Microsoft teases October 2 press event – new Surface hardware incoming?

Microsoft has issued invitations to the press for a special announcement event scheduled for October 2 at 4pm ET (1pm PT/9pm BST). Of course, Microsoft is being coy as to what it plans to reveal at this event, with the invitation below simply reading “A moment of your time.”

But, we have some strong guesses.

Around this time last year, Microsoft invited the press to an event during which it pulled the curtain back on the Surface Book 2 product. So, it’s a safe bet that we’re going to see some new Microsoft hardware, as the firm has released new devices around this time for the past several years.

So, what could we have on the docket? There have been rumors and leaks aplenty pointing toward a possible Surface Phone product, but considering all we've seen so far are published patents, that's unlikely.

We find the announcement of a Surface Book 3 also unlikely, unless Nvidia will have launched its mobile RTX GPUs by then. Otherwise, this would be a simple processor hardware refresh and not worth the effort of such an event.

While we can't say with confidence what we're more likely to see, the Surface Studio is certainly out of date by this point, so perhaps a Surface Studio 2 is in order?

We're also more than a year out now from the Surface Laptop release, so it would behoove Microsoft to produce a Surface Laptop 2.

While we're on the topic, everyone is patiently awaiting the Surface Pro 5, since the current Surface Pro is also more than a year old now. Microsoft's devices team lead Panos Panay has publicly said previously that we will not see another numbered Surface Pro until the product deserves such a name. Maybe Microsoft has at last brought changes substantial enough to be worthy of the '5'?

Unless Microsoft has something completely different up its sleeve, these are our safest and strongest bets as to what we'll see on October 2. Be sure to tune in then for the latest on Microsoft's next line of products.