As Apple prices low, Microsoft’s Surface goes higher

In what could be considered either an experiment in counter-intuitive marketing or a brave response to the introduction of the MacBook Neo and M4 iPad Air, Microsoft has raised prices across the board on its Surface PCs, and not by a few pennies.

In fact, the price increase means the  Surface Laptop 7 and Surface Pro 11 now cost $500 more than they did when they first launched at in 2024. Microsoft’s Surface Pro 12-inch will set you back $1,049.

Thanks for the memory

Microsoft says memory and component cost increases are to blame for these price hikes, but it compares pretty poorly to the cost of Apple’s recent products. An entry level MacBook Neo costs just $599, while a far more performant iPad Air with an M4 chip will set you back about the same.

Indeed, if you throw Apple’s $100 education discount on a Neo into the mix you can effectively purchase both an Apple tablet and an Apple Mac for the same cost as am entry level Surface Pro.

It’s pretty hard to figure out the best way to spend your money on that basis, right? A Windows machine that may even crash more often than the Apple products it competes with that costs more, or better Apple devices that are quite frankly way more performant. (Omnissa’s 2026 State of Digital Workspace report showed that Windows PCs crash three times more often than Macs).

Birds on the wire

You can choose a Chromebook of course, but in the same price range these tend to be underpowered systems, with the momentum still favoring Apple.

And all the time the background to all of this is that Apple is selling MacBook Neo’s by the train load, with some analysts anticipating up to ten million sales in the current quarter.

Though perhaps for Windows sales the one saving grace might be that some customers may stay with that platform because the new lower-cost Macs have sold out, though perhaps that’s a cruel thing to say.

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