Editors note: John Lewis has got in touch with us saying that this wasn't a leak, but just an internal error for the Surface Laptop 3. We've amended the original article below.
The Surface Book 3 and Surface Go 2 have been seeing a lot of rumors pointing to a possible release in the near future, and a clerical error by John Lewis was mistaken for a product confirmation.
We’ve already been hearing plenty of rumors about these two Surface devices – including purported pricing being leaked by online retailers – and this fresh speculation comes from a source who spoke to Windows Latest.
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That anonymous person claims that Microsoft has been planning a virtual event to announce the Surface Book 3 and Surface Go 2 taking place at the end of April, and that could still happen – although this online press shindig might now have been delayed until the first or second week of May.
Bear in mind that we only have the word of the source for this, so who knows if this is correct or not, but it doesn’t seem improbable given the weight of rumors of late concerning the release of these two devices.
That includes a recent FCC filing allegedly for the Surface Go 2, and as mentioned, several batches of leaked pricing details, which unfortunately make it look like the Surface Go sequel could be more expensive than the original. The leaked Surface Book 3 price tags seem pretty much in line with what we’d expect looking at the existing models.
Mistakenly advertised
As we mentioned at the outset, what seems like further evidence of the Surface Book 3 being imminent has turned up in the form of an advert from John Lewis accidentally (and only briefly) posted online which Windows Latest also spotted and screen-grabbed.
The advert simply referred to a ‘Surface Book 3 by Microsoft’ and is a brief snippet that just mentions a ‘powerful laptop with a variety of features’, but no specs.
However, John Lewis has reached out to us and clarified, saying ‘Unfortunately an error was made in the wording of a Surface Laptop 3 search terms advert. The wording was quickly corrected and the updated Laptop 3 advert was re-published'.
So far, the spilled details we have got from online retailers have been leaked by pretty minor outfits, but John Lewis is a huge UK retail presence, and would have been a more credible leak source than, say, Italian retailer Breakpoint which is where the latest alleged prices came from.
We have heard chatter about the specs of both these devices though, and rumor has it that the Surface Book 3 will have 10th-gen Intel processors (the Core i5-10210U and Core i7-10510U), with memory in 8GB, 16GB or 32GB configurations, and storage running up to 1TB. It will supposedly stick with the same design as the existing models.
Whereas the Surface Go 2 will run with the same screen, a choice of Intel Pentium 4425Y or Core m3-8100Y processors, and either 4GB or 8GB of system RAM. Storage will top out at 256GB if the speculation that has been aired is on the money.
The good news is that with this event possibly only a fortnight away, if it’s happening at the end of April and this rumor is correct, we should hear something very soon given that Microsoft will doubtless want to publicize the launch a little while in advance.
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