. Performance in everyday tasks also felt the same, though that experience could be mixed if you’re not in native ARM64 apps.

Discord always ran terribly on the Surface Pro X, but it’s definitely improved with the Prism emulator here. I still find a slight lag navigating between servers and some occasional stuttering, though. Discord tells me there are no plans for an ARM64 app right now but says that could change in the future if adoption of these Qualcomm-powered laptops becomes meaningful.

It’s not all perfect, though. Adobe doesn’t have an ARM64 version of Premiere Pro ready just yet, so it has blocked the installation of Premiere Pro on the X Elite, but it forgot to do the same for the X Plus initially. That allowed me to test a heavyweight app with Microsoft’s updated Prism emulator. Prism is designed to allow any regular Windows apps to run on these new Copilot Plus PCs, regardless of whether a developer has an optimized and native ARM64 app.

While Photoshop is ARM64 and feels responsive, I can understand why Adobe blocked the emulated Premiere Pro experience. I tried to edit a 20-second 4K video file, and the interface stuttered along, with playback skipping frames regularly. I gave up even trying to export the file as it was chugging along slowly with an expected completion of nearly five minutes. I ran the same export on my gaming PC with an RTX 4090 and Intel Core i9-14900K, and it exported in seven seconds.

Native browsers on Windows on Arm are key to the experience.

That’s not a fair comparison, but if you’re looking into one of these Qualcomm-powered laptops and you have a creativity or productivity app that you rely on daily, especially if it relies on GPU power, make sure an ARM64 version is available. Thankfully, the vast majority of other apps that I use daily have an ARM64 version or perform well enough on the new emulator.

Microsoft also made a lot of big claims about MacBook Air-beating scores in benchmarks like Geekbench and Cinebench. The Surface Laptop 13-inch Snapdragon X Plus model beat both the MacBook Air M3 13- and 15-inch models in Geekbench 6 multicore and Cinebench 2024 multicore tests. The MacBooks comfortably beat the Surface Laptops in single-core performance in Cinebench and Geekbench, though, with the 15-inch MacBook Air around 11 percent ahead of the 15-inch Surface Laptop in Geekbench single core and around 15 percent ahead in Cinebench single core. These benchmarks show that the Surface Laptop can be better than the MacBook Air at sustained performance in apps.

I ran a bunch of Blender tests, but the 3D app wouldn’t pick up the Snapdragon X Plus or Elite’s GPU, so the render was completed by CPU only and was much slower as a result. A 3DMark test also only ran emulated on the Surface Laptop, so the MacBook Air M3 was able to pull ahead by more than 30 percent in the result. The older Cinebench R23 only ran emulated on the Surface Laptop, but the 15-inch model with the X Elite still managed to outperform the 15-inch MacBook Air M3 by around 8 percent in the multicore test, with the MacBook Air more than 40 percent faster in the single-core test.

Microsoft also claims that its range of Copilot Plus PCs will be “58 percent faster than a MacBook Air M3,” but this is based on tests like Cinebench 2024, where I saw 55 percent faster performance on the 15-inch Surface Laptop over the 15-inch MacBook Air M3 in the multicore benchmark.

All of these benchmarks provided a good opportunity to hear the fans spin up or to feel the Surface Laptop getting toasty. It’s the only time I’ve ever heard the fans, and even at full speed, they’re not unbearable. The fans do give the Surface Laptop that extra headroom that the MacBook Air doesn’t have. During my regular use, I never felt the Surface Laptop heating up noticeably, either.

While the fans weren’t an issue, I did run into a couple of problems during my Surface Laptop testing. The 13-inch model failed to wake up from sleep once, where it was just a blank screen before it rebooted. It generated a crash dump that I shared with Microsoft, and the company was able to reproduce the problem and is working on a fix. I also noticed that the Windows Hello camera can be slow to wake after a long period of standby, which is something Microsoft is also looking to improve in a future update. “We are working on a solution that we’ll make available as soon as possible,” says Microsoft spokesperson Blake Manfre.

Battery life

All of this performance doesn’t come at the cost of battery life, thankfully. I’ve largely been using the 13-inch model over the past week, and the battery life has been phenomenal. On the first day, I was working outside with 100 percent screen brightness, downloading multiple Steam games, attending video calls, and working in Photoshop regularly. I managed to get around seven hours of battery life in total.

Then, in the evening, after topping up the battery, I used the Surface Laptop at 50 percent brightness inside for around four hours, and it only drained 25 percent. I closed the lid at 11PM with 72 percent battery and woke the laptop up at noon the next day. It turned on instantly with 70 percent still remaining. On lighter days when I was mainly using Slack, WhatsApp, Discord, and Chrome for a mixture of work tasks, I managed seven hours with 70 percent battery left. The last time I charged the 13-inch model was Friday, and I used it regularly over the weekend. I still had 27 percent battery on Monday morning. I can’t remember the last time I could trust a Windows laptop to go to sleep and not drain the entire battery or to be able to last the entire workday.

Much like the performance side, you really need to be using ARM64 native apps to get the best battery life, though. Using demanding emulated apps will eat through battery life a lot faster, so your battery life mileage is going to vary depending on the way you work and the native apps available. For me, this battery life has been transformative — allowing me to leave the house without a charger. I can even get from zero to 80 percent charge in an hour on the 65W Surface Laptop charger (which only comes with the larger 15-inch model). A capable USB-C charger will also deliver the same.

Windows AI

For all the improvements in battery life and performance, the Surface Laptop is also a Copilot Plus PC with a neural processing unit (NPU) for new built-in AI features in Windows. Microsoft has made a big deal about these, with Recall supposed to be the flagship feature on these new laptops. Recall has been delayed due to security concerns, and it’s a delay that has overshadowed the entire launch of Copilot Plus PCs. It’s why you’re only reading this review now and not on launch day last week.

What’s left of the AI-powered Windows 11 features aren’t nearly as controversial as Recall, but they’re also not that compelling. Cocreator lets you create images in Paint through a text prompt and by drawing what you want to see. Because the Surface Laptop 7th Edition no longer supports the Surface Slim Pen, this feature feels a lot less useful than it is on the new Surface Pro.

Microsoft is using local AI models for the Cocreator feature, and the results aren’t always that great as a result. I asked it to create a dog sitting on a beach with a ball, but after I sketched the outline of a dog, Cocreator refused to pick up my doodle of a ball, so I just got a lonely dog on a beach that looked very AI-generated. Paint also has a built-in image creator that uses DALL-E, and the results there are far more impressive.

Bizarrely, Microsoft has also added an image creator feature to the Photos app, which uses local AI models instead of the cloud-based DALL-E feature found in Paint. It uses a local Stable Diffusion model, so it’s quick to generate images on the Surface Laptop, but you’ll need an internet connection since Microsoft uses Azure to check your prompts and make sure you’re not trying to generate something bad. You’ll need an internet connection for the Cocreator feature, too, for the same reason.

The most impressive new AI-powered addition to Windows is translation in Live Captions. I can now easily watch foreign language YouTube videos or any live video and get captions that are instantly translated into English. You don’t need to click through a bunch of buttons to get this working, just launch Live Captions and it does it automatically. It’s rather magical, and while the translation isn’t always 100 percent perfect, it’s good enough to help you muddle through a video. I don’t think I’d rely on it for calls just yet, though.

All of these new AI features leverage the new NPU chip, so they’re not hitting the CPU or GPU. I think freeing up the CPU and GPU will be important for Recall once we get a chance to try it, as it can run in the background and use the NPU to process snapshots. It also sets Copilot Plus PCs up for a potential world of AI-powered apps and Windows features that can also use the NPU. It’s not a big deal for now, but it’s nice to have. If you believe Microsoft, it could eventually transform Windows.

I’ve fallen in love with the Surface Laptop over the past week of using it. The battery life has blown me away, and the performance has mostly felt like using a regular thin and lightweight laptop. It no longer feels like Windows on Arm is being held back by underpowered hardware and major software issues.

But to really make this new Surface Laptop work at its best, you still need native ARM64 apps. That situation is a lot better than it was a few years ago, with more of the top apps now native, but if you still need to run emulated ones, performance will vary depending on how complicated the application is, and battery life will be impacted, too.

I don’t doubt that Premiere Pro will run a lot better when it finally comes to Windows on Arm later this year, but I think there will still be other app compatibility issues that some people will run into. There’s also the legacy of Windows on Arm emulation not being great, so some app developers have just blocked their apps from even running emulated on ARM64. Google Drive for desktop refuses to install with an error that says, “This Windows architecture is not supported.” It’s the same for many VPN apps, and if you need custom drivers for an old USB accessory, it’s unlikely those drivers are available.

Games also don’t “just work” on the Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus, despite Qualcomm’s assurances. The Surface Laptop isn’t a gaming laptop, so I wasn’t expecting much here, but I couldn’t get Shadow of the Tomb Raider to stop crashing until I put it into full-screen exclusive mode and lowered the settings. I also tried Microsoft’s new DLSS competitor (Auto SR) with Cyberpunk 2077, and all it did was force the resolution to 1024 x 768. I ran into similar issues with Auto SR in other games, which is probably why it’s only officially limited to a small handful of titles.

If you don’t venture beyond the top Windows apps, you’ll probably have a great experience like I did in terms of performance and battery life. For anything more, you’ll need to check to make sure your apps are compatible and run well. If this latest Windows on Arm push is as successful as Apple’s M1 silicon, that’s an issue that should eventually disappear.

Microsoft has created a great MacBook Air competitor here. At $999.99, the base-model 13-inch Surface Laptop is $100 less than Apple’s M3 laptop, with Microsoft offering 16GB of memory instead of 8GB. If all you’ve ever wanted is a Windows-powered MacBook Air, that’s pretty much what you’re getting.

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Image: The Verge

The archives of the MTV News website, which had remained accessible online after the unit was shut down last year by parent company Paramount Global, have now been completely taken offline. As Variety reported yesterday, both mtvnews.com and mtv.com/news now redirect visitors to the MTV website’s front page.
In May of last year, Showtime / MTV Entertainment Studios president and Paramount Media Networks groups CEO Chris McCarthy announced layoffs for 25 percent of its employees and said that MTV News, whose staff had already been reduced by previous layoffs, would be shutting down entirely.
Although the MTV News website was no longer publishing new stories, its extensive archive, dating back over two decades to its launch in 1996, remained online. But as former staffers discovered yesterday, that archive is no longer accessible. Patrick Hosken, who served as a music and news editor at MTV News for eight years, shared their frustration with the decision on X:

So, https://t.co/ypQLdbaWk5 no longer exists. Eight years of my life are gone without a trace. All because it didn’t fit some executives’ bottom lines. Infuriating is too small a word— Patrick Hosken (@patrickhosken) June 24, 2024

According to Variety, Paramount Global also took down the archives of MTV News sister site CMT.com last week, which featured several decades’ worth of journalism focused on the country music industry.

Image: The Verge

The archives of the MTV News website, which had remained accessible online after the unit was shut down last year by parent company Paramount Global, have now been completely taken offline. As Variety reported yesterday, both mtvnews.com and mtv.com/news now redirect visitors to the MTV website’s front page.

In May of last year, Showtime / MTV Entertainment Studios president and Paramount Media Networks groups CEO Chris McCarthy announced layoffs for 25 percent of its employees and said that MTV News, whose staff had already been reduced by previous layoffs, would be shutting down entirely.

Although the MTV News website was no longer publishing new stories, its extensive archive, dating back over two decades to its launch in 1996, remained online. But as former staffers discovered yesterday, that archive is no longer accessible. Patrick Hosken, who served as a music and news editor at MTV News for eight years, shared their frustration with the decision on X:

According to Variety, Paramount Global also took down the archives of MTV News sister site CMT.com last week, which featured several decades’ worth of journalism focused on the country music industry.

Read More