Early this year, Microsoft unveiled the new Surface Laptop Go and the Surface Pro X (2020). Typically around that time of year, the Redmond, Washington-based company would also unveil the next versions of its Surface Laptop and Surface Pro lines, but that didn’t happen in 2020.
However, we could soon see new Surface devices from the company anyway. Twitter user ‘cozyplanes‘ shared images of what appears to be both a Surface Laptop 4 and a Surface Pro 8 from what looks like a certification process. Further, the tweet notes there will be an LTE variant of the Pro 8 this year and lists the model numbers (1950 for Surface Laptop 4, 1960 for Pro 8 and 1961 for Pro 8 with LTE).
https://twitter.com/cozyplanes/status/1331969412102909952?s=20
Windows Central also notes that the new Surface Pro and Laptop will arrive sometime in mid-January and should sport Intel’s 11th Gen processors and the new Xe graphics. Further, the Surface Laptop 4 should also offer AMD variants, but it remains unclear what CPUs that will entail.
The Verge points out that last year’s 15-inch Surface Laptop 3 offered a chip co-engineered between Microsoft and AMD, but it had significant performance issues. Hopefully, this time around the Surface Laptop includes AMD’s excellent new Ryzen 4000 CPUs, or something based on those chips.
Unfortunately, it appears the company isn’t significantly changing anything else about the Surface Laptop or Pro this year. While both devices look excellent, the design is getting dated, especially for the Pro. Comparing the Pro 7 to the new Pro X makes it clear just how dated it is.
Windows Central suggests these minimal changes could mean Microsoft will refer to these devices as the “new Surface Pro” and “new Surface Laptop,” similar to how it treated this year’s Surface Pro X refresh. While that’s certainly possible, it seems unlikely to me, given the last few Surface Pro releases have been little more than an internal hardware refresh but still earned new names (Pro 6, Pro 7). Regardless of the naming convention, it’s good that we won’t have to wait too much longer for a refresh of the Surface Laptop and Pro lines.
Source: Twitter Via: The Verge, Windows Central
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