Microsoft’s Surface Pro 8 is still reportedly in the works, now tipped for a fall release
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Unlike most other hardware manufacturers, Microsoft doesn't always follow a clear and predictable release schedule for its popular Surface products, sometimes taking more than a year between generations and occasionally throwing a curveball that makes it even harder to anticipate the upgrade plans of the Redmond-based tech giant.
The business-focused Surface Pro 7+, for instance, caught everyone by surprise last month (including some of the industry's most reliable insiders), going official in lieu of an oft-rumored Surface Pro 8 that many betting men would have expected to come out as early as last fall.
After taking a little bit of time to regroup, "sources familiar with the development" of Microsoft's next products are once again confident the Surface Pro 8 is still a thing, now "set to launch in the fall." That's the encouraging part of the latest report published by, well, Windows Latest, but the bad news is the Surface Pro 7 Plus will probably never make its way into the hands of "regular" consumers.
If all of that proves accurate, Microsoft's non-enterprise customers in the market for a new 2-in-1 Windows tablet will need to settle for the non-Plus Surface Pro 7 variant for anywhere between the next seven to nine months. Normally priced at $750 and up, the "ultra-light and versatile" 12.3-inch slate was originally released way back in October 2019, which means its proper sequel could arrive roughly a year "late" and two whole years after its commercial debut.
As you can imagine, there's not a great deal of information etched in stone about a belated and highly anticipated Surface Pro 8 that's still a pretty long way off. After two years, however, Surface Pro 7 users will undoubtedly expect a significant design revision and some major internal enhancements
Because Microsoft probably doesn't want to fix what ain't broke, the Surface Pro 8 is tipped to offer "noticeable improvements" both under the hood and... on the surface while not changing its predecessor's design "completely." Considerably thinner screen bezels seem pretty much guaranteed, as are upgrades to a maximum of 32GB RAM and quad-core Intel processing power of the latest generation.
Everything else is unfortunately under wraps right now, and knowing how good Microsoft can be at keeping inside info like this a secret, we may have to wait a while before finding out more. Oh, well, at least we know the Surface Pro 8 is coming by the end of the year... or do we?
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