Microsoft Surface Laptop 4: what we want to see

The Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 may have been a no-show in 2020, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t coming. As the company's flagship device, Surface laptops have long been a showcase for Microsoft's best tech, and we doubt it will pass on the opportunity to continue the trend. Besides, given that Microsoft's steady stream of Surface devices in recent years have been both commercially and critically successful, there's little reason to doubt that it'll want to keep the ball rolling on its poster child products (even if only to keep up with Apple...).

Granted, it’s been more than a year since the release of Surface Laptop 3 in October 2019. However, it’s not unusual for manufacturers to skip a year, especially if they don’t have significant updates to justify a worthy successor. In fact, a device that could very well be the Surface Laptop 4 has been spotted recently passing through Bluetooth certification, which could be a sign that it’ll hit the streets soon, hopefully inheriting its predecessor’s impressive battery life and design.

While nothing is official yet, rumors and leaks are starting to pop up all over the tech-sphere, so it’s time for us to gather everything in one spot. Here’s all the information we know about the Surface Laptop 4 so far. Be sure to bookmark this page, as we’ll update it as soon as new details reach our desks.

Cut to the chase

• What is it? Microsoft's next flagship laptop
• When is it out? Hopefully by October 2021
• How much will it cost? Possibly around $1,199/£1,199/AU$1,999

Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 release date and price

We don't have an official Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 release date yet, but considering Microsoft's previous Surface Laptop releases, October 2021 seems a good bet.

The Surface Laptop 3 launch saw Microsoft host an announcement event early in October, where it showed off the new device, followed by the general sale of the Surface Laptop 3 later in the month. While we had anticipated its successor's arrival in October 2020, it now seems likely that Microsoft opted to skip a year, and so we expect to see the Surface Laptop 4 arrive around the same date, via the same format, but a year later.

As for its price, again, we don't have any concrete details. However, we'd like to see Microsoft launch the Surface Laptop 4 at around the same price as the Surface Laptop 3.

This means a base configuration for a 15-inch Surface Laptop 4 of around $1,199/£1,199/AU$1,999. It's likely Microsoft will once again offer a range of configurations for the Surface Laptop 4, with a high-end model costing around $2,099/£2,049/AU$3,449.

We also expect Microsoft to also offer a slightly smaller, more affordable 13.5-inch Surface Laptop 4.

Again, we hope Microsoft sticks closely to the 13.5-inch Surface Laptop 3's launch price, which was $999/£999/AU$1,699 for the base model.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 leaks and news

We've seen a few rumors emerge about the Surface Laptop 4. A benchmark appeared earlier in 2020 that suggested the Surface Laptop 4 would come with a choice of either new AMD Ryzen 4000 processors, or the upcoming Intel Tiger Lake-U CPUs.

A later benchmark then appeared which apparently showed a Surface Laptop 4 running Windows 10 May 2020 Update, powered by the AMD Ryzen 5 4500U processor. This is based on AMD’s Zen 2 technology, and is a six-core processor with a 2.3GHz and a boost clock of 4GHz.

Most recently, we reported on a listing that suggested the Surface Laptop 4 – codenamed ‘Renior’ – will indeed come with an AMD Ryzen 5 processor, marking another major win for the CPU maker (and further headaches for Intel) as it continues its partnership with Microsoft following the introduction of its tech in the Surface Laptop 3.

The same listing indicates that the base variant of the upcoming device will come equipped with 8GB of DDR4 RAM, though this remains unconfirmed. 

While these are still only rumors, we think it's safe to assume that Microsoft will offer the Surface Laptop 4 with a choice of Intel or AMD processors, as it did with the Surface Laptop 3.

What we want to see from the Microsoft Surface Laptop 4

We liked the Surface Laptop 3 a lot, but there are plenty of ways Microsoft could improve the device when it launches its sequel.

So, here's what we want to see from the Microsoft Surface Laptop 4.

1. Longer battery life

Battery life is one of the biggest concerns for people when looking for a new laptop, so we'd like to see Microsoft offer best-in-class battery performance with the Surface Laptop 4.

The good news is that it was already offering pretty excellent battery life with the Surface Laptop 3 – it scored over 10 hours in our battery life benchmark.

With the Surface Laptop 4 hopefully taking advantage of Intel and AMD's more power-efficient mobile processors (as rumors indicate), we'd like to see the Surface Laptop 4 last even longer without needing to be plugged in.

2. A bit of a redesign

Don't get us wrong, we liked the look of the Surface Laptop 3. Microsoft has shown it can produce attractive flagship devices, but we'd still love it if it changed things up a little bit with the Surface Laptop 4.

The company has experimented with using uncommon materials you wouldn't usually find in a laptop's design (such as fabric) and it'd be great to see a return of that radical design ethos.

(Image credit: Future)

3. More ports, please

With news that the next MacBook Pro models could regain HDMI ports and SD readers in 2021, it would be great to see Microsoft follow suit and add a few more ports to its latest Surface devices. 

With just a single USB 3.0 and one USB-C port (alongside a headphone/mic jack), the Surface Laptop 3 was seriously lacking in that department, so we await with bated breath to see whether its successor can lay down a multi-port marker. It would certainly make the device a more attractive purchase for professionals and creatives

4. More power, obviously

We'd love to see a Surface Laptop 4 with cutting-edge tech that allows it to rival the MacBook Pro. Its predecessor felt too under-powered considering the price.

The Surface Laptop 3 also only came with integrated graphics. It would be great to see a version of the Surface Laptop 4 with a dedicated GPU. Not only so that we can play the odd game on it, but also to help with creative workloads like photo and video editing.

• These are the best laptops of 2020

from TechRadar - All the latest technology news https://ift.tt/3sN2t3q