14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is planning several substantial changes in its Surface product lineup, and a new report indicates that the company could even equip some future-generation models with AMD and ARM chips.
While such a decision could be a major blow for Intel, Microsoft is reportedly considering a Surface Laptop that would be powered by a 12nm AMD Picasso SoC. The device is still in the prototype phase, but if everything is working correctly, it could be released alongside its Intel sibling.
There are bigger changes planned for the Surface Pro, however. Petri writes that Microsoft has already developed prototypes of a future model that would run on a Snapdragon chip.
Snapdragon Microsoft Surface Pro
The move to ARM would technically allow the Surface Pro to offer a longer battery life, but Microsoft’s biggest priority is to deal with the potential impact such a processor choice would have on performance.
Microsoft is thus working closely with Qualcomm on building a custom SoC called Excalibur that would be specifically optimized for Windows 10, and the software giant hopes that after releasing a Surface model running it, other manufacturers would adopt it as well for their own models.
Surface models powered by Intel chips will continue to be offered alongside the new ones, albeit it’s pretty clear that Microsoft will insist for these AMD and ARM versions given its investments.
The next Surface Pro, which could go live later this year, will have a design similar to the existing model, with the aforementioned source claiming it could launch with USB-C, but without Thunderbolt 3.
A completely overhauled Surface Pro codenamed Carmel is projected to go live sometime next year. The launch was originally projected to happen in 2019, but the device was pushed back for about a year due to reasons that are yet to make the rounds.
Other Surface models will also get upgrades in 2019 and 2020, including here the Surface Book, which will be refreshed with new chips, although there’s a chance that only minor changes would be made to their designs.