Microsoft’s October Surface Event Could Unveil A Powerful Windows On Snapdragon Device

In a few days, Microsoft's Surface event will take place, and the Redmond-based company is expected to unveil several new Surface devices, including a new Surface Pro. However, at this event, it is rumored that the Surface Pro X and Surface Pro '9' will be brought together, bringing ARM and x64 under the same Surface umbrella.

In the past few months, there have been rumors and rumblings that Microsoft will launch new devices this year just in time for the holiday shopping season. However, it has also been rumored by Zac Bowden that "MS is planning to merge the Surface Pro X under the main Surface Pro line this fall, meaning the Surface Pro "9" will be available in both Intel and ARM flavors for the first time." This comes as part of an effort to normalize Windows on ARM and as a substantial victory for the initiative.


Moreover, this is an interesting development because we have seen the performance of the current-gen Arm-based Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 chip from Qualcomm when we reviewed the Lenovo ThinkPad X13s. It will also be interesting to see if Microsoft will apply some of its own customizations to the chipset when it arrives in the new Surface lineup for potentially an even more optimized experience. 

Beyond this, we know that Microsoft will likely be introducing other devices, like a Surface Gaming laptop, with Intel 12th generation processors paired with a beefy NVIDIA RTX 3070Ti if you snag the Core i7 upgrade. Otherwise, the more standard fare Surface laptops from Microsoft will also get the Intel 12th-generation upgrade.


In any event, it's clear the industry is excited to see what Microsoft has in store for the Surface lineup, which is not too far away anymore. So keep an eye out for the Microsoft Surface event on October 12th at 10 am ET, and stay tuned to HotHardware for all the Surface updates.