Microsoft's Surface Event: Here are all the announcements

Microsoft announced a range of new hardware at its event

With the Windows 11 launch just a few weeks away, Microsoft held an event to announce all new first party hardware that is designed to run on the next iteration of the Windows operating system. Here are all the big announcements from Microsoft's Surface Event.

Surface Pro 8

The new Surface Pro has a 13-inch PixelSense touch screen with a refresh rate of up to 120Hz. With new internals courtesy of Intel's 11th Generation processors and up to 32GB of RAM.

Importantly it also comes with two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports and has a Surface Connect Port for charging. It can even connect to multiple external displays and supports external GPUs.

Microsoft also showed off an all new stylus called the Slim Pen 2 which rests and charges within a cut-out in the Signature Keyboard. It has haptic motors built in that simulate the feeling of using an actual pen on paper and Windows 11 includes features that take advantage of the pen.

Surface Pro X

Microsoft's ARM processor based 2-in-1 did not receive any hardware revisions but the company introduced a new WiFi only model that shaves the starting price by $100.

Surface Go 3

The smallest 2-in-1 in Microsoft's hardware portfolio got a hardware bump. It features a faster Pentium Gold 6500Y processor for the base models and up to 10th Generation Intel Core i3's for the more expensive variants. Microsoft says that this makes the Go sixty percent faster than before.

Surface Duo 2

The original Surface Duo was a neat concept that needed a little more time in the oven to get its small annoyances ironed out. The Surface Duo 2, so far, looks like the device that Microsoft had originally wanted to make.

It's design is similar to the first generation but slightly thinner and now packing some serious hardware under the hood to power its dual 5.8-inch AMOLED PixelSense displays. Addressing on of the big complaints of the first generation Duo, Microsoft has now used Qualcomm's Snapdragon 888 SoC to run the device with 8GB of RAM.

The Duo 2 runs Android 11 out of the box with a custom Microsoft Launcher overlay. The cameras have been significantly improved with a new three camera array that houses a 12-megapixel wide, 12-megapixel telephoto and a 16-megapixel ultrawide. The front facing camera is also 12-megapixel.

The battery also gets an upgrade to 4,449 mAh and the Duo 2 comes in three storage options - 128GB, 256GB and 512GB. It also supports Microsoft's Slim Pen and has a specialised cover to charge and hold the pen in place on the device. The new updates finally make the Duo 2 a device worth checking out.

Surface Laptop Studio

Possibly the most interesting announcement at the event, the Surface Laptop Studio rests somewhere between a 2-in-1 and a laptop. It doesn't have a detachable screen but it can be pulled over the keyboard just above the trackpad for a more immersive entertainment experience. It can also be completely laid flush over the keyboard surface converting it into a tablet.

That's where the flexibility ends though and unlike other convertibles we have seen, it doesn't have the legs to swivel and contort into new positions. The Laptop Studio is a strange middle ground between a laptop and a convertible.

Microsoft hasn't skimped on hardware when it comes to Studio. It has a 14.4-inch PixelSense display with a 120Hz refresh rate, has options to choose between Intel's 11th Gen Core i5 and i7 processors, ships with Nvidia's RTX 3050Ti GPU for i7 variants, up to 32GB of RAM and can be configured for up to 2TB of internal storage.

It also has four Omnisonic speakers certified Dolby Atmos, comes with two Thunderbolt 4 ports and has an AI-powered camera for video calls.