Both the 13.5-inch and 15-inch Surface Laptop 4 models could be available with an Intel or AMD processor.
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Microsoft Surface Laptop 3
Image: Sarah Tew/CNET
Microsoft may be ready to kick off its new Surface Laptop 4 this month with a beefier battery and more processor options than its predecessor. On April 7, Twitter account @WalkingCat posted two tweets pointing to placeholder pages on Microsoft’s website for a Surface Laptop 4—one powered by an Intel CPU and the other outfitted with an AMD chip. Though both pages have since been taken down, they reportedly were created to provide driver and firmware information for the next-generation Surface Laptop, according to ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley.
In another tweet, @WalkingCat, which the U.K.’s Express called “a very reliable source of unannounced products from Microsoft and others,” posed the question of whether Microsoft might unveil the new Surface sometime this week. However, German tech news site WinFuture and writer Roland Quandt have dangled April 27 as the date on which Microsoft will launch the new Surface Laptop 4, either through a press release or a launch event. For the Surface Book 3, the company chose the press release route, leading Notebook Check to speculate that the same will hold true this year.
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Whenever the Surface Book 4 is announced and released, the specs will be similar to those of the previous model, but with a few interesting changes—at least based on leaked details.
The Surface Laptop 3 shipped with an Intel processor for the 13.5-inch model and an AMD chip for the 15-inch model. This year’s edition will reportedly offer both models with either chip, specifically an Intel Tiger Lake 11th generation Core i5-1145G7 or i7-1185G7 processor, or an AMD Ryzen Renoir “Surface Edition” 5 4680U or 7 4980U processor, according to Quandt. The Surface Laptop 4 will boast a larger battery and more powerful CPU than its predecessor, but those are about the only major changes, Quandt said.
The systems will offer 8 or 16 GB of memory and a 128, 256 or 512 GB SSD for storage. However, the Intel-based variant will also kick in an option of 32 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage. Quandt added that the SSD should be simple to replace, but the memory will be trickier if an owner needs to swap it out.
With the AMD Ryzen 5 option, the 13.5-inch model will start at 1,149 euros (around $1,370), while the 15-inch edition will start at 1,499 euros (around $1,786), according to Quandt’s information. On the Intel side, the 13.5-inch variant will start at 1,499 euros and the 15-inch model will start at 1,999 euros (around $2,380).
Rumors have also popped up that Microsoft may launch new Surface headphones and possibly even a long-awaited Microsoft-branded webcam for the spring season, Mary Jo Foley said. Whatever is in store, Microsoft is mum for now. Company officials aren’t commenting on what’s next for Surface, according to Foley.
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