After the huge success of the Surface Pro 4 following its launch in October last year, the Redmondian company is said to be in the thick of development of the Microsoft Surface Pro 5.
Rumors have it that the Microsoft Surface Pro 5 shall have exhilarating features to make it a cut above the rest in the increasingly competitive hybrid laptop-tablet market although the American tech company has yet to confirm any of the speculations about the device.
One of the most prominent rumored features of the Surface Pro 5 is that the device shall come out in two display variants – a 4K resolution ultra-high definition (UHD) display and a 2K resolution screen. In addition, the device shall have a better Surface Pen to go with it. These features are already improvements over its predecessor, the Surface Pro 4.
Another very interesting rumored feature of the Microsoft Surface Pro 5 is that it shall have a 16GB of RAM, which is quite generous and groundbreaking in its class, and 1TB of internal storage, with an option to further expand via a microSD card slot.
It shall also have the USB Type-C port which has become a standard in most modern gadgets today.
There are also reports saying that the device shall have Intel’s new processor under its hood called the Kaby Lake.
The combination laptop and tablet from Microsoft shall also be running on Windows 10 Professional Redstone 2, the American company’s upcoming desktop operating system, and that the device shall make it to the market in the spring of next year, details the University Herald.
Leaving no stones unturned
According to sources privy to the goings on in Microsoft, the American tech company is reportedly leaving no stones unturned in ensuring that the Microsoft Surface Pro 5 shall be better than its competitors when it comes out next year.
Microsoft is reportedly positioning the device to go up against the 2016 Apple MacBook Pro, which is rumored to be released by the American tech giant next month along with the latest iPhones.
The Redmondian company is also looking at the Apple iPad Pro as a major competitor in the segment which has certainly given its Surface Pro 4 a run for the consumer’s money when both devices hit the market in the fourth quarter of 2015.
Incidentally, the 2016 Apple MacBook Pro shall feature an Intel’s sixth generation Skylake processor under the hood, which is reported to double the efficiency of the device as well as improve the performance and battery life, details the Science World Report.
The new Apple laptop shall reportedly come out already running on the MacOS Sierra desktop operating system.
In terms of resolution, the 2016 Apple MacBook Pro shall apparently have the advantage over the upcoming Microsoft Surface Pro 5 as it shall come out with a 5K display and a superb 5120 x 2880 screen resolution.
Other excellent features
As a hybrid laptop and tablet, the Microsoft Surface Pro 5 shall also feature a 16-megapixel rear-facing camera and an 8-megapixel front camera. It shall also have a Thunderbolt 3 hardware.
The device is expected to house either an AMD or NVIDIA Pascal GPU to support its processor, which is another best-in-class feature for the device.
In terms of pricing, the Microsoft Surface Pro 5 is reported to have a retail price of $899 for its base model and can go as high as $1,599 for its high-end variant.
Comparatively, the 2016 Apple MacBook Pro is speculated to come out soon with a price tag of anywhere from $1,299 to $1,499 which make the average price of the two devices pretty even.
While Microsoft could have launched the Surface Pro 5 in October this year, marking the one-year market cycle of the Surface Pro 4, the American tech company apparently wanted to clear any issues concerning the device’s performance.