Microsoft Surface Book 2 release date: next iteration to come out in early 2017?

Microsoft

Microsoft is gearing up to launch a new Surface Book soon, if rumors turn out to be true.

Indian app developer Shubhan Chemburkar posted a photo on Twitter taken at Microsoft's building 88. He showed a wall that displays the tech firm's hardware product over the years. The most notable in the picture shows a spot with a placeholder for an upcoming Surface device that is scheduled for release in 2016, as well as another spot for a product with a "Coming Soon" description.

While the mystery product has yet to be labeled, speculations claim that it will be another Surface device based on its silhouette. However, it is not confirmed if the upcoming product will be a tablet, a laptop, a combination of both, or an entirely new one.

The placeholder could be meant for the second-generation Microsoft Surface Book, which was originally intended to be shipped to the market in the second half of 2016. But according to DigiTimes , the Microsoft Surface Book 2 release may be pushed back to the first half of 2017.

Based on the report, the scheduled release of the upcoming Surface Book 2 will have to be delayed because of the late shipments of the Kaby Lake processors from Intel. There are also speculations claiming that the delay for the new Surface Book is caused by the development of the Windows 10 Redstone 2. However, both Microsoft and Intel remain silent about the validity of the report.

While the actual specs of the Microsoft Surface Book 2 are still under wraps, it is expected to come out with a lot of upgrades from the first version that came out in 2015. The first Surface Book was released with a 13.5-inch PixelSense display with 3000 x 2000 resolution, a sixth-generation Intel Core i5 or i7 processor with NVIDIA GeForce GPU with 1GB GDDR5 memory, and 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB SSD storage options.