PPS: related to your imaging point above, I was actually present at some joint MS and Qualcomm presentations where they touted the fact that you couldn’t image systems as a positive security oriented feature.
In other words, rogue users or bad actors couldn’t bypass what a company mandated as far as OS and apps.
They gave up on that line fairly quickly though, as I saw multiple CIOs all but laugh in their face when they made that assertion.
I stand by my misperception - why does WOA even exist?
I admit I am prejudiced as h*ll on this one because of being somewhat of an Apple fanboy these days - Continuity, Messages, FaceTime, Music, Apple TV, News+, just to mention a few, have me hooked. But IF MS replaced the Go with an 11" SPX form factor WOA device with 16gb, 1tb, and 5g at 2 pounds with keyboard and slim pen - then I would move my unicorn quest back to Windows, because MS still has Apple BEAT HANDS DOWN on windowing and productivity apps.
You sort of answered your own question by citing Apple. Done right, the same types of advances should be possible for WOA too. They certainly show that potential on the handful of Linux based ARM builds out there.
I do think that one of the large realities though is the challenge of an open eco system versus closed. In other words, Apple can, and does issue the marching orders to move the platform.
Whereas MS is just one of many voices.
It also doesn’t help that the overall Windows market is still orders of magnitude larger than the Mac. eg. it’s a real challenge to make the elephant dance.
I still use my Pro X daily. And I honestly lean more towards the side of this these days. I’m probably beating a dead horse about this lately because all of these complaints are things I’ve already expressed, but to paraphrase myself, if they truly merge the 9 and the X into a similar chassis then I don’t fully understand the reason for the ARM version to exist.
Microsoft isn’t fully committed, with some Office apps and other Microsoft software still running in full emulation. Third-party developers are even less committed, there’s been so little progress on this. There’s probably less than 100 ARM-native programs out there besides the UWP junk in the Store. And then there’s all the potential outliers with drivers. Lots of things do ‘just work’ but even stuff like my Dell 4k webcam can’t be configured on ARM. And if you need to run so much in emulation, then why bother putting up with the limitations?
One hell of a question.
Question for those of you with better insight: will this merger of the Surface Pro 8 and Surface Pro X line just force users to buy the “new” WOA Surface Pro 9 to get 5g connectivity?
Yes, I am looking again at Jekyll (W for work) and Hyde (A for artsy) life, with no effort to cross the streams…
So, I should hold off buying my new 11" ProX9-5G for awhile to get the Strauss discount?
Nope. Only one dstraussing discount per customer. I’m looking at old school SP8 LTE on the cheap to stretch during my remaining business years.
Could these specs of the WOA Surface Pro 9 processor be true:
https://www.techgoing.com/microsoft-surface-pro-9-will-soon-debut-equipped-with-snapdragon-8cx-gen3/
Latest we’ve heard in the rumor chain is that there will be 5G in both models, though only the ARM version at launch with the intel versions getting it early 2023.
FWIW the problem remains RFI issues between 11th gen or later core I and the current 5G (qualcomm only at the moment). A new more Intel friendly 5g chipset is due q1 2023)
The HP firefly which is the only shipping system with both core I and 5g gimps the 5g especially in midband and faster
yup. the 3rd gen 8cx on paper /benchmarks looks to be a fast chip
So like usual, x86 cellular lags 3-6 months behind non-cellular… 
QUALCOMM prioritizes their SOC designs first over standalone modules. One of Apple’s biggest issues with them too
So will the Pro 9 5G be an 11" tablet?
but the Firefly is shipping right now BTW
rumor is both a ~10 -11 inch and a 13 are in the works though the 11 might lag a bit
one last thing, there is likely going to be a higher premium for 5G versus LTE, again the blame lies with QUALCOMM. We hear about$150 more than the LTE versions of the current Pro 8
And one wonders WHY Qualcomm is crying so loudly at ARM’s lawsuit over the fact QC can’t just “buy” the Nuvii license by acquisition - hurt much QC? Getting a dose of your own medicine QC…
I have some access to rumors, and what I’ve heard…
No 11-inch device on the horizon, but 13 inch Pro 9 with either Intel or WOA.
LTE will only be on the WOA Pro 9, however they are retaining the LTE Pro 8"s for those who want Intel with LTE. This would suggest to me that the Pro 9 Intel is just a 12th gen spec refresh of the Pro 8.
Oddly enough they are also still going to keep the Pro 7+ alive as some sort of Legacy option for older Pro users who want to continue using their yellow stained keyboard covers.
‘Fast’ is relative of course (though I’m not a fan of Geekbench in general).
In Geekbench 5, the ThinkPad x13s scores behind the MacBook Air M1. The ThinkPad X13s netted 1,118 single-core and 5,776 multi-core results. That’s put up against the MacBook Air M1, which got 1,727 single-core and 7,585 multi-core results.
(M2 is even faster at 1900/8800.) MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2022) Benchmarks - Geekbench
Of course, that 8cx Gen 3 score admittedly is double the speed of the Pro X though.
That Geekbench score might look bad against the MacBook, but there are huge differences between Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx generations. The Samsung Galaxy Book Go 5G with the 8cx Gen 2 got a 796 single-core score and a 3,105 multi-core score. It even kills the original Surface Pro X, which scores 618 single-core and 2,593 multi-core.