Microsoft Is Beefing Up Its Surface Lineup With New ARM And AMD Processors

Microsoft is announcing a number of new products this year. At the Microsoft Surface Event, the tech giant just took the wraps off the foldable Surface Duo phone and the Surface Laptop 3. The company has also introduced a new Surface Pro 7, Surface Pro X, and Surface Earbuds.

According to reports, the Redmond-based company announced five new products on its New York City event. The company plans to ship all of those products this year, just in time for the Christmas holiday. Here’s a detailed and short overview of the new products.

Surface Duo
The tech giant’s latest foldable Surface Duo phone will run on the Android mobile operating system. The design of this foldable smartphone resembles Microsoft’s just-announced dual-screen Surface Neo laptop. The new Surface Duo features two 5.6-inch displays that can be rotated 360 degrees. Each of those 5.6-inch phone displays can run two different applications or tasks at the same time. Powering the new phone will be a Snapdragon 855 processor and a version Android mobile operating system. However, the new Surface Duo phone is an early preview, and Microsoft wants to give more time to start building apps for the newly announced handset. The Surface Duo will be released sometime in 2020.

Surface Pro 7
Microsoft is upgrading its Surface Pro lineup with a new ARM-powered Surface Pro. The company is upgrading its Surface Pro lineup with laptop-class performance, adding a laptop-class processor from Intel. The new Surface Pro 7 offers much power than the previous Surface Pro 6. In addition to the added processing power, the hardware also comes with up to 16 GB of LPDDR4x RAM and 1TB of SSD storage. The new Surface Pro 7 features the same thick bezels, Alcantara keyboard, and 12.3-inch PixelSense display. However, the new device comes with a newly improved Surface Pen, which Microsoft said will be sold separately.

Unfortunately, the battery life on the new Pro 7 has been reduced. The new hardware offers only 10.5 hours of battery life. That’s’ significantly lower when compared to the Surface Pro 6’s 13.5 hours of battery life. As for the connectivity, the device comes with a Type-C port along with a full-size USB Type-A port, a Surface Connect port, and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. Pre-order start this week and prices start at $749 for the Corei3 variant.

Surface Pro X
In addition to the Surface Pro 7, Microsoft is also making another addition to the Surface Pro lineup. The latest addition will be the ARM-powered Surface Pro X with custom SQ1 chip and support for LTE. The company described this new device as a full-fledged Surface Pro-class machine. Powering this new machine is a custom variant of Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx processor, which Microsoft reportedly co-developed with the chipmaker firm Qualcomm. At just 5.3 mm thick, it’s the thinnest Surface laptop ever to hit the market. The device supports LTE connection, USB-C, and fast charging.

Prices start at $999, and the deliveries will start next month. Microsoft is already accepting pre-orders for this new product.

Surface Laptop 3
The Redmond-based software company is introducing the third-generation of its flagship Surface Laptop this week. The Surface Laptop 3, the software company’s newest clamshell laptop, comes in a new 15-inch (for 15-inch variant), 13.5-inch (for 13.5-inch variant) AMD-powered processor and good-looking metal finish. The new processor promises more processing power and faster graphics performance than any other laptop in its class. Additionally, the company is also offering up to 11.5 hours of battery life. The device comes with Type-C port, full-size USB-A port, Surface Connect port, and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. The Surface Laptop 3 comes in two variants, the smaller 13.5 variant, and the much bigger 15-inch variant.

The 13.5-inch variant will start at $999, while the much bigger 15-inch device will start at $1,199. Pre-order starts this week and with deliveries start on October 22.

Surface Earbuds
Alongside the Surface Pro and other new devices, Microsoft also announced a new Surface Earbuds. The new Surface Earbuds will have an 8-hour battery life and support for both Android Fast Pair and Windows Swift Pair. The company also added a directional dual mic array and support for Spotify integration. The new device also supports Microsoft Office 365, where users can use the device to dictate and translate stuff into the Microsoft office applications. Prices for this device will start at $249.