Microsoft Surface Pro 5 release date, news, specs rumors: Kaby Lake-powered Surface Pro to arrive early next year

Many tech enthusiasts were disappointed last October when Microsoft did not showcase the much awaited Surface Pro 5. The hybrid laptop's present iteration, the Surface Pro 4, has been in the market for almost a year, and the public believes that the release of Surface Pro 5 is long overdue.

While the October hardware event presented the latest additions to Microsoft's Surface family, namely the all-in-one (AIO) Surface desktop computer and the upgraded Surface Book, there are still no details to confirm the Surface Pro 5's arrival. Nevertheless, the rumors are rife that the Surface Pro 5 will be released in the coming months.

According to Headlines and Global News, the Surface Pro 5 is likely to be released in the first quarter of 2017. Earlier rumors suggested that the Surface Pro 5 would be released during the last quarter of this year, but with the device being a no-show at the last hardware event of Microsoft this 2016, this is no longer expected to happen. It appears that the Surface Pro 5 is not intended to be released this year, as the Redmond-based tech giant has a lot of things to arrange before they could present the refreshed Surface Pro to the public.

iDigital Times reported that the Surface Pro 5 will be powered by the next generation Intel Kaby Lake processor. The inclusion of the Kaby Lake chipset to the core specs of the Surface Pro 5 is seen as one of the main reasons Microsoft could not release the hybrid laptop this year. Intel is still not expected to be finished shipping the Kaby Lake chipsets necessary to develop the Surface Pro 5 units. For now, it is expected that the Intel Kaby Lake will be ready by the end of 2016, and Microsoft will finish the production of Surface Pro 5 during the first quarter of the coming year.

As per Tech Times, the Surface Pro 5 will receive a 12.3-inch PixelSense screen panel. Particularly, the base variant of the Surface Pro 5 will have at least 2K resolution while the high-tier model will boast full 4K UHD resolution. Along with the powerful Intel Kaby Lake processor, the Surface Pro 5 will have at least 16 GB RAM for the base model.