Anyone have any intel on the 2023 Surface Pro 10? Is this going to be a “change year” or another snoozer with a processor upgrade and not much else? Will WOA get Thunderbolt 4 support? Any chance for an 11" Surface Pro?
Inquiring (or is that wandering) minds want to know…
I see two possible release pathways for the Pro family for the next year.
We get a Pro 9+ refresh with 13th Gen in the next few months to coincide with the spring release of Surface Laptop Studio 2 that will also have 13th Gen. In turn, Pro 10 with 14th Gen then comes out in early 2024. The reasons are twofold. First, 14th Gen is only barely going to release in Q4 2023, and Microsoft refuses to be a day 1 beta tester for Intel since the infamous Pro 4 and Book driver conundrum. So they pick it up in Q1 2024. Second, NUVIA-based Qualcomm including SQ4 will not make it to the factory floor with sufficient lead time until just before Q1 2024.
We get a Pro 10 in late 2023 that comes with 13th Gen. SQ4 may be teased in the Pro 10 reveal but that will not be released until Q1 2024 unless Microsoft pulls some strings with Qualcomm to secure some early chip shipments.
In either scenario, I believe the only worthwhile upgrade for Pro 10 will be WOA/NUVIA-based SQ4. It is also quite possible that we do not see Pro 10 until early next year and we get a Pro 9+ stopgap. The 13th Gen teaser we saw already for the Laptop Studio and Microsoft likes to keep their product portfolio’s generationally equal, especially with the Pro family being the crown jewel of the Surface brand. This would be easy too since 13th Gen is a drop-in upgrade for 12th Gen meaning we might see a repeat scenario of the Pro 7->Pro 7+ unceremonious refresh. Parenthetically, 13th Gen improves efficiency a bit like 11th Gen did versus 10th Gen. 10nm had to be fixed finally so Intel could get their server chips out. 13th Gen is the byproduct of that internal effort to get 10nm up to snuff. It is a bit too late, though, and that is why on a random note that Intel’s Monday stock reports were a proverbial bloodbath.