There’s been more spillage of Microsoft’s incoming Surface devices via leaked marketing materials, this time revealing that there will be a Surface Pro 7, Surface Laptop 3 in two sizes – 13-inch and 15-inch – as well as an ARM-powered Surface device of some manner.
Evan Blass, who leaked these images on Twitter – we’d embed the tweet, but it’s protected and limited to approved followers – also noted that there is a dual-screen Surface which is “not pictured here”, inferring that it will be shown off at the big October Microsoft event, which is on October 2.
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These images follow other spilled promo pictures posted online yesterday by WalkingCat, another prolific and respected leaker – which we theorized showed a Surface with ARM CPU device – and the material certainly looks genuine on both counts (although obviously enough Microsoft hasn’t confirmed anything).
So first up, let’s take a look at the Surface Pro 7 as revealed by these marketing shots:
It looks pretty much identical to the existing Surface Pro 6, although there is no real surprise there – except this time there is a USB-C port, and about time too (this really should have been on the previous model). Note that the Surface Pro 7 does also keep a USB Type-A port, though.
The new USB-C connector is in the place of the Mini DisplayPort, so that has either been dropped, or relocated to the other side of the chassis (which we can’t see in the leaked images).
Bear in mind these details were discussing all assuming the veracity of these images, of course. But as we’ve already observed, while no guarantees can be made as ever, it seems unlikely that all these pics from two trusted sources are going to be off the mark in some way.
Now take a look at the new Surface Laptop 3:
The big change here is that as well as a 13-inch laptop, there’s now a 15-inch option. Furthermore, the new Surface Laptop 3 appears to have ditched the Alcantara fabric surround on the base of the existing Surface Laptop 2.
ARM wrestling
Finally, we’ve saved the best for last – or certainly the most interesting and different spin on the Surface line – which is an alleged new machine with an ARM CPU according to Blass:
It isn’t clear whether this ARM-powered device will be the Surface 7, which has previously been floating around as a rumor, or if it’ll be named something else. PC World reports that Microsoft apparently hasn’t fully worked out the name yet, even this close to launch, but it could be pitched as some kind of Surface Pro variant rather than a straight Surface machine.
Whatever it’s called, the device appears to come with a pair of USB-C ports, a relatively large display – it looks much taller than the existing Surface Pro – and has way smaller bezels than the latter.
It still maintains the Pro kickstand, although the hinge mechanism is very different here, with much more separation between the tablet and base – which allows the keyboard to be flat when working on a surface, so to speak.
As we mentioned yesterday, the ARM device supposedly runs with a ‘modified’ and rebranded Snapdragon 8cx chip, although quite what’s different about it isn’t clear. The promo image spilled yesterday mentions ‘LTE connectivity’ and not 5G, so that’s a bit of an oddity if it is the Snapdragon 8cx, potentially.
Could it be an older Qualcomm CPU? That would seem unlikely for a new cutting-edge Surface machine, given the performance issues regarding ‘always connected’ PCs which can certainly use the speed injection that the 8cx brings to the table. Although this is Microsoft, which is only just introducing USB-C to the Surface Pro…
Finally, as we mentioned at the outset, Blass notes that he hasn’t any pictures to share of the rumored dual-screen Surface, but given that it’s even mentioned, that would seem to indicate it will be teased at tomorrow’s event.
The fact that there are no images could indicate that our two leakers here simply haven’t managed to get hold of them, or it could be down to the fact that there aren’t any, and the alleged Surface Centaurus is still in the works (so perhaps a prototype might be shown off, rather than the finished product).
Or perhaps most likely, we might only get a vague tease – some presentation slides – of a machine which is still quite a way from being finished. If anything at all materializes, of course, but fortunately we don’t have long to wait to find out now.
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