Surface Laptop 5 costs $899. Still no sign of "extra up-front cost" of Apple. For me, Surface Laptop isn't even in the running because of poor screen resolution.

The old Surface Book has 3000x2000 resolution which is 200%, but the Surface Laptops have 2256x1504 resolution, which is only 150%. As Steve Jobs said when he introduced iPhone 4, the only resolution that looks good after 100% is 200%. I have tested screens with 150% and 300% resolutions, and they all have display artifacts (such as horizontal 1-pixel horizontal lines appearing to have different widths).