Microsoft N1Xes Intel in favor of Nvidia's shiny new SoCs in Surface Laptop Ultra

Look out, Intel! Microsoft released its first Surface notebook powered by Nvidia's RTX Spark system-on-chip (SoC) during an event in San Francisco on Wednesday. The Surface Laptop Ultra is one of several new Copilot+ PCs powered by the N1X chip that Microsoft says is aimed at "builders," which are available for preorder starting today and expected to begin shipping next week. The machine is arguably the vehicle for a slew of new AI features including hybrid compute functionality that dynamically routes workloads to on-device or cloud models depending on factors like connectivity, privacy, cost, and complexity. The aluminum clad system largely keeps with Microsoft's existing design ethos. It features a high-res, 15-inch mini-LED display capable of reaching a peak brightness of 2,000 nits in Microsoft's signature 3:2 aspect ratio, a standard ten-keyless keyboard layout, haptic trackpad, and a slew of ports including one you won't find on a MacBook Pro. …