Microsoft Surface Laptop 5, Surface Pro 9, Surface Pro 9 5G and Surface Studio 3 all touted for bumper autumn hardware event
Roland Quandt and WinFuture have provided more details about the scale of Microsoft's next hardware launch event, currently thought to be scheduled for early autumn. To recap, Zac Bowden, Senior Editor at Windows Central, alleged last month that a next-generation Surface Pro would succeed the Surface Pro 8 and the Surface Pro X. Incidentally, Bowden has subsequently teased that Microsoft also plans to launch a Surface Studio 3.
Writing on Twitter, Bowden claims that he is selling his custom Surface Studio 2 'for absolutely no reason whatsoever'. Bowden expects Microsoft to launch the Surface Studio 3 with new Surface Keyboard, Surface Mouse and Surface Pen accessories too. Unfortunately, it remains to be seen what hardware Microsoft has included within the Surface Studio 3. For context, the Surface Studio 2 relies on the Core i7-7820HQ, a laptop processor from Intel's Kaby Lake architecture, and a laptop-grade discrete GPU.
According to WinFuture, Microsoft will market its next-generation ARM-powered Surface Pro as the Surface Pro 9 5G. Hence, Microsoft will not adopt 'Surface Pro 10' to coincide with series' 10th anniversary. Purportedly, Microsoft will release the Surface Pro 9 5G running the Microsoft SQ3, with Rich Woods stating that the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 was not available in time for this year's Surface Pro.
Presumably, the Surface Pro 8 successor will arrive simply as the Surface Pro 9. As we discussed last month, we suspect that Microsoft will equip the Surface Pro 9 with the Core i5-1230U and Core i7-1250U, or other variants in Intel's Alder Lake-U series. Unsurprisingly, Microsoft will continue to offer the Surface Pro series in Matte Black and Platinum colour options.
Separately, WinFuture asserts that some retailers have already listed Surface Laptop 5 SKUs ahead of an autumn release. Reputedly, the Surface Laptop will return in 13-inch and 15-inch versions. At this stage, it is unclear whether Microsoft will sell the Surface Laptop 5 with AMD and Intel models. However, we imagine that there will be custom Ryzen 6000 and Intel Alder Lake-P series variants if Microsoft sticks with its twin-track processor strategy. Alternatively, Microsoft could utilise AMD Barcelo APUs, which would be tweaked versions of the Ryzen 4000 APUs powering the Surface Laptop 4.
Source(s)
WinFuture, @rquandt, @TheRichWoods & @zacbowden (1) (2)
