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Microsoft's first Surface Laptop Ultra firmware update has quietly patched the display and power management issues that dogged its launch. But the bigger complaints about its Mini-LED screen can't be addressed with software fixes.
Microsoft's answer to the Apple MacBook Pro, the Surface Laptop Ultra, comes with the novel Nvidia RTX Spark line of processors and an oddball display choice. Not that the Mini-LED panel of the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra isn't bright and beautiful, as tested in our review, but it comes with issues like screen flicker, ghosting, lack of local dimming, or slow response times, and most of these can't be fixed with software.
Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra 200.0.7.0 update features
Microsoft’s first-ever software update for the Surface Laptop Ultra resolves extended reboot times, screen flickering, and unexpected restarts, along with the usual "general performance improvements." It shows up in Windows Update as System Hardware Update 200.0.7.0, and firmware support is expected to continue until 2032.
We measured PWM backlight dimming at 4,650 Hz, which is high enough that most sensitive users won’t notice it, but no amount of updates can change that or our bigger complaints about the Mini-LED panel: a 57 ms black-to-white response time, visible ghosting, no local dimming, and a high 0.61 nit black level that makes it appear grayish.
Microsoft did patch the annoying flickering that our review didn't observe, as it seems to be more of the erratic kind. Some users noticed that the Surface Laptop Ultra screen flickered only when the display was idle, but others endured a constant flicker one day that vanished for good on the next. That pattern fits display firmware or backlight controller issues when handing off between modes, so it must have been an easy software fix for Microsoft, unlike local dimming.
The newly minted 20-core N1X chip runs at 80 W burst and 60 W sustained, with stable performance under long loads and on battery. Multi-core scores match the Asus ProArt P16, though single-core performance sits a third below the M5 as is often the case with Apple's chips, be they iPhone or MacBook ones. A chip that swings quickly between light loads and heavy bursts needs impeccable power state management, and badly tuned ones are a known cause of slow booting and unexpected restarts. Some owners of the pricey Surface Ultra that starts from $2,599 on Amazon noticed the laptop run hot even under light workloads, which hints at still-rough power management edges.
In any case, the inaugural Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra software update looks like the usual housekeeping on a new platform. It may fix flickering and fine-tune power states, but it can't fix how much Microsoft spent on the Mini-LED panel.
Daniel Zlatev - Senior Tech Writer - 2280 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2021
Wooed by tech since the industrial espionage of Apple computers and the times of pixelized Nintendos, Daniel went and opened a gaming club when personal computers and consoles were still an expensive rarity. Nowadays, fascination is not with specs and speed but rather the lifestyle that computers in our pocket, house, and car have shoehorned us in, from the infinite scroll and the privacy hazards to authenticating every bit and move of our existence.