It looked outdated on the Surface Laptop 4, boxing in the screen in a way that felt almost claustrophobic, like you were looking at your Excel spreadsheets through a neighbour’s letterbox, but now it’s starting to look positively retro. What’s dated are those chunky bezels around the display, that black border surrounding the screen. (Though the laptop is Intel Evo-certified, meaning it meets a set standard for wake-up times and battery life.) While most other Windows laptops are branded by the parts-manufacturers who helped make them, you won’t find anything as garish as a holographic Intel Evo sticker here. The anodised aluminium chassis features bold, industrial corners, and the absence of visible screws and joins makes the package feel ultra-refined. We’re still impressed by the attention to detail: the display is uniformly thin from top to bottom and can be opened with a single fingertip. The Surface Laptop 5 retains the sleek, wedge-shaped design of the previous version, and the one before that, and while there’s a lot to praise about Microsoft’s knack for nailing clean lines and a minimalist aesthetic, the fifth edition is beginning to look a little tired in 2023.

That’s a very conservative set of updates since the previous laptop, so are these tweaks enough to recommend the Surface Laptop 5 over the cheaper 2021 model? Microsoft’s design team takes a holistic approach to its selection of metallic colourings, which neatly coordinate with matching Windows 11 themes, to give the devices a muted, unified appearance. The 13.5in version of the Surface Laptop 5 now also comes in a fetching new sage colourway, though you need a keen eye to tell. Microsoft has upgraded its flagship laptop with a 12th-generation Intel CPU and a speedier Thunderbolt 4 port, giving it a light performance boost and better connectivity than the previous model. While, on the outside, things appear much the same, inside, things have been given a refresh. Launched in October last year, the Surface Laptop 5 is the sequel to 2021’s Surface Laptop 4.

Surface pro laptop 5