When Microsoft unveiled the Surface Laptop 3, the company said the notebook would come in two versions: a 13.5 inch model with Intel ice Lake processor options or a 15 inch model with custom AMD Ryzen chips.
But it turns out that folks who want a larger screen but prefer Intel chips for one reason or another may have a third option.
Microsoft will offer Surface Laptop 3 15″ models with Intel chips… but only for business customers.
There’s no mention of a 15-inch, Intel-powered option at all on the Surface Laptop 3 website for consumers.
But visit the Surface 3 Laptop for Business website and you’ll notice that… there’s no AMD option. The only choices are Intel Ice Lake chips.
Specifically, both the 13.5 inch and 15 inch versions of the Surface Laptop 3 for Business are available with either an Intel Core i5-1035G7 processor or an intel Core i7-1065G7 chip.
There are still some spec differences — the larger model has a higher-resolution display and supports up to 32GB of RAM, compared with just 16GB for the smaller version.
And unlike the AMD Ryzen-powered Surface Laptop 3, the Intel models support WiFi 6 (also known as 802.11ax), which may or may not be one reason Microsoft is going this route for the business model.
On the other hand, if you do want to buy 15 inch Surface Laptops with AMD chips for your business, you can still do that. You’ll just have to do it through retail channels like the Microsoft Store rather than through your usual business PC vendors.
According to ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley, the Surface Laptop 3 15″ for Business will sell for $1099 and up and begin shipping on October 22nd.
I wonder if this is the result of a marketing deal with AMD.
Given the size of Dell’s business portion, it could be either AMD getting a win in consumer gear coming in “AMD or small Intel” or Intel strongarming Dell into keeping Intel available in business class gear.
The article is about Microsoft.