Friday, May 16th 2025
Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio Product Line Could be in Jeopardy
The Surface Laptop Studio 2 could be the last of its kind; according to Tom Warren's latest theories. Yesterday, The Verge's senior editor envisioned a streamlined future lineup of Microsoft's portable PC devices. According to inside track information, the tech giant is expected to announce the end-of-life (EOL) status for this relatively young branch of Surface products (debuted back in 2021). The Surface Laptop Studio 2 is advertised as being "a laptop like no other"—courtesy of a unique/versatile setup that features a "dynamic woven hinge." Three hybrid configurations are officially outlined as: "laptop mode for productivity, stage mode for streaming, and studio mode for creativity." Current generation models are powered by Intel's 13th Gen Core i7-13700H processor (aka the "Evo" platform), and can be configured with discrete NVIDIA mobile graphics solutions (GeForce RTX 4060, RTX 4050, or RTX 2000 Ada Generation). Under normal circumstances, a baseline build—reliant on an iGPU—starts at about $2400.
At the time of writing, Microsoft has not acknowledged The Verge's insider report. So far, resellers have shared top secret info—indicating an upcoming official announcement; possibly due by next month. Another group of unnamed sources claim that Surface Laptop Studio 2 manufacturing activities have already ended, as of early May (2025). The megacorporation has culled other Surface products in the past; sometimes coinciding with the departure of key executive team members and mass layoffs. A few days ago, mainstream news outlets covered Microsoft's latest batch of staff reductions—affecting roughly 6000 workers. Warren's article dashes all hopes of a potential third-gen design: "there doesn't appear to be a Surface Laptop Studio 3 on the horizon."
Sources:
The Verge, Tom's Hardware, Ars Technica, Windows Central
At the time of writing, Microsoft has not acknowledged The Verge's insider report. So far, resellers have shared top secret info—indicating an upcoming official announcement; possibly due by next month. Another group of unnamed sources claim that Surface Laptop Studio 2 manufacturing activities have already ended, as of early May (2025). The megacorporation has culled other Surface products in the past; sometimes coinciding with the departure of key executive team members and mass layoffs. A few days ago, mainstream news outlets covered Microsoft's latest batch of staff reductions—affecting roughly 6000 workers. Warren's article dashes all hopes of a potential third-gen design: "there doesn't appear to be a Surface Laptop Studio 3 on the horizon."
40 Comments on Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio Product Line Could be in Jeopardy
Even their low ends don't fully use plastics. My own, low end, ideapad is only half ABS plastic, the other half is aluminium. Ironically, the part that broke first (after 7 years) was on the aluminium side. And it happened when I was servicing it, not from daily use.
Mishandling that causes plastic case to yield early would most likely damage the other, much more sensitive components first. The screen, the battery, the fragile electronics, etc, etc.
Given that, one may actually argue that plastics are a better choice. Low Young modulus = more shock absorption, which is what a "case" is supposed to do in the first place. Much as you'd really really want to drive the car that easily crumbles in an accident.
Plastic frills that (used to?) come with laptops do break easily tho. I wouldn't argue that. One thing that metalic bodies have for them is the "minimalist" Apple thing everyone tries to mimic.
as for the user spying activity of windows all of that can be stopped simply by setting those things to either off in the Privacy/security section in the settings app or you can simply uninstall copilot and other such flotsam
that try bleeding off data for MS with a little bit effort and little bit of time you'd be surprised at what you can turn off or uninstall and if you use the pro version of windows you get GPedit which will allow you to further lock it down
The account requirement with microsoft tries to require a full microsoft account with very tight integration. It's way too much intrusion to our digital lives.
That said, you should apply the same paranoia everywhere. If believing Apple is not "spying" on you is delusional, then so is believing that flipping some toggles in some Windows UI would also stop said "spying."
To their credit, the old desktops were built like Russian tanks.
The chestnut of pre-installing rootkits on machines though? Bloody awesome.
But at the end of the day you can still use a local account for windows too either at install or by using the accounts manager app and delete the microsoft account sign in
I had two defective refurbished lenovo laptops. These devices were out of the 3 or 4 year lenovo warranty period from the refurbish company.
The alternative for myself was to get
- refurbish laptop with 1 year warranty. Still a high money gamble because it's the 4th lenovo refurbish laptop in around 2.5 years I think.
- to move to a desktop computer instead as everything was soldered to the mainboard, low quality laptops from ASUS and MSI and APPLE. I used laptops for many years and did not even had a desktop computer.
- use an android tablet
- use an android smartphone
I have a L15 lenovo laptop now. The fresh windows 11 pro installation is broken after less than ~8 weeks. This device is around 4.5 years old and has issues with several windows updates and it's drivers.edit: massive battery drain on another lenovo laptop which I luckily got rid of.
-- It was annoying to install a company windows version with all teh stuff when the microsoft laptop does not even have standardized uefi. And is slow and makes problem. The internal Human input devices were also dead with windows 11 with the microsoft laptop. Trash hardware. I think a reboot fixed that issue. To need an external keygboard to initialise a reboot on a microsoft laptop speaks volume with microsoft operating system.
We primarily sell HP to clients because the price is reasonable and the warranty handling is a LOT easier than Lenovo, at least in Australia. With HP its pretty rare that their support will push back on a warranty claim. One 20-30min phone call later and a part with a tech is booked with the ETA usually being a couple of days (depending on stock).
With Lenovo, making a warranty claim is getting blood from a stone. They will find anything and everything they can to refuse your claim and they will drag out the process for days or even weeks. We have a director who swears by Lenovo build quality over HP but the decision was made that it is just not worth the wasted time making Lenovo warranty claims, so HP it is.