Microsoft is holding its education-focused #MicrosoftEDU event in New York on Tuesday. While we have been expecting Redmond to take the wraps off their new and upgraded Surface lineup, but we might just get the taste of something new. Microsoft’s hardware lineup is being appended with the addition of something called just the ‘Surface Laptop.’
Yes, the leaksters have already kicked off the party — which is a bit early and taken the wraps off the company’s educational hardware device. Twitter user WalkingCat, well known for Microsoft-related leaks (supported by Evan Blass a.k.a @evleaks), has shared several images of the device on their profiles on the micro-blogging platform. And from the looks of it, this will be the much-awaited Chrome OS competitor from Microsoft.
We currently do not know much about the Surface laptop, but these leaks do carry some information. With regards to the same, this Microsoft laptop will sport a 13.5-inch PixelSense display. It is expected to include 3.4 million pixels, which could mean that Surface laptop packs a 1080p display. It will be packed within a sleek body with a thickness of 14.47 mm at the back and 9.9 mm at the front.
In addition, the Surface laptop reportedly weighs only 2.76 pounds and include features from its existing devices — Surface Pro and Surface Book. The device includes an alcantara keyboard, the same premium fabric used on the former and the display seems to be similar to the latter. It is expected to be released in four color variants namely, Platinum, Burgundy, Cobalt, Blue and Graphite Gold.
Surface Laptop: 360 view pic.twitter.com/b5ENVcCIzI
— WalkingCat (@h0x0d) May 2, 2017
The 360-degree view of the Surface laptop shows that there could be a dearth of ports on this new device. Here, you can witness the laptop will include a traditional USB port, mini DisplayPort, and a headphone jack on one side and the conventional Surface Dock connector on the other. Microsoft still seems wary of adopting the USB Type-C port of the Surface laptop, but the decision to include traditional ports could be due to educational purposes of the device.
Keeping all the hardware specifications aside, the highlight of the Surface laptop will have to be its new software. We have direly been waiting for Microsoft to release a trimmed-down, but optimized version of its Windows 10 operating system — codenamed Windows 10 Cloud. But, the leaks suggest that Microsoft’s Chrome OS competitor (or alternative) will probably be called Windows 10 S.
With Microsoft’s growing focus on cloud infrastructure, this iteration of the Windows 10 operating system will be a cloud-optimized version that runs only apps from the Windows Store. You won’t be able to access Win32 apps on this device, until and unless they’ve been converted into UWP apps — a move being made by Redmond as well. It is converting Edge browser into a UWP app that would be updated separately from the major Windows 10 bi-annual updates.There is currently no info on the pricing of
There is currently no info on the pricing details of this new hardware device, but the Surface brand is synonymous to being premium. This means it will be part of Microsoft’s high-end hardware efforts, so the Surface laptop could be priced quite heavily — which should be taken with a grain of salt. This being an education-focused product, could be priced effectively. We won’t have to wait much longer to know the exact details of this device and the new Windows 10 S operating system.
