Tech giant Microsoft showcased its latest line of products at its annual Surface event in New York where the company announced new laptops, hybrids and also more gizmos to add to its line-up.
The new hardware brings to the game a new colour scheme, which really isn’t more than Microsoft exploring the ‘darker’ side of the spectrum.
Since there’s lots to talk about Microsoft’s gadgets, here’s a look at the top five announcements made at Microsoft’s gala event.
Surface Pro 6
Microsoft’s flagship hybrid is bound to attract a new breed of customers with its new colour scheme and improved hardware. The company says that the hardware inside has undergone a major upgrade so one can expect a considerable increase in performance (almost 67 percent more than the previous model).
The new Surface Pro will be available starting 16 October and has been launched at $899 with an Intel Core i5 processor.
The company is claiming an improved battery performance with almost 13.5 hours of usage. Despite the altered design, the 12.3-inch Surface Pro 6 still weighs 1.7 pounds (0.77 kgs) and comes with up to 16GB of RAM inside. It’s disappointing that it still has no USB-C ports.
Microsoft says the Surface Pro 6 will be available on October 16th.
Surface Laptop 2
The Surface Laptop 2 in all its glory redefines Microsoft’s philosophy of bringing forth a worthy challenger to the Apple Macbook and the Chromebook series from Google.
The Surface Laptop 2 now comes with an 8th Gen processor, more RAM and also sports a much sleeker form factor. The company has priced this gizmo starting at $999 (roughly Rs 72,852) and it will be available later this month.
Microsoft says that the new hardware (mainly the new Intel processor) makes the Surface Laptop 85 percent faster than its predecessor. There aren’t much details available on the hardware, but we’ll keep you updated as soon as the specs sheet is up.
Surface Headphones
Finally! Microsoft has embarked upon the audio hardware journey with its new Surface Headphone. The headphones come with Microsoft’s voice assistant Cortana built into the device.
In terms of ergonomics, the controls for the volume and shuffling music are placed on the cups itself. It also supports noise-cancellation.
The Surface Headphones comes with an automatic pause and play feature that pauses the audio when the headphones are removed from the ears. It hardly weighs 300 grams and houses a battery that can easily supply you uninterrupted music for up to15 hours.
The market price for the headphones has been set at $349 (roughly Rs 25,450), although the company hasn’t made it official when it will be available in the market.
Surface Studio 2
Microsoft also updated its creative-focused device dubbed Surface Studio 2. Its last iteration was seen back in 2016 and hasn’t seen a upgrade since then.
A big 28-inch display is the highlight of the Studio 2, which comes with 50 percent improved graphic performance. The overall look and feel of the device remains similar to what was offered before along with the hinge that converts the screen between upright and flat positions.
The Surface Studio comes built in with Xbox Wireless and will also be compatible with the Surface Dial that was introduced last year.
Surface Studio 2 pre-orders have begun at $3,499 (roughly Rs 2,55,164), and ships on October 16th.
App Mirroring
Perhaps the biggest announcement in terms of cross platform compatibility, Microsoft has announced that it is offering App Mirroring to bridge the gap between its PCs and mobile OS.
This move is a way forward for Microsoft after the company shut down its own mobile division.
The new feature lets users cast their Android screen onto a Windows 10 device. With this, a user can select an app from a smartphone to use on a Windows 10 desktop. You can also pair it and browse file types to drag and drop into the PC. Something similar to Apple’s Airdrop feature.
The company says this feature will be rolled out for both Android and iOS and will be available with the October 10 update of Windows 10.
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