Microsoft has announced pricing and availability for the Surface Laptop Ultra, a 15-inch notebook aimed at creators, developers, engineers and other users with demanding workloads. The laptop starts at $2,599 and launches October 16, positioning it below Apple’s $2,999 16-inch MacBook Pro.

The company says the Surface Laptop Ultra is its most powerful notebook yet. It is designed for creative work, software development, artificial intelligence, engineering and 3D applications, putting it in direct competition with high-end MacBook Pro configurations.

Nvidia RTX Spark powers the Surface Laptop Ultra

The laptop uses Nvidia’s RTX Spark platform, which combines an Nvidia Blackwell RTX GPU with up to 6,144 cores and an Nvidia Grace CPU with up to 20 cores. Microsoft says buyers can configure the system with as much as 128GB of unified memory.

A new thermal design is intended to support the chip’s performance. Because RTX Spark is Arm-based, the Surface Laptop Ultra runs Windows on Arm. Microsoft’s Prism technology handles compatibility for x86 applications through emulation.

Microsoft also claims the laptop has the brightest, sharpest and most vivid display ever used in a Surface device. Its mini-LED touchscreen offers peak HDR brightness that the company says is 25% higher than the M5 MacBook Pro’s. The screen supports touch gestures and navigation, but not pen input.

Surface Laptop Ultra includes broad connectivity

The Surface Laptop Ultra is lighter than Apple’s 16-inch MacBook Pro and includes a large haptic trackpad. Its storage can be upgraded, giving users an option to expand capacity after purchase.

Microsoft has also introduced Magnetic Connect, a built-in magnetic USB-C charging system that functions similarly to Apple’s MagSafe approach. The company describes it as the first built-in magnetic USB-C charging system on a laptop.

Port selection includes three USB-C ports, one USB-A port, HDMI, an SD card reader and a 3.5mm headphone jack. That range could reduce the need for adapters when connecting displays, cameras and other peripherals.

Microsoft offers MacBook trade-in incentive

To attract existing MacBook users, Microsoft is offering up to $1,000 in cash back when an eligible MacBook is traded in with a Surface Laptop Ultra purchase. The offer is part of the company’s effort to persuade creators and developers to switch platforms.

Microsoft also announced the $5,999 Surface RTX Spark Dev Box. The desktop system uses the same RTX Spark chip and offers up to 1 petaflop of AI performance, with support for artificial intelligence models containing up to 120 billion parameters. It is positioned against products such as Apple’s Mac Studio and Mac mini.

The Surface Laptop Ultra will also arrive as Apple is reportedly preparing a higher-end OLED MacBook. That rumored machine is expected to include a touchscreen, M5 Pro and M5 Max processors, and a thinner, lighter design, although Microsoft’s laptop is the product with confirmed pricing and a release date.