To get the Surface Laptop Studio with Intel Core i7 and Nvidia GeForce graphics, the pricing moves up to $2,099, or more than double the starting price of the MacBook Air-though that price does also come with 512 GB of storage.
Both starting prices will get you 256 GB of storage.
To get the MacBook Air with an equivalent 16 GB of RAM, however, the price does go up to $1,199. A major difference, actually: while the M1 MacBook Air starts at $999, the Surface Laptop Studio is a full $600 more at its starting point-$1,599.99. With so many differences between the MacBook Air with M1 and Surface Laptop Studio, it shouldn’t be a surprise that there is a difference in price, as well. On the other hand, the MacBook Air brings a higher-performance CPU and is significantly more portable-and also offers comparable battery life even without needing a fan. Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Studio has a number of elements not found in Apple’s MacBook Air with M1-including the pull-forward touch display, 120Hz refresh rate, larger display and overall size, discrete graphics option, higher-res webcam and charging/storage for a digital pen.