Microsoft unveiled the new Surface Pro (11th edition) and Surface Laptop (7th edition) for consumers on Monday (May 20) at its Surface and Windows AI event. These devices follow after the tech giant’s business-focused Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 which were introduced in March this year. The consumer-focused devices also become the company’s first Copilot+ PCs, as the Windows maker integrates artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities in them. Notably, these PCs are powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X series chipsets instead of Intel Core Ultra chipsets seen in the business-focused Surface devices.

Microsoft Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7 price, availability

The Microsoft Surface Pro 11 starts at $999 (roughly Rs. 83,000) for the 16GB RAM and 256GB SSD inbuilt storage variant with an LCD display. This variant is equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus chipset.

Similarly, the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 also starts at $999 (Roughly Rs. 83,000) for the 13.8-inch display variant along with Snapdragon X Plus chipset paired with 16GB RAM and 256GB SSD inbuilt storage. Both devices will be available in Black, Dune, Platinum, and Sapphire.

Both the Surface devices will go on sale starting June 18. Interested people can pre-order on the Microsoft website now.

Microsoft Surface Pro, Surface Laptop specifications

The Microsoft Surface Pro (11th edition) is a 2-in-1 PC that features a 13-inch display with options in both LCD and OLED screens with a 120Hz refresh rate. It is equipped with the Snapdragon X Plus and Elite chipsets, which the company claims are 90 percent faster than the previous generation of Surface Pro.

The devices are also powered by Qualcomm Hexagon NPU capable of more than 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS). The Surface Pro comes with up to 32GB of LPDDR5X RAM and up to 1TB Gen 4 SSD inbuilt storage.

Video and audio calling on the Surface Pro has also been upgraded with the addition of a front-facing webcam with a 114-degree ultrawide 1440p sensor. The webcam supports AI-powered Windows Studio Effects. There is also a dedicated Copilot button next to the spacebar.

The Surface Pro also gets a Flex keyboard that can be detached from the device, a kickstand with a 165-degree hinge, a customisable haptic touchpad, and an integrated pen storage. It supports up to 65W fast charging.

Meanwhile, the new Surface Laptop (7th edition) comes in two display variants of 13.5-inch and 15-inch. Both are IPS LCD panels with touch support and are protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5. They offer 120Hz refresh rate, HDR support, and Dolby Vision IQ.

Just like the Surface Pro, the Surface Laptop is also equipped with the Snapdragon X Plus and Elite chipsets paired with up to 64GB LPDDR5X RAM and 1TB Gen 4 SSD inbuilt storage. It also comes with the new NPU. The rest of the specifications are similar to the business-focused Surface Laptop 6.

Google Pixel phones are equipped with Tensor chips that are designed to offer advanced AI capabilities and a tight integration with the company’s exclusive software features, but the company’s processors are also known to face thermal and efficiency issues, especially when compared with offerings from Qualcomm. According to a report, the company will focus on developing the Tensor G6 — the chip expected to power the Pixel 11 series — to solve issues related to efficiency and overheating.

Tensor G6 Chip for Pixel 11 Series to Focus on Solving Heating, Efficiency Challenges

An Android Authority report that cites documents from Google’s GChips division reveals that the company is aware of issues that affect its existing Pixel smartphone models. Thermal issues are the “#1 reason for Pixel returns” while “thermal comfort limits are too high” according to a presentation slide seen by the publication. The firm is reportedly looking to improve thermals in order to improve customer satisfaction and reduce returns of the handsets.

Another area that Google is reportedly improving the Tensor G6 is related to battery life. This is another common complaint among Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 users, according to the presentation, which states that users “expect 36 hours of battery life”. This suggests that power usage and efficiency will be two areas where the Pixel 11 series could offer an improvement over its predecessors.

Google Charts New Financial Targets for Tensor Chips

The company is targeting a price of $65 (roughly Rs. 5,500) per Tensor G6 chip, which is lower than the purported cost of $150 (roughly Rs. 12,700) for a comparable chipset from Qualcomm, according to the report. There’s no mention of the cost of previous Tensor chips, so we don’t really have an idea of how much Google plans to save by producing its chips for the Pixel 11 series with the new financial target. 

According to previous reports, Google will start producing its Tensor G5 chips — expected to power the successor to the Pixel 9 series — with Taiwan’s TSMC. The next generation of Tensor chips are not expected to offer a big leap in performance compared to existing models, but they are said to deliver improvements to battery life and efficiency, and the Pixel 11 series with a Tensor G6 chip could bring even more improvements in 2026.

Asus was one of the first laptop manufacturers to join the Snapdragon X Elite bandwagon. When Qualcomm announced the new chip for laptops and showed off all of its capabilities, Asus jumped right on board and introduced the Vivobook S15 OLED (S5507). It’s the first Vivobook to come with the chipset, and Asus claims impressive performance in a sleek form factor. I spent a couple of days trying out the laptop to find out if the claims were true, and here’s what I found out.

Our review unit, which has 16GB RAM and 1TB storage, is priced at Rs. 1,24,990 in the country, and it comes in a Cool Silver colourway.

Asus Vivobook S15 OLED Design: Classy and slim

• Dimensions – 352.6mm (width) x 226.9mm (depth) x 14.7-15.9mm (height)
• Weight – 1.42kg
• Colours – Cool Silver

The new Vivobook S15 OLED looks similar to the Intel Core Ultra model, but you will notice a few changes. It’s still a very clean design with minimal styling, which I very much liked. You’ll find the new Vivobook logo on the lid and another logo on the bottom bezel of the display. The laptop is 14.7mm at its thinnest, has slightly curved edges, and weighs around 1.42kg. Asus has used an all-metal construction, but you will see some flex on the lid and the keyboard area.

The laptop lid can be opened with one hand

The hinges feel durable, aren’t wobbly, and support the 180-degree movement. You can also lift the lid easily using one hand. Plenty of ports are available as well. You’ll find two USB Type-A ports on the right side, an HDMI 2.1, dual USB Type-C, microSD card slot, and a 3.5mm audio jack on the left side. The rear houses the exhaust vents, and you’ll find plenty of intake cutouts at the bottom, along with the dual speaker grilles.

Asus Vivobook S15 OLED Display: Colourful and bright indoors

• Size – 15.6-inch OLED
• Resolution – 3K (2880 x 1620 pixels)
• Refresh rate – 120Hz

Opening the lid reveals a colourful OLED display, which offers 3K resolution, HDR support, and a 120Hz refresh rate with up to 600 nits of brightness. While the display is glossy, it’s great for watching content or editing photos, as you get deep blacks and vivid colours. The laptop offers decent brightness indoors, but I’d have liked it to be higher. In outdoor usage, I found the brightness inadequate, mainly because the panel is glossy and reflective.

The hinge lets you lay the laptop flat

The display features super-thin bezels on the sides, with the top and bottom bezels also quite thin. Asus also claims the panel is TÜV Rheinland and SGS Eye Case Display certified. The fast refresh rate further makes the display better to look at.

Asus Vivobook S15 OLED Keyboard, Touchpad, speakers, and webcam

• Keyboard – Full-size ErgoSense with one-zone RGB backlight
• Sound – Dual speakers with Dolby Atmos
• Webcam – FHD IR camera with privacy shutter

The Vivobook S15 OLED gets a full-size chiclet keyboard with one-zone RGB backlighting. There’s some gap between the keys; they offer 1.7mm of travel. It’s a comfortable keyboard to type on. However, I didn’t find the backlight too bright despite the keyboard offering three levels of brightness control. The silver-coloured keys are also not very legible during the day. You can change the backlight colour using the MyAsus app. The arrow keys are also quite small, and since this is a Copilot+ PC, you will get a dedicated Copilot key.

The keys offer good travel but aren’t very legible due to them being silver

Below the keyboard is a large, slightly off-centre touchpad. It supports multi-touch gestures, is smooth to use, and offers good tactile feedback. It’s a good touchpad, and I had no complaints whatsoever.

Coming to the audio on the laptop, you get dual downward firing speakers on either side that are Harmon Kardon-certified. They can get loud, but there’s not a lot of bass. Vocals are clear, there’s no tearing in full volume, and the Dolby Atmos support gives a good surround experience when watching videos and movies.

The manual privacy shutter is nice to have

The webcam is a full-HD web camera with a physical privacy shutter, which is nice to have. The webcam array also features an IR sensor for Windows Hello and a microphone. The quality is good in brightly lit rooms for video and photos. However, low-light conditions will bring plenty of noise.

Asus Vivobook S15 OLED Software: Basic with some AI

• OS – Windows 11 Home
• AI features – Copilot, Live Captions, Cocreaetor, Recall
• Other apps – MyAsus

The Vivobook S15 OLED S5507 is a Copilot+ PC, which means that you get access to a few AI features, such as Live Captions, Cocreator, and Windows Studio Effects. Features such as the controversial Recall have yet to roll out, so I didn’t get to test them. You also get AI super-resolution that’s said to enhance the gaming experience, but I didn’t really run any games on the laptop.

Cocreator is a tool in Microsoft Paint that can complete your unfinished art using AI in real-time. It works, but not as well as I expected, but that’s probably because of my drawing skills. The Live Captions feature is more useful as it provides real-time captions for all kinds of audio content. Finally, the Windows Studio Effects features are designed to help you have a better video-calling experience.

The laptop runs Windows 11 Home out-of-the-box

There aren’t many built-in Asus apps. You get the MyAsus app, which you’ll need to control various system settings, install firmware upgrades, choose fan profiles, and change keyboard backlighting.

In terms of overall software experience, the ARM platform has a long way to go in terms of app compatibility. While the most commonly used browsers, media players, social apps, editing tools, office tools, and coding programs support ARM, some uncommon apps are still in beta.

Asus Vivobook S15 OLED Performance: Solid

• Processor – Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100
• RAM – 16GB LPDDR5X
• Storage – Up to 1TB PCIe 4.0
• Graphics – Qualcomm Adreno GPU

Moving on to performance, the laptop does a good job with most productivity apps, even when running on a balanced power profile. However, opening more than a dozen tabs on Google Chrome resulted in hiccups. I believe this has more to do with the system running out of usable RAM than the Snapdragon X Elite chip. In a full performance profile, the processor can draw up to 50W, which is plenty for running all kinds of productivity apps, editing tools, and streaming apps.

The laptop offers 16GB RAM, but it’s not enough for resource-intensive tasks

The laptop did get slightly warm to the touch when running a couple of benchmarks, but nothing to put you off from using it. Even when it did get hot, it was mostly the top section of the keyboard around the function row.

As you can see, the laptop gets pretty good scores on Geekbench and CrossMark. There are a couple of games that you can play on the ARM chipset, but don’t expect much. The fans did not turn on during daily usage, which included using the laptop for work, watching YouTube videos, and some photo editing. However, during heavy usage, the fans did turn on, but they weren’t loud enough to distract you. You hear the fans kick into full drive only when you run heavy apps. The inbuilt 1TB storage drive performed well in my tests.

Asus Vivobook S15 OLED Battery: Pretty good

• Capacity – 70 Wh
• Charger – 90W adapter

Great battery life is supposed to be the plus point of using the ARM chipset, and it appears to be true, although it is nothing close to what Asus claims. With normal usage, the laptop easily lasts a full day of work. This is with the brightness set to around 50 percent and the power profile set to balanced. Add in some YouTube and Netflix streaming, and then battery life does drop a little, but you can still call it all-day battery life. What’s amazing is the power draw when the laptop is in sleep mode. Thanks to the efficiency of the Snapdragon X Elite chipset, you can close the lid and not have to worry about an insane power draw.

There are four performance profiles available in the MyAsus app

The 90W power adaptor also makes charging the battery quick. An hour of charge can offer up to 80 percent battery, with a full charge taking about 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Asus Vivobook S15 OLED Verdict

Here’s the thing about the Vivobook S15 OLED S5507 from Asus. Priced at Rs. 1,24,990, the laptop is not cheap, and it competes with laptops such as the Apple Macbook Air 15. While it can give the Apple laptop a battle when it comes to battery life and design, it falls short in the performance category due to being limited to 16GB RAM in India.

However, if performance isn’t the most important thing for you and you’re going to mainly use this for work that doesn’t involve heavy video editing, then this is a great laptop to get. That said, it’s not like this laptop can’t get things done. There’s a nice OLED display that’s great for content consumption, the design is a plus, and you also get great battery life. Overall, it’s an excellent 15-inch laptop.

ChatGPT was able to outperform human doctors in diagnosing diseases and medical conditions in a study. The findings of the study were published last month and highlighted that artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots might be more efficient in analysing patient histories and conditions and provide more accurate diagnoses. While the study aimed to understand if AI chatbots could help doctors provide better diagnoses, the results unexpectedly revealed that OpenAI’s GPT-4-powered chatbot performed much better when performing without human assistance compared to when paired with a doctor.

ChatGPT Outperforms Doctors in Diagnosing Diseases

The study, published in the JAMA Network Open journal, was conducted at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston by a group of researchers. The experiment aimed to find out if AI can help doctors better diagnose diseases compared to traditional methods.

According to a New York Times report, the experiment involved 50 doctors who were a mix of residents and physicians attending the medical college. They were recruited through multiple large hospital systems in the US and were given six case histories of patients. The subjects were reportedly asked to suggest a diagnosis for each of the cases and provide an explanation for why they favoured or ruled certain diagnoses out. Doctors were said to also be graded based on whether their final diagnosis was right.

To evaluate each of the participants’ performance, medical experts were reportedly selected as graders. While they were said to be shown the answers, they were not told if the response came from a doctor with access to AI, just the doctor, or from only ChatGPT.

Further, to eliminate the possibility of unrealistic case histories, the researchers reportedly picked case histories of real patients that have been used by researchers for decades but have never been published to avoid contamination. This point is important because ChatGPT cannot be trained on data which has never been published.

The findings of the study were surprising. Doctors who did not use any AI tool to diagnose the case histories had an average score of 74 percent whereas those physicians who used the chatbot scored 76 percent on average. However, when ChatGPT alone analysed the case histories and provided diagnosis, it scored an average of 90 percent

While various factors could have impacted the outcome of the study — from the experience level of the doctors to individual biases with certain diagnoses — the researchers believe the study highlights that the potential of AI systems in medical institutions cannot be ignored.