It's August and Surface Pro 4 anniversary is approaching, raising questions of an impending upgrade. Is Microsoft listening?
Intel's Kaby Lake specs found their way online last week and word has it the new offerings are about 12 percent better than Skylake processors, which power Surface Pro 4. While processor improvements are just an icing on the top, a new Surface, as rumors suggest, will bring several other goodies including more RAM, better display (possibly 4K) and better battery life.
Microsoft however has not breathed a word, leaving to speculation Surface Pro 5 release date and specifications. Given that Surface Pro 4 is going strong, constituting a bulk of two-odd million Surface Pro units sold every quarter Microsoft seems to be in no hurry to launch Surface Pro 5.
However, leaks of Intel Kaby Lake specifications come with an ominous threat for the Redmond giant. It has to act this year or risk losing to others. The leaks suggest that over a hundred hybrid devices with Intel's latest could launch by the end of the year. Asus announced its Transformer Tablet 3 with Kaby Lake way back in May.
Early adoption of a new technology is fraught with risks, as Microsoft understood when it released Surface Pro 4 with Skylakle. Unexplained battery drain and heating were then attributed to 'lack of understanding' to software incompatibility with new hardware. Fixes were released earlier this year and the Surface Pro 4 soon regained lost glory.
As for the leaks, they suggest Kaby Lake features Gen 9 graphics and support for HDMI 2. The new platform will debut with processors for ultrathin laptops and hybrid devices with power consumption ranging from 4.5 w to 15 w.
A new Surface Pro 5 this year looks unlikely but an upgrade next would mean losing out to the market when Intel hits the store with its revamped 10 nm Canonlake processors, a major upgrade over the 14 nm Skylake and Kaby Lake processors.
