Like most first-gen devices aiming to rock an established industry to its core, the dual-screen Surface Duo is far from perfect. But while certain compromises and flaws were fairly easy to predict and are not exactly shocking to see materializing in the handset’s commercial form, others simply left potential buyers scratching their heads in disbelief and ultimately disappointment.
At $1400 and up, there’s no excuse for sticking to 4G LTE connectivity when 5G networks are slowly becoming ubiquitous around the world, but if the next gold standard of the cellular industry is more important to you than the radical new design of the Surface Duo, Microsoft might have some good news to offer as early as tomorrow.
That’s right, according to WinFuture’s prolific and almost always trustworthy Roland Quandt, the Redmond-based tech giant is preparing to unveil two new Surface products on Thursday, October 1. These are likely to be commercially released a little later than that, mind you, but pre-orders could kick off immediately after the Surface Pro X2 and Surface Laptop Go are formally announced.
The two names are not etched in stone yet, and although Quandt doesn’t mention anything about the connectivity of the second-gen Surface Pro X in his latest report (translated here) based on intel from a “normally reliable source”, we’ve heard a number of 5G whispers already.
Besides, it would make perfect sense for last year’s 13-inch Windows 10 tablet to be upgraded from 4G LTE to 5G support, especially in the absence of many other fundamental changes. For the time being, all we know about the Surface Pro X2 is that it will most definitely pack a Microsoft SQ2 processor developed in collaboration with Qualcomm and that it should have “more memory” than its predecessor.
Said predecessor, in case you’re wondering, starts at $1,000 in an 8GB RAM configuration accommodating 128 gigs of data internally, going all the way up to $1,800 with 16 gigs of memory and 512 gigs of storage space on deck. It remains to be seen how high Microsoft will go with 5G speeds in tow and a mysterious memory upgrade.
The Surface Pro X2 could beat Apple’s next iPad Pro generation to the 5G punch while taking on the beastly 12.4-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+ with Android, which costs $1050 in a 5G-enabled variant.
Believe it or not, the Surface Laptop Go (aka “Sparti”) could be much cheaper than that, purportedly starting at a measly $699 with a 12.5-inch display, 10th Gen Intel Core i5 chipset, 4GB RAM count, and a modest 64 gigs of internal storage space, as well as a good old fashioned built-in keyboard.
Unfortunately, the Surface Pro 8 is not expected to break cover at the same October 1 event as these two bad boys, instead looking destined to come out at some point in the spring with an entirely new design of sorts.
Source: Phonearena
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