Microsoft Copilot+ PC confusion and why Surface Laptop Ultra is a bad idea

Copilot+ PCs requirements

When Microsoft introduced the Copilot+ PC product category in May 2024 and it set somewhat stricter hardware baselines for those next generation of Windows computers. Qualification showed 16 GB of RAM and an NPU with at least 40 TOPS, and then AMD and Intel delivered exactly that. The systems continued to be X86-driven, although there are some ARM options, but the combination of “Windows + ARM CPUs” has been a long-lasting disaster with many failures. So far, only Apple has successfully delivered and Microsoft continues to fail.

Privacy concerns and Microsoft's ignorance

The reputation of the Copilot+ brand has been massively damaged by the introduction of Recall. Micosoft keeps trying to shove this feature in with a crowbar, even though security researchers and people who at least have some understanding of the subject criticize the madness behind it! The function with which a searchable photographic history of a user's screen was to be created is surveillance at the highest level and such interventions would not even be tolerated by trustworthy companies, and never by a company like Microsoft. Although Microsoft later redesigned the feature to include improved authentication, the link between Copilot+ and privacy risks remained and the damage was done.

As 2025 progressed, user frustration grew as Microsoft aggressively integrated Copilot AI into almost every aspect of Windows 11. No one asked for the features and no one wanted them. The push towards an agent-based operating system combined with a dedicated AI button on the keyboard led to the operating system being perceived as an advertising channel for Microsoft services rather than a productivity tool. Windows 11 continues to evolve into a user-unfriendly operating system and is thus steadily losing users!

Surface Laptop Ultra and the RTX Spark Shift

NVIDIA then went one step further at Computex! At the presentation of the Surface Laptop Ultra, NVIDIA massively alienated viewers and hardly any press representatives were allowed to attend the keynote because they only wanted the fanboys and investors - but even they were “not amused” and the applause largely failed to materialize.

NVIDIA and Microsoft believe that the new notebooks are built for AI agents and not humans. That alone is an anti-consumer statement that gives you a lot to think about. What's more, these RTX Spark systems will be coupled with a massive 128 GB of RAM and will apparently come with a GeForce RTX 5070 graphics processor. We can therefore assume that the price will be absurdly high, as 128 GB DDR5 costs over $1,000 and the graphics card is not cheap either. The RTX Spark chip is not even a new development and is based on an already established system from MediaTek. NVIDIA is thus putting its strong brand names on a product that does not actually come from NVIDIA. There is just so much wrong at this point that it just keeps getting more frustrating.

Inconsistencies in the certification standards

The current status of the Copilot+ program is further complicated by inconsistencies in the hardware requirements. While the minimum of 16 GB of RAM was presented as a non-negotiable standard for the AI category, Microsoft recently launched the Surface Laptop for Business with an 8 GB RAM variant and continues to market it as a Copilot+ PC. This brings inconsistency and Microsoft has not been shining for months.

In our opinion, it has been an interesting experiment and at this point Microsoft should simply abandon the Copilot+ program and start listening more to the actual customers. Instead, the company is screwing around with developers and enthusiasts. The quality of the releases has been criticized for months and now there are zero-days, which have Windows as a platform but also Github (which belongs to Microsoft) in their sights.