Microsoft Surface Book 2 release date, price and specs: Intel Kaby Lake laptop coming next week?

Microsoft Surface Book 2 release date

It is said that Microsoft has a Windows 10 launch event scheduled for 26 October.

There are a number of possible devices which could be launched and the Surface Book 2 is one of them at the event in New York. We could also see any combination of the Surface Pro 5, Surface Phone and a Surface all-in-one.

If Microsoft doesn’t announce the Surface Book 2 on 26 October, which is quite possible, it’s likely we’ll see it in 2017 with Redstone 2. Another reason why we might have to wait a while is that it makes sense for it to come with the Intel Kaby Lake chips, which should go into productions towards the end of this year.

Perhaps Microsoft will reveal the Surface Book 2 ahead of a 2017 release date – we’ll find out soon enough.
Microsoft Surface Book 2 price

The existing Surface Book price has been cut on the official store. A discount of £160 might signal the arrival of a new model but the discount is only available for one configuration of the device.

We can only speculate on the Surface Book 2 price at the moment but you can expect similar pricing compared to the original which is priced between £1,299 and £2,649 in the UK. If the specs are significantly better than Microsoft may well increase the price for the Surface Book 2.

Surface Book hinge
Microsoft Surface Book 2 specs and features

One of the first things that might change on the Surface Book 2 is the design. Although the Dynamic Fulcrum Hinge looked really good and made the device unique, the gap created between the screen and keyboard attracted dirt etc (see above). It’s rumoured that Microsoft will adapt the design so the Surface Book 2 has a more traditional laptop shape so it fully closes.
It may also change the way the tablet locks to the keyboard section as it currently uses a nerdy but sometimes awkward method which requires electricity, software and the user to press a key.

The existing and original Surface Book has some decent specs so there’s not a huge amount that Microsoft can do to improve on it – but we can hope. It already comes with up to 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage so can the firm boost either of those? Perhaps we’ll see a Surface Book 2 with 2TB inside.

The Intel Kaby Lake processor is probably the easiest things to predict and that’s why we’re not overly confident Microsoft will announce the Surface Book 2 on 26 October. If the device does come with the new chip range, it will support USB 3.1 Type-C and Thunderbolt 3 in addition to featuring up to four cores by default and better performance across the CPU and GPU.

surface book 2 specs

Surface Book specs

The latter may be needed to run the rumoured 4K resolution of the Surface Book 2’s screen which is touted to stay at 13.5in in size. We should also see Microsoft offer new discrete GPU options with maybe the laptop version of Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 980.

Although Kaby Lake supports reversible USB, we hope Microsoft continues to offer full-size USB Type-A ports which will be critical to some users. We don’t all want to buy adapters in order to plug things in, which is something the new MacBook Pro 2016 might require.

Better battery life is one of the top requests on our list for most devices and the Surface Book 2 is no exception. The Kaby Lake chip should help with that but won’t be enough on its own. Hopefully Microsoft has something up its sleeve in this department as the Surface Book 2 might be used to charge the Surface Pen stylus instead of using a AAA battery.

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