Microsoft’s Surface event was held earlier today, and even though it wasn’t streamed, news about its new devices started to drop quickly.
One of them was them widely-rumoured Surface Pro 6. While most reports surmised that it would be a simple refresh of the previous gen, it was assumed that one of the upgrades would be USB-C.
We were all wrong.
And the Pro wasn’t the only culprit. The Surface Laptop 2 is also devoid of the upgrade.
That isn’t to say that the Pro 6 didn’t get some nice new inclusions – even if we are looking at the same bodies and displays. The baseline for RAM is now 8GB and can be bumped to 16GB, and it has 8th-Gen processor options – either a i5-8250U or i7-8650U. Oh, and you can get it in matte black.
But when it comes to ports, we’re still back in 2015.
This is a surprising move by Microsoft, particularly because the Surface Go has USB-C now. What gives?
This isn’t the only disappointment that today’s event had on offer. The hotly anticipated Surface Studio 2 was also announced, and while it got a few neat upgrades and looks stunning, it wasn’t blessed with an 8th-Gen processor. It only got bumped up to a 7th. On the plus side, it did finally get an up-to-date NVIDIA Pascal GPU.
These decisions are quite odd and it seems like Microsoft is trying to play catch-up under the hoods of their devices. But the more lackluster specs and ports do adhere to what we’ve been saying for the past week – 2019 is going to be the big one for Microsoft’s Surface family, especially the Pro.
Today felt more like an opening act for next year’s main event.
My guess is that we’re not just going to see that USB-C upgrade, but a complete redesign once the next Surface Pro (codenamed ‘Carmel’) gets announced, as well as a processor upgrade for the Studio 2.
Plus, I’m fully expecting a slew of other exciting things that go beyond paint jobs and RAM. Here’s to hoping.
[referenced url=”https://gizmodo.com.au/2018/10/microsoft-just-announced-great-upgrades-to-a-whole-bunch-of-its-surface-computers/” thumb=”https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_ku-large/qt5ii232dplao80majdr.jpg” title=”Microsoft Just Announced Great Upgrades To A Whole Bunch Of Its Computers” excerpt=”Microsoft announced refreshes to three different computers today and its proof the company is committed to manufacturing computers, and not just to periodically releasing glitzy overpriced products to showcase Windows. We’re getting the Surface Pro 6, Surface Laptop 2, and Surface Studio 2, all with nice upgrades inside.”]