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🚨Join our live stream at Snapdragon Summit
We love small, capable laptops, and two of our favorites just got a meaningful Snapdragon X2 speed boost: the pint-sized Microsoft Surface Pro 12 and the Surface Laptop 13.
The Shortcut team got hands-on time with both devices at the Snapdragon Summit event in Maui, and we’re streaming our thoughts on the newest Windows laptops, plus doing live interviews with Qualcomm execs and product managers.
ICYMI: Yesterday, we explored the new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and dove deeper into Googlebooks, a new kind of laptop for Android users. We even got to spend some time checking out Specs, Snap’s big idea for the future of smart glasses.
Here’s your front-row seat to Snapdragon Summit Day 2.
💻 First look: Microsoft’s Surface Pro & Surface Laptop, powered by Snapdragon X2
Qualcomm had a special guest at Snapdragon Summit this year: Microsoft. The company came out to Maui to showcase two new devices powered by the Snapdragon X2 platform: an upgraded 12-inch Surface Pro, and a new 13-inch Surface Laptop.
🚀 Faster than ever thanks to Snapdragon. Both of the new Surface devices get upgraded with the Snapdragon X2 Plus chip, which delivers up to a whopping 60% boost in graphics performance with the Adreno GPU. The chip also enables up to 95% faster AI processing, which helps features like Copilot run much quicker. Everyday performance is also improved for common multitasking. Both devices also get 16GB or 24GB of RAM, plus up to 512GB of internal storage.
🔋 Lengthy battery life. These new Surfaces can still last a long time on a charge, even though they got such a big performance boost. The Surface Pro can last up to 13-15 hours on a charge, depending on your usage, while the Laptop ranges from 18-22.5 hours, according to Microsoft.
💻 Familiar designs, brighter screens. The 12-inch Surface Pro and 13-inch Surface Laptop have very similar designs to the previous generation, save for some new colors. They’re still thin, fanless, and perfectly portable. The displays have the most noticeable difference, with a 25% boost in brightness so they’re easier to see outdoors. Both touchscreens have sharp resolutions, too, and the Surface Pro even gets a 90Hz refresh rate for smoother scrolling.
✍️ Surface Pro gets a new note-taking tool. Microsoft is adding Ink Canvas to the Surface Pro, which it describes as “an AI-powered, pen-first experience for sketching, annotating, generating images and summarizing text directly on the canvas.” It’s a new way to truly bring your notes to life, whether it’s during a meeting or managing everyday tasks.
✅ Checking all the boxes. Both of these devices also ace a lot of the fundamentals, making them easy to recommend no matter what your needs are. With a healthy selection of ports on each model, Wi-Fi 7, studio-quality microphones, high-quality webcams, and Dolby Audio speakers, the Surface Pro and Laptop are more well-rounded than you’d expect for the price.
📆 Launching October 13. Microsoft is releasing the second-generation Surface Pro and Surface Laptop powered by Snapdragon on October 13. The new 12-inch Surface Pro starts at $1,149 while the 13-inch Surface Laptop costs $1,199. There’s also a new Surface Mouse with haptic feedback launching on the same day for $80.
🎧 Your headphones are about to get a lot smarter
Qualcomm also announced a brand-new chip primarily designed for headphones, but also a new category of devices that are designed for the agentic AI era.
👂 From headphones to “hearables.” The new Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 is designed not just for future headphones, but devices that Qualcomm refers to as “hearables.” That means devices that talk back to you when interacting with AI (think smart glasses, pendants, camera-enabled devices, and others like it). It’s designed to optimize audio performance and noise cancellation so your AI agent can hear you in any condition, and you’ll always be able to hear it talk back.
🤖 Agentic AI in your earbuds. This new chip has key upgrades in its new eNPU that help it locally process the same contextual AI as a smartphone with a Snapdragon 8 Elite series chip. That means your personal AI will work on your headphones, earbuds, or other hearable devices you add to your arsenal. That way, you can interact with it hands-free while on the go and have a consistent experience.
🛜 Wi-Fi makes a big difference. It also comes with Wi-Fi 6E, which allows any device with the chip onboard to work independently and enable always-available personal AI without needing your phone to be nearby. Plus, it’s able to do that without sacrificing sound quality, battery life, or device design.
🔊 Premium sound quality and ANC. Qualcomm is checking all the boxes to ensure headphones with the Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 sound fantastic. It supports all the standards we’ve come to expect like aptX Lossless, it has XPAN for untethered listening over Wi-Fi, and there’s upgraded audio performance over Bluetooth. It also has 5th Generation Qualcomm Adaptive ANC to ensure noise cancellation is as strong as it needs to be in the most challenging conditions, like on an airplane or the subway. Microphone performance is also getting a big boost to ensure you sound your best.
🔋 Upgraded power without using more power. The new chip may be super powerful, but it’s also super efficient. Qualcomm says the chip achieves up to 40% lower power consumption than previous processors, which means your headphones or hearable AI device will last longer on a charge while being capable of much more.
👀 Expect to see it pop up soon. Qualcomm says the Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 will make its way into devices in the very near future, so we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for the first ones to hit the market so we can check it out and understand what it’s truly capable of. Stay tuned.
🌴 More from Snapdragon Summit 2026
Googlebooks are the new complete fusion between ChromeOS, Android, and Gemini AI
Google has announced a new category of Googlebook laptops that further combines Android and Chrome OS into a single platform. This new platform is available for preorder with five new Googlebook models, all starting at $899 from Acer, Asus, De…
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