Everything Microsoft announced at its October Surface event

(Image credit: Microsoft)

published 2 October 2019

Microsoft had an awful lot to talk about at its Surface event on October 2, starting with the Surface Laptop 3, before moving on to the Surface Pro 7, Surface Earbuds, Surface Pro X, Surface Neo, and Surface Duo – the latter of which is the most important. Missed the announcements? Here's everything you need to know, including what they do, when they're set to launch and how much they will cost.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 3

Available in two sizes when it launches on October 22, the Surface Laptop 3 is a portable workhorse with a trackpad that's a whopping 20% larger than that of the Surface Laptop 2. The reason for the increase? To allow for more room for gesture-based navigation, thus eliminating the need to lug around a Surface Mouse. It's also added Fast Charging that can deliver up to 80% of charge in under an hour. Nice.

Plus, Microsoft has bundled a quad-core 10th generation Intel Ice Lake processor under the hood that's twice as fast as the previous version of the Surface Laptop, and three times snappier than the MacBook Air. But that's not all. The company teamed up with AMD to develop a special AMD Ryzen Surface Edition GPU that's supposedly the fastest in its class and adopted a modular design for easy servicing.

Pricing will start at $900 for the 13-inch model and $1199 for the 15-inch.

Microsoft Surface Pro 7

The strangest of all the announcements, Microsoft revealed that it's improved its 2-in-1 Surface Pro 7, but didn't dive too deep into how. All we know is that it's introduced a host of new Studio microphones that have been optimized to detect voice commands even in the busiest of environments and that it's introduced at least one USB-C slot. It will launch alongside a host of new Surface Type Covers.

The Surface Pro 7 will be available from October 22 for $750.

Microsoft Surface Earbuds

Surprise, surprise – another set of wireless earbuds. But these aren't your average AirPods clone. Instead, Microsoft's Surface Earbuds are aimed at the business sector. Their calling card? Microsoft Office integration, which can be called upon to dictate and translate text in Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft Word.

Being earphones, they are of course decked out with a slew of useful features for listening to music and chatting on the move, including dual-array microphones with background noise reduction and a sizable touch-based surface on each earbud that can be used to control playback with the swipe of a finger. Pretty neat, if you ask us.

The Surface Earbuds will cost $249 when they go on sale “later this year.”

Microsoft Surface Pro X

The brand new Microsoft Pro X is the firm's take on a 2-in-1 that sits at the absolute top of the market. So it's thin, light, and ultra-fast. We're looking at a 13-inch screen, with an iPad Pro-style minimal bezel running around the sides, a custom Microsoft SQ1 CPU driving it and an AI Engine to boot – though it's unclear what exactly it does.

In addition, the Surface Pro X features Fast Charging (on par with the Surface Laptop 3), LTE Advanced and a removable hard drive. Microsoft also notes that the laptop is so fast that it boots up within a matter of milliseconds of lifting the lid even a fraction of an inch. It'll come with a new, much more responsive Surface Slim Pen.

The Surface Pro X will be available in early November, starting at $999.

Microsoft Surface Neo and Surface Neo Duo

Microsoft also announced two dual-screen devices that are set to launch in 2020. We're looking at the Surface Neo, a dual-screen tablet, and the Surface Neo, a dual-screen smartphone. It's important to note these devices do not feature foldable screens like the Samsung Galaxy Fold; they comprise of two individual panels.

Here's a summary of what each of them bring to the table:

Surface Neo

A dual-screen device that combines a laptop with a tablet.
There's a built-in keyboard that folds out from the back for laptop-like typing.
You can magnetically attach a Surface Pen to the rear to charge it.
It's powered by a custom Intel Lakefield CPU.
It will ship running Windows 10 X, which is built for dual-screens.

Surface Neo Duo

A dual-screen device that combines a tablet with a smartphone.
Ships running a modified build of Android, developed in partnership with Google.
Similar to the Galaxy Fold in function, just without the folding screen.
There's no screen on the front when it's closed – it has to be unfurled to be used.

Having spent half a decade writing about the latest news for some of the world’s largest publications, Josh is one of the most recognised reporters in the space. Nowadays, in addition to covering the odd news article, he spends most of his time keeping T3's long-form consumer content up to date, while also researching and reporting on the best deals to help you save some serious scratch.