Although Microsoft couldn’t make Windows 11 work well on 8GB of RAM

Last year, Microsoft 13-inch Surface Laptop it quickly became one of my favorite and lightest Windows notebooks. At $900, it was easy to recommend to anyone looking for a MacBook Air—like the build quality and battery life of Windows—I convinced my sister to buy one on sale.

But that was last year. This year, thanks to RAMageddon, the same laptop costs $950, and now that price gets you half the RAM – just 8GB. It’s the same great hardware on the outside, but it’s not the same laptop on the inside.

It’s been a while since we tested a Windows laptop with less RAM. We have been saying for years that 8GB is not enough. But this is a Microsoft laptop, and Windows 11 is Microsoft’s operating system. Maybe it will be good enough.

All the good things I wrote about last year’s hardware still hold true: The keyboard is nice and clear, the trackpad is great (the only one that lets you click corner-to-corner), the cameras are sharp and clear, and the battery goes and goes – 10 hours easily. The processor, the octa-core Snapdragon X Plus, is almost identical to the one in the High-end Laptop. I reviewed it last year. Instead, it has a a little faster to boost speed. In last year’s Premium Laptop, it was a great performer and could even process light photos in Lightroom Classic. But last year’s model had 16GB of RAM. It seems to make a big difference.

While the 8GB Surface was mostly fine for web browsing or streaming videos, I sometimes prefer to use it on a day-to-day basis. I was on a Microsoft Teams phone call (using the app, not the browser) when the host showed a short video, causing the entire laptop to freeze for a few seconds. At the time, I had 10 Chrome tabs open on two desktops, in addition to Slack and Signal – not an outrageous level of multitasking. And we didn’t even have our own webcams.

A High-end laptop can freeze for a few seconds like this several times a day, even if I don’t think I’m pushing it too hard. I’ve had it turned off for a while while working in Google Docs – no Teams playing or anything streaming in the background. It’s only a few times a day on average, but it’s a lot.

Keeping the Performance tab open in Task Manager showed that I was always using about 6.7GB of the 7.6GB available. After a fresh restart with a few basic programs running, Windows was using 4.2GB of RAM. That’s a few rounds Microsoft only wants to run Windows 11and shows how thin the title is with 8GB of RAM. Minimizing yourself to about six Chrome tabs, closing Signal, and avoiding using any desktops saves about 5.5GB of memory.

Is all this possible with light luggage? Yes. Do I want to spend my life being very careful about how many programs I’m running and how many tabs I leave open on a new $950 laptop? Of course not. And if it cries on the first day, how useful will it be in five years?

The same can be said about the MacBook Neo, which also has 8GB of RAM. But macOS is a little better with RAM – and more, in my testing, Neo can do more. The Neo won’t have the shelf life of the MacBook Air, and it also costs $250 less than the Premium Laptop (though after Apple’s recent inflation).

Microsoft said his goal this year is to improve the performance of Windows 11 and make it more reliable, especially for cheaper hardware, to compete with the Neo. But if we’re going back to 8GB as the starting point for Windows laptops, there’s a lot of work to be done. It’s amazing that Microsoft has to deal with this problem when it’s together major offenders cha constant amount of RAM. Maybe Microsoft doesn’t care that its flagship Surface line will suffer because of its AI focus, but it’s hard to see.

We haven’t reviewed a Windows laptop with only 8GB of RAM inside more than three years. Unfortunately, the Ultimate Laptop won’t be the last. The recent Computex exhibition also brought announcements of upcoming laptops with 8GB of memory from Dell, Acerand Asus. It’s low RAM maybe years laterwe will see more than 8GB offered so manufacturers still have a “level-level” offer.

But if even Microsoft can’t make a Windows laptop that runs smoothly on 8GB RAM, what hope do OEMs have? 8GB isn’t enough for a Windows laptop in 2026. Barring Microsoft from blasting Windows 11 enough for smaller computers, your best bet is to spend more and get something with 16GB of RAM — like the same $1,150 High-end Laptop, something from. another manufacturer who still sees good salesor looking inward to fix and open box examples from reliable sources. Or just go out and get a MacBook Neo.

Prices may still rise. Today’s $950 8GB Premium Laptop may be next year’s $1,050 8GB Premium Laptop, or the year after that’s $1,200 8GB Premium Laptop.

This is our new computer culture. The 13-inch Surface Laptop originally offered respectable tradeoffs at a reasonable discount — “a little more than a little more,” as I said there. Now the new base version offers less to add. RAMMageddon has changed the contract. It will probably get worse.

Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge