- So Microsoft announced on October 2nd in New York City,
they're going to have a new Surface event.
Today we're going to tell you
whether or not you should be pumped.
Stay tuned.
(upbeat music)
So on October second in New York City,
Microsoft is going to host a Surface event.
Now, this should be a low key event.
It reminds a little bit of last year's Surface Book 2,
where there was only about 30 or 40 of us in a small room.
Panos Panay, the head of of Surface, was there,
and gave us the whole run down of what was being announced,
and that was the Surface Book 2.
And the surprise there was the Surface Book 2, 15 inch.
So, what about this year?
Are we going to expect any new foreign factory devices,
or just refreshes?
So first up, let's talk about what we don't expect,
and I'm sorry to say, we are not expecting
a Surface Andromeda device or a Surface Phone.
Now I suppose Microsoft could be
doing some super subterfuge here,
and maybe they'll show something at the end.
I just really do not expect it and we've been told
from internal sources that "we don't expect that either."
So, bit of a shame, but hey, we have something
for spring 2019, fingers crossed.
With that out of the way, let's get to it though.
Surface Studio 2, so we did hear, back in January,
that this was on slate and it makes sense, right?
This device is now coming on two years old,
and it could definitely use a refresh.
I don't think this device needs a remake though,
the hardware itself was very good,
but those internals need to be updated.
So we should expect some higher end components
for the desktop including a new CPU and better GPU.
If you just do that, maybe add some Thunderbolt 3 support,
the Surface Studio 2 could be a really killer desktop.
They could also maybe bring down the price a little bit
on that and that could be a really cool thing.
We're still not 100% certain on any of this stuff,
but Surface Studio 2 is a likely candidate.
Now one thing I'd like to see too,
I know many of you would love to see, is a Surface display.
So take out the computer component,
just give us that display
that we could connect up to any of our laptops.
Unfortunately, we don't have any sourcing or rumors
around this device coming out, so as cools as it would be
to have a Surface display, unless Microsoft surprises us,
I'm just not expecting that to come out on October 2nd.
All right, next up, Surface Laptop and Surface Pro.
These are also rumored to be refreshed.
Again, not a huge redesign on these,
but replace those internals
with, say, eighth generation Intel processors.
Now, this is going to be really crucial,
are these going to ship with Whiskey Lake
or the current Coffee Lake processors?
The timing suggests Whiskey Lake,
'cause we are expecting those to launch
in current laptops for October, November timeframe,
that lines up perfectly.
This is super crucial for me.
If these ship with Whiskey Lake,
Whiskey Lake allows 16 PCIe lanes on the board
for the U-Series processors.
That's both the Surface Pro and Surface Laptop use.
That's super important, because if you get 16 PCIe lanes,
Microsoft can now add, not only Type-C, but Thunderbolt 3.
That's because the problem with Surface Pro
is it uses a lot of PCIe lanes
for the Surface keyboard connect,
as well as the Surface connect
as well as the things like SSD.
So we do all that, you quickly take up 12 PCIe lanes,
you don't have enough for a Thunderbolt 3.
However, if you get 16, well you can now do that
and keep that crucial Surface connect,
which is what I really think Microsoft is waiting for.
That makes Whiskey Lake a really interesting proposition,
and if that's what they've been waiting for
for Surface Pro and Surface Laptop,
to bring Type-C and Thunderbolt 3,
well, it will definitely be worth the wait.
Let's see though, if they actually deliver there.
Now the other rumor is, these devices will come in black.
I'm not sure about that, I suppose it's a possibility
after all it's just another color scheme, so why not?
Could be a nice throwback to the original Surface
and Surface 2 releases which also came in black.
Hey, maybe they'll do it, maybe they won't.
Whether or not we'll see Surface Book 2 as well
refreshed in black, that remains to be seen.
I will point out, though, that Surface Book
on its original one year anniversary,
did have the performance base edition,
so maybe they'll do a Surface Book 2 refresh,
but it won't be a refresh, I don't think,
of the whole lineup.
Instead, they may come up with another sku,
maybe it'll be a black version and something will be unique.
Finally, the big question I have is,
Surface laptop 15 inch version?
So we have heard internal rumors
that they would be doing a 15 inch version on this,
or at least they were considering it,
and when you look at Surface Book 2,
well, it actually makes sense
that they would follow that same scheme.
Personally, I would love to see Surface Laptop
with a Type-C, Thunderbolt 3,
as well as slightly improved display.
If you go to a 15 inch,
not only you can put in a bigger battery.
and a beefier processor,
but you can probably put in something
like an mx150 graphics,
which is not gonna be supremely amazing graphics,
it won't compete with Surface Book 2,
but it will give a boost,
and a 15 inch Surface Laptop 2 would be just totally killer.
All right, so now we've got the big stuff out of the way,
what about odds and ends?
There's been rumors of a headset coming out,
a Surface branded headset which is a little bit strange.
It may not even be Surface branded,
but we do expect some more accessories coming out.
I'd like to really stress here
what Microsoft has been doing with these events.
They don't get onstage anymore,
and just say "Here is a new Surface,"
it's about the whole package.
So, if you remember Surface Book 2,
it was also they had a new Surface precision mouse
and a bunch of other smaller accessories,
maybe even a Surface dial refresh,
would make a lot of sense too.
So, we should expect some more smaller accessories
coming out, maybe a new pen,
all that kind of stuff should be really interesting.
There's also the software tale here.
So this event is timed perfectly
with the October fall release for Windows 10 update.
So we expect some tie-ins there, some promotion
of those new features that are coming with that update.
But there could be also new services,
along with things like To-Do and OneNote,
and updates around those kind of things,
so maybe they'll announce some other packages there.
The whole point here, though, is that Microsoft is going
to tell a big story, it's just going to be hardware,
it's going to be accessories, and software.
They're really bringing it all together.
That started last year with Surface Pro
and we saw it with Surface Laptop
and Team Support and Education.
I think we'll see that continue here
for the October 2nd event as well.
Now, I should point out,
and this is the really exciting part,
we don't have confirmation on any of this stuff,
and yeah you can blame us for poor sourcing,
but I'm actually really excited about this.
Generally, now when I show up to Surface events,
I'm actually surprised, and to be honest,
it means it's not a waste of my time,
and it shouldn't be a waste of yours.
Unlike Google and Apple,
where everything they basically announce is already known,
we really don't know what to expect here,
at this Surface event and that's truly exciting.
The Surface group has been very good at surprising us
at each one of these events.
They did it with Surface Studio,
they did it with Surface Laptop,
they did it with Surface Book 2.
I expect the same here for October 2nd,
and that actually gets me really,
well, as Panos would say, pumped!
Now remember, we'll be there October 2nd for this event,
so pay attention to WindowsCentral.com,
as well as this youtube channel.
We'll also be there with Michael Fisher, aka, Mr. Mobile,
so that'll be a lot of fun.
But leave me a comment below, tell me what you expect,
and what you really want to see,
besides Andromeda, we all get that.
Otherwise, if you liked this video,
don't forget to give us a thumbs up and subscribe.
Thanks for watching, take care everyone.