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Microsoft Launches Surface Laptop 4, New Surface Accessories

Microsoft has begun shipping its new Surface Laptop 4 devices in the United States, Canada and Japan, with other markets planned later.

The Surface Laptop 4 devices are sold with screens at 13.5 inches or 15 inches, and have the option to use either "11th Gen Intel Core processors or AMD Ryzen Mobile Processors with Radeon Graphics Microsoft Surface Edition (8 cores)." Full specs are listed at this page, and there's a Microsoft Mechanics video description available in this announcement.

One very narrow perk for IT pros with Surface Laptop 4 devices is that the solid-state drives (SSDs) in them can be removed and replaced by a "skilled technician." Microsoft had described a similar capability for the Surface Pro 7+ devices earlier this year. SSD replacement comes with lots of caveats, though. Microsoft Surface devices generally are not considered to be hardware-upgradeable devices.

Surface Laptop 4 devices are said to be priced starting at $999.99. Machines with 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSDs were priced starting at 1799.99 at this Antonline vendor page.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Susan Bradley recently suggested in a Computerworld article that organizations using Windows 10 and Microsoft Teams will likely need at least 16GB of RAM because Teams is such a memory hog.

New Surface Accessories
On top of its Surface Laptop 4 news, Microsoft announced a wireless Surface Headphones 2+ product for business users, priced at $299.99, and available for ordering. Surface Headphones 2+ devices have noise canceling capabilities and support "18.5 hours of music listening or up to 15 hours of voice calling time."

Coming soon will be Microsoft Modern USB Headsets and Modern Wireless Headsets, which are optimized for use with the Microsoft Teams collaboration service. When available, they will have dedicated Teams and mute buttons, priced at $49.99.

Also for Teams users, Microsoft unveiled its Modern USB-C Speaker device, which will ship in June. The Modern USB-C Speaker device will cost $99.99 and can be ordered through authorized resellers.

If that weren't enough, Microsoft has produced a Modern Webcam device that attaches to monitors or laptops to provide 1080p video. The Modern Webcam will ship in June, priced at $69.99, and can be ordered from authorized resellers.

About the Author

Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.

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