The Surface Pro 9 isn't the only new Surface portable that Microsoft is refreshing today. It's also sprucing up both the 13.5-inch and 15-inch members of the Surface Laptop family, giving them some new color finishes and updated 12th-generation Core processors from Intel. But if you were hoping for an updated AMD Ryzen edition of the laptop, you'll be disappointed—there's no Ryzen edition being announced today, and if Microsoft is planning one, it isn't sharing anything about it right now.

Both Surface Laptops will be available to buy on October 25. The 13.5-inch laptop starts at $1,000, while the 15-inch version will run you at least $1,300.

The laptops' designs (including size, weight, ports, and screen size and resolution) aren't changing at all from the Surface Laptop 4. The 13.5-inch laptop weighs 2.8 pounds (or 2.86, with the all-metal finishes) and comes with a 2256×1504 screen, and the 15-inch laptop weighs 3.44 pounds and uses a 2496×1664 touchscreen—both screens are compatible with the Surface Pen accessory, and both feature the Surface line's signature 3:2 aspect ratio.

The port selection also hasn't changed much, which some users may find limiting. The proprietary Surface Connect port is still the default used for charging, but the laptops can also charge through their single USB-C port (upgraded to Thunderbolt 4 in both laptops). Otherwise, a single USB-A port and headphone jack is all you get.

Both the processor options for the new Surface Laptops (a Core i5-1235U at the low end, with a marginally faster Core i7-1255U available as an upgrade) combine two high-performance P-cores with eight low-power E-cores, which are actually quite good at chewing through workloads that can use all of a systems processor's cores at once. The base versions of both laptops include 256GB of (user-upgradeable) storage and 8GB of (non-upgradeable) RAM. The 13.5-inch version tops out at 512GB of storage and 16GB of RAM, a config that will run $1,500 or $1,700 depending on the CPU you buy. The 15-inch version can go all the way up to 1TB of storage and 32GB of RAM, which will cost $2,400 (these options are only offered together and also require you to buy the i7 CPU).

Neither laptop included a dedicated graphics option, relying instead on Intel's Xe integrated graphics. The Xe GPU is still decent for what it is, especially in games that support AMD's GPU-agnostic FSR 2.0 upscaling, but a dedicated GPU option for the 15-inch Laptop would help it compete with other 15- and 16-inch thin-and-light workstations; for now, Microsoft appears content to let the Surface Laptop Studio do that job.

We haven't been impressed much by the battery life in most of the 12th-gen Intel laptops we've tested, but most of those have used higher-performance P-series CPUs, while both Surface Laptops use low-power U-series CPUs that should behave better. Microsoft says the laptops should last for 18 and 17 hours (for the 13.5- and 15-inch versions, respectively), up from 17 and 16.5 hours for the Intel versions of the Surface Laptop 4; we'll need to do our own battery testing to see whether these claims hold water.

Regardless of how well the Intel chips perform, it is too bad that we won't be seeing a Ryzen version of the Surface Laptop (or any Surface model, apparently; today's Surface Pro and Surface Studio refreshes also eschew AMD). We've been especially impressed with the CPU and GPU performance and battery life of the Ryzen 6000 chips, which can outstrip Intel's performance while offering more than enough performance for photo and video editing and even light gaming.