Microsoft expected to launch Surface Pro 5 in early 2017

[William Gayde]

Microsoft's Surface Pro 2-in-1 tablet has long been in need of a refresh. The last generation Surface Pro 4 was released back in October 2015 and much has changed since then. A report from DigiTimes citing China's Economic Daily News tells us that Microsoft is planning to launch the new Surface Pro 5 in the first quarter of 2017. The leak stems from loose lipped manufacturers and nothing has been confirmed by Microsoft, but the information seems credible.

The report highlights manufacturers involved with producing the Pro 5. Microsoft has chosen Pegatron Technology to build the device; the same company in charge of producing the Surface Studio line of PCs. The Surface Pro 5 will likely feature a 4K Ultra HD display, USB type C, and Thunderbolt 3. In the processor department, it's not clear if Microsoft will go with Intel's Kaby Lake line of processors or perhaps a Qualcomm one. Also mentioned are new plans for the magnetic stylus that would recharge automatically when docked to the side of the Surface, instead of using a removable AAAA battery.

All in all, Surface hardware has proven to be a very successful venture for Microsoft. The Surface Book recently got a refresh receiving a faster Intel Core i7 processor and GTX 965M GPU. With the addition of the Surface Studio desktop, it looks like Microsoft is heavily focused on content creators and others who would have traditionally gone with an Apple device.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/67605-microsoft-expected-launch-surface-pro-5-early-2017.html

 

[Kibaruk]

I hate the huge resolution screen on such a small device (Surface 4 Pro), they work around the high resolution by using scaling of items, which works like hell with multiple screens. If you undock it while connected to a secondary screen it will make either things in the surface look minuscule or when docked back things in the other screen huge. So I avoid undocking it while working but it's not a real solution and I have to move pretty regularly, the only way to make it work again is closing the session which sucks big time.

 

[Teko03]

I highly doubt their will be a 4K Screen or a Qualcomm processor. Neither makes any sense in the Surface Pro line.

 

[Kibaruk]

I highly doubt their will be a 4K Screen or a Qualcomm processor. Neither makes any sense in the Surface Pro line.

You do know the S4Pro has an almost 3000x2000 resolution? Pushing it a bit further -specially with all the additions to the mobile sector in 4K- doesn't sound improbable.

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

Microsoft, can we get a proper "dock" this time around? Or at least, the option of the dock or the "hub", which is really what the SP4 dock is.

Finally why do we have such high resolutions displays on tablets? This is crazy... GUI scaling in Windows still is not good enough so I always end up dropping the resolution down to at least 1920x1200.

 

[Kibaruk]

Microsoft, can we get a proper "dock" this time around? Or at least, the option of the dock or the "hub", which is really what the SP4 dock is.

I'm not getting this, what's wrong with the SP4 dock? Besides of course not having it's own HDMI and needing to have the screen adapter anyhow... bull....

Finally why do we have such high resolutions displays on tablets? This is crazy... GUI scaling in Windows still is not good enough so I always end up dropping the resolution down to at least 1920x1200.

Sadly due to the odd ratio in this one, it sucks and even on custom "perfect" reduction, it still looks like badly cropped crap =/

 

[mbrowne5061]

The Qualcom CPU makes no sense. That won't happen.

Every piece of 'creator' software from Adobe, Autodesk, and the rest, has been built to run on the x86 architecture. They aren't going to switch it over to anything else just to save a buck or a watt. The only thing ARM CPUs make sense for is either 'consumption' or being purpose-designed for a single low-power job.

 

[petert]

Microsoft, can we get a proper "dock" this time around? Or at least, the option of the dock or the "hub", which is really what the SP4 dock is.

I'm not getting this, what's wrong with the SP4 dock? Besides of course not having it's own HDMI and needing to have the screen adapter anyhow... bull....

Finally why do we have such high resolutions displays on tablets? This is crazy... GUI scaling in Windows still is not good enough so I always end up dropping the resolution down to at least 1920x1200.

Sadly due to the odd ratio in this one, it sucks and even on custom "perfect" reduction, it still looks like badly cropped crap =/

there is a fix on Microsoft website consisting of a registry file. The fix will allow you to go for lower resolutions settings on you PC screen which have the proper 3:2 ratio and hence no "badly cropped crap" occurs. Unfortunately, even though you remove that issue, you are gonna get annoyed - the font is no longer sharp as in the native resolution - looks like a sad joke, certainly not like a premium high resolution display.

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

there is a fix on Microsoft website consisting of a registry file. The fix will allow you to go for lower resolutions settings on you PC screen which have the proper 3:2 ratio and hence no "badly cropped crap" occurs. Unfortunately, even though you remove that issue, you are gonna get annoyed - the font is no longer sharp as in the native resolution - looks like a sad joke, certainly not like a premium high resolution display.

Yeah it certainly isn't as crisp as native resolution, but not all the software I use is Microsoft's new metro UI. I still use plenty of legacy apps so the high resolution makes things nearly unreadable. I wish they had an option for a lower resolution display for the tablets... or that Windows UI scaling actually worked as you would like it to.

 

[Kibaruk]

you are gonna get annoyed - the font is no longer sharp as in the native resolution - looks like a sad joke, certainly not like a premium high resolution display.

Reason why I said bad crop, not only because the black pixel line but also because of that, one would think that with more pixels per letter it would be the other way around.

 

[gazmatic]

The Qualcom CPU makes no sense. That won't happen.

Every piece of 'creator' software from Adobe, Autodesk, and the rest, has been built to run on the x86 architecture. They aren't going to switch it over to anything else just to save a buck or a watt. The only thing ARM CPUs make sense for is either 'consumption' or being purpose-designed for a single low-power job.

have you been living under a rock? microsoft is bringing x86 applications to arm. ****... they just demonstrated it on a snapdragon 820

 

[mbrowne5061]

have you been living under a rock? microsoft is bringing x86 applications to arm. ****... they just demonstrated it on a snapdragon 820

Just because you can run x86 on ARM doesn't mean you want to run any kind of computationally intensive task on ARM - from a capability, efficiency, or accuracy standpoint. I'm never going to trust a vibrational analyses of even a small/simple mechanical part if it was done on a ARM CPU. Same goes for things like Photoshop image manipulation or mathematic simulations.

Running x86 on ARM, and visa versa is all well and good for the simple applications - consumption - but when you are actually creating something, I'm going to stick to the architecture the instructions and machine code in the various 'creator' applications were originally created for. Right now, that is the x86 architecture.

 

[Kibaruk]

If you are planning on doing photoshop manipulation or complex "mathematics simulations" (aka computing...) you are not probably going to get a Surface anyhow, your whole point is irrelevant. And why not, have the Surface 5 in ARM and the Pro in the Core I range?

If it's for the average consumer (95%+ of users) an ARM device will suffice, hell, nowadays most of them just use their ipads and smartphones for that purpose.

 

[mbrowne5061]

If you are planning on doing photoshop manipulation or complex "mathematics simulations" (aka computing...) you are not probably going to get a Surface anyhow, your whole point is irrelevant. And why not, have the Surface 5 in ARM and the Pro in the Core I range?

If it's for the average consumer (95%+ of users) an ARM device will suffice, hell, nowadays most of them just use their ipads and smartphones for that purpose.

I have used photoshop on a Surface Pro 4. I've also done a Monte Carlo simulation on a Surface using Matlab and using R.

I've used Photoshop, Matlab, and Autodesk's offerings on ARM and I've used them on x86. ARM has always felt anemic and lacking capability, while their 'equivalent' versions on x86 platforms feel agile and capable.

Microsoft is targeting the 'creatives' that Apple is ignoring. So, regardless, they are going to offer the Surface Pro 5 with x86 CPU, because a Surface with an ARM CPU will be about as successful as the Surface RT was (not very, and even less so as time passed).