Microsoft’s Surface devices could use modular designs in response to the challenge of Apple’s M1-powered MacBooks, according to a patent file.
Noted by Windows Latest, the submission contains how potential Surface devices for a laptop can include ‘interchangeable housing panels’, allowing modular panels to be inserted into the lid to provide upgraded features. One of the most important examples is faster cellular data connections, a feature that is missing in the Apple M1 – an otherwise excellent SoC that moves several MacBooks on our best laptop list.
The Microsoft Surface Pro X already has a cellular connection, but is also based on an earlier Qualcomm ARM chip that could cause problems with the Windows software. A 4G or 5G module could possibly provide an always-on connection to a native x86 Surface, without any of the compatibility issues.
An illustration in submitting a store display for such a modular Surface laptop also contains various, if generically packaged modules, so that the system can expand to various add-ons such as extended battery pack modules.
Before you start saving for your pre-order, however, keep in mind that a patent file does not necessarily provide a product that is deep in development, if Microsoft wants to continue with the concept at all. It’s also unclear whether such modular features would be applied to one of the existing Surface devices or reserved for a brand new one – the patent refers to a foldable laptop design, so it probably would not be the Surface Pro not, and since the Surface The book screen must be removable. It will be difficult to find a suitable place where the modules can fit.
That leaves the Surface Laptop, but nothing about what we heard about the Surface Laptop 4 suggests any major overhaul other than the use of Intel’s Tiger Lake U-CPUs.
Yet Microsoft is hardly afraid of designs out there. It’s only been a few weeks since the release of the Surface Duo, a flawed yet pretty thin dual-screen smartphone.