No, Microsoft didn't just raise the price of Surface laptops

Thanks to President Donald Trump's tariffs, we've seen a lot of price increases in the tech world. And today, some outlets reported that Microsoft is increasing prices on some of its Surface devices.

We're not so sure.

Yes, the $999.99 base configurations of Microsoft's 13.8-inch Surface Laptop 7 and 13-inch Surface Pro 11 disappeared from its online store this week after the company unveiled two smaller and cheaper Surface devices. The two flagship Copilot+ PCs now start at $1,199.99 in the Microsoft Store, causing several tech publications to report 20-percent price hikes. And to be fair, Microsoft did recently increase the price of Xbox gaming consoles.

However, Microsoft tells Mashable the price of its base Surface Laptop and Pro hasn't changed after all.

"Microsoft did not raise Surface Pro or Surface Laptop prices," Nancie Gaskill, Microsoft's General Manager of Surface Business, said in a statement to Mashable. "Microsoft simply removed the Surface Laptop and Pro $999 base models from Microsoft.com. Customers can purchase base models of Pro and Laptop at the starting price of $999 at other key retailers."

At the time of writing, shoppers could buy them for even less: The base models of both devices were on sale for $200 off at Best Buy.

Why the markup in the Microsoft Store, then? Look closely at the specs in their listings: The $1,199.99 Surface Laptop and Pro that Microsoft is selling have a 10-core Snapdragon X Plus processor, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of SSD storage, while the $999.99 base models available elsewhere have half the storage (just 256GB).

So, the prices haven't changed; the company is simply no longer selling the lesser configurations.

It's also worth noting that both 512GB models have held steady at $1,199.99 since launching in June 2024.

Microsoft's newly announced 13-inch Surface Laptop and 12-inch Surface Pro are slightly cheaper alternatives to their flagship counterparts, with starting prices of $899.99 and $799.99, respectively. They're available for preorder in the Microsoft Store and beyond.

Some laptop manufacturers have raised their prices because of President Donald Trump's tariffs on imported Chinese goods. Asus previously told Mashable that some of its laptops saw tariff-related price hikes of up to nine percent. But Microsoft's Copilot+ PCs have been marked safe for now.

Other Microsoft products haven't been so lucky. On May 1, the tech giant announced that it was raising the recommended retail prices of its Xbox consoles and controllers, and that new first-party games would debut at $79.99 later this year. It attributed the price changes to "market conditions and the rising cost of development."