I tested Microsoft’s $2,600 Surface Laptop Ultra with RTX Spark: 8 things I learned

My editors suggested something a bit more succinct, summing up the high points of the review. So here’s the story of the Surface Laptop Ultra and its brethren: a surprisingly average CPU, paired with a terrific GPU and good battery life, but with all the qualms Windows on Arm brings.

I thought, oh, Arm — haven’t all the problems been solved with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips? Apparently not! I was forced to work with a beta version of Adobe Premiere, so there’s development work to be done.

Here’s what you need to know about the Surface Laptop Ultra.

1.) The base price is $2,599. It tops out at $5,899.99

It’s the K-shaped economy in a nutshell. My family produced gasps when I told them the price was $2,599 price. When I explained that was the cheapest model, they gasped again. But for the puffy vest crowd swarming San Francisco for TechCrunch Disrupt, $6,000 or so is just the cost of doing…