Every fall for the past couple of years, Microsoft has held a hardware event where they have unveiled everything from phones to fitness devices, and this year, a lower-priced laptop, the Laptop Go. But missing from that announcement was a refresh of the Surface Pro and Surface Laptop.
Both of those devices are really starting to show their age. Microsoft has been sitting on a Surface Pro re-design for more than a year and the Surface Laptop is using an AMD chip that is very hard to recommend; the Intel version of the Laptop (and Pro, which only uses Intel) is a much easier device to suggest. Images of the new devices leaked on Twitter and as you can see, not much has changed.
But as we make our way through the holiday season of 2020, it’s clear the Pro 8 and Surface Laptop 4 are not arriving this year. Thankfully, if you want the Surface Pro 8, you will not have to wait too much longer but the Laptop 4 might be a bit later than the Pro 8.
According to multiple sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans, the company should be releasing the Pro 8 in late January as long as the timeline doesn’t slip but the Laptop 4 may not arrive at that time. Expect a quiet update as well as these are a refresh of the hardware and not overhaul of either the Laptop or the Pro.
Microsoft will use the newer 11th generation chips from Intel and expect updates on the AMD side as well. But expect similar storage, RAM, and pricing for the devices and LTE options for the Pro.
New hardware aside, this holiday quarter will be an interesting one to watch from Microsoft. For the past couple of years and even quarters, the company has been flirting with $2 billion in revenue from the PC business. Considering that the company has launched a new lower-priced laptop this quarter and that they have been inching closer to the $2 billion milestone, anything less than surpassing it will likely be a disappointment.