Microsoft has long been known as a software juggernaut. Bill Gates and Paul (return some videotapes) Allen basically created the concept of a software company in the late 70s. It grew along with the personal computer industry and exploded with the release of Windows 95, prompting an anti-trust suit from the United States government. But most people don't know that Microsoft has been making and releasing hardware since 1980, and began developing in-house hardware in 1982, when Microsoft's Hardware division was created. They've created everything from computer mice, teleconferencing hardware, webcams and networking products to tablets, mobile phones, the infamous Zune media player and their mixed reality headsets, the Microsoft HoloLens.
At Microsoft's annual hardware launch event on Wednesday of last week, the tech giant introduced several new products including the Surface Pro 7 and Surface Laptop 3. These are serial products which refresh an existing line of products and were expected and anticipated by attendees. However, Microsoft also introduced four completely new devices. They introduced the Surface Pro X, the dual-screen Surface Neo tablet. Then they unveiled a smartphone with two screens they're calling the Surface Duo, which runs on Google's Android OS.
The Surface Pro 7 now comes with a USB-C port and more graphics and processing power than the previous version, the Surface Pro 6. The Surface Pro X is for professional-grade users. It has a magnetic storage compartment that houses and charges the pen. It's pretty lightweight and is only 7.3 mm thick. It is similar to the company's design prerogative of meshing the features of tablets and laptops with it's detachable keyboard. It's processor is ARM-based from Qualcomm, which are used in a lot of Android phones. But this one is setup to run Windows 10.