Microsoft has a big 2021 planned for Windows and Surface

[Imran]

It's that time of the year again. Now that we've taken a look back at 2020, it's time to take a look forward at 2021. You might recall that in February, Surface chief Panos Panay took over Windows as well, and one thing that we're definitely expecting to see next year is a renewed emphasis on the operating system. And of course, we'll get new Surface hardware to show it off.

Windows 10X
Windows 10X is finally coming this spring. It was announced back in October 2019 as a new OS for dual-screen devices, and it was supposed to ship in the Surface Neo in 2020. That didn't happen, of course, as Microsoft announced that it was changing the OS to being for single-screen PCs. Panos Panay said that the company wanted to meet customers where they are, even though they'll still need to buy all-new hardware to get their hands on the new OS.

Windows 10
While Windows 10X won't be as exciting as we thought, Windows 10 proper will be way more exciting than we would have guessed a year ago. According to a report from a few months ago, Microsoft is overhauling the Windows 10 UI. While we don't know exactly what's coming, this should be the next iteration of Fluent Design, codenamed Sun Valley.

Surface predictions
Personally, I think that we're going to see a pretty broad range of Surface refreshes this year. The only thing that you can definitely [i]not[/i] expect to see is the Surface Neo, as that product is shelved for now. Starting with the most likely, definitely expect to see a Surface Pro 8 and a Surface Laptop 3 launched in January.

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