Microsoft is set to reveal at least one new Surface device at its Future Decoded event in late October, according to The Verge. Surface head honcho Panos Panay will be speaking, which is usually a sure-fire sign a hardware announcement is coming up.
It’s not clear what that hardware might be, but we have a few guesses. Microsoft hasn’t yet released the LTE version of its new Surface Pro, which it promised back in May, so we’ll probably get a concrete time frame for that. The Surface Book also hasn’t received a design update since its announcement in October 2015, other than the Performance edition which added a more powerful GPU and bigger battery.
With the Surface Laptop taking the spotlight earlier in the year, Microsoft will want to give power-users more of a reason to opt for the Surface Book. If there is a new Surface Book, it will likely use Intel’s new 8th generation mobile processors (Kaby Lake R), which use four cores instead of the usual two.
The new processors are supposed to provide up to a 40 percent performance increase for tasks that make use of multiple threads. Lending fuel to the fire, Intel may have hinted the Surface Book will get Kaby Lake R in a recent promo video.
On the other hand, we’ll also likely hear more about Microsoft plan to bring Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips to Windows devices. We first heard about this back in December, and Microsoft told The Verge it’s still planning to show off Snapdragon-powered Windows devices this year. Whether those are just third party machines or if there will be a Surface device involved remains to be seen. I’d love to see signs of the ever-elusive Surface Phone, but I wouldn’t count on it just yet.
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