Yesterday, Microsoft had their scheduled keynote address where we expected the refresh of some devices and interesting enough, we had a surprise announcement which we will get into in a bit.
Surface Lineup refresh and a surprise
Microsoft decided to refresh their Surface lineup starting with the Surface Pro, Surface Laptop and even the Surface Studio. Also they all come in 𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚎 𝚋𝚕𝚊𝚌𝚔 (except the Studio) which is so cool.
Surface Pro 6
Starting with the Surface Pro, It still retains the same design that we know off with its cool hinge and tablet looks. The Surface Pro 6 now sports the latest Intel 8th Gen Core Processors (i5 or i7) and Microsoft says that thanks to these new quad core chips, they are now 67% more powerful than the previous generation.
Surface Laptop 2
The Surface Laptop 2 is the refresh of the original Surface Laptop, which is actually Microsoft’s only product that seems like a traditional laptop. Just like the Surface Pro 6, it has been updated with the latest 8th Gen Intel CPUs and these quad core babies apparently make this new iteration 85% faster than the original Surface Laptop.
Surface Studio 2
My favourite Surface product also got a refresh and it is now called the Surface Studio 2. As you know the Surface Studio stunned us back then with its cool hinge, huge multi touch display but was limited by its dated hardware.
Well know, they have retained the same design aesthetic but they have updated the components to feature Intel 7th Gen CPUs (Core i7-7820HQ) and a choice of either an NVIDIA GTX 1060 or a 1070 (sweet). Microsoft also says that the display is now 38% brighter with 22% more contrast and now the digitizer has 4096 levels of pressure for more precise drawing and sketching.
It’s kinda sad they are still behind in terms of offering the latest CPUs (I mean they just updated 2 of their Surface products with these CPUs) and since this is a desktop, an NVIDIA GTX 1080 would have been swell as an option.
Now the surprise…
Microsoft surprised everyone yesterday by announcing a new product in their Surface lineup: The Surface Headphones. No one expected it and we didn’t see any leaks (not a fan of leaks nowadays).
They look like regular headphones, except for the weird bend at the end of the frame and the earcups look like the Sony headphones. They are noise cancellation headphones which is great and it is a new contender for people looking for these kind of headphones
They feature dual huge 40mm beamforming mics on each cup, 8 microphones in total and you adjust your noise cancellation levels (13 in total) and volume levels with on-ear dials.
They are compatible with Windows 10 devices (requires Windows 10 Spring Creators Update and later), Android, iOS and MacOS so they have not been locked to a certain ecosystem. It also has Cortana (obviously) and you can use it to take calls with seamlessly
Microsoft says that they can offer you upto 15 hours of battery life when they are connected via Bluetooth with active noise cancellation on, which is not class leading (Bose QC35 and Sony WH-1000XM3 have better battery life). However this is a first gen product and it has the potential to be better.
These headphones will cost $350 which is directly in competition with the other popular noise cancellation headphones, the Bose QC 35 and the Sony WH-1000XM3 but they are not currently available for sell, Microsoft says they are coming ‘soon’
