Microsoft is holding a special invite-only event in New York City this week. There we may see what's next for Surface devices and Windows 11.

This Microsoft September event will take place on Thursday (September 21) at 10:00 am ET/7:00 am ET/3:00 pm ET. There will be no live streaming, but Tom's Guide will be there live and will report on the latest announcements as they are made.

We expect to see the arrival of CEO Satya Nadella, and the fact that Panos Panay has left Microsoft means that we will not see his familiar face at the front of the Surface and Windows businesses. Although it does mean that we will probably see new announcements regarding both.

So while we won't be able to see them together from home, we do believe that Microsoft will announce several new products. One or three new Surface laptops will be introduced, and we'll also get an update on the current state of Windows 11 and how Microsoft plans to upgrade it next year.

Well, you bet. Here's what we expect Microsoft to show off at its September 2023 event this week.

There have already been leaks and rumors about what Microsoft will show and talk about at Thursday's event. Happily, one of the most credible rumors concerns the new Surface Laptop Studio with enhanced components and more ports. [Because the Surface Laptop Studio is Microsoft's coolest laptop in years and needs a sequel. In my first Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio review, I called it a laptop for running Windows 11.

It can also be used as a tablet, thanks to its sliding touchscreen hinge.

According to leaked information reported by sites like WinFuture, Microsoft is planning to announce a new Microsoft Surface with the same sliding screen design and more ports, including a USB-A port and microSD card reader Laptop Studio 2 is planned to be announced. The new machine is also said to feature the latest Intel 13th generation Raptor Lake CPU and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4000 laptop graphics card.

The Surface Laptop Go 2 is the smallest and lightest full laptop in Microsoft's current Surface lineup, just a bit thicker and a few ounces lighter than Apple's MacBook Air M2. It's also priced much lower, ranging from $599 to $999 when it debuted in summer 2022, and is now even cheaper.

But there is only so much good that can be said about the Surface Laptop Go 2. When it first launched, we said that the Surface Laptop Go 2 was not as good a bargain as it looked, as it featured disappointing components such as a sub-1080p touchscreen, an outdated 11th generation Intel CPU, a low-resolution 720p webcam, and just 4GB of RAM for an entry-level model.

This was because it had a sub-600p touchscreen, an outdated 11th generation Intel CPU, a low-resolution 720p webcam, and only 4GB of RAM in the entry model.

This was bad for a $600 laptop, and when the Surface Laptop Go 2 debuted, we recommended looking for something better from our list of best budget laptops.

But now rumors are flying that Microsoft may unveil a successor this week, and according to WinFuture, such a Surface Laptop Go 3 would feature the same disappointing 12.4-inch (1,536 x 1,024 pixels) previous model It will have a touchscreen, but may run on a faster CPU (even if it is an outdated 12th generation Intel Alder Lake chip). The base version will reportedly have 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD, which is the minimum one should expect from a modern Windows laptop.

The Surface Laptop Go and Surface Go are easily confused, but they are actually two different Microsoft computers: the Surface Go is a smaller, cheaper tablet version of the Surface Laptop Go, and Microsoft has been in the market since 2021, Surface Go has not been released.

That model was the Surface Go 3, and when it was released in October 2021, it was quite disappointing, with the same tired design and weak performance as the previous model, and worse than the Surface Go 2 in terms of battery life.

So while these smaller-sized 10.5-inch tablets may be good if you want an inexpensive Windows 11 slate to give to your kids for whatever reason, the Surface Go line is generally a good choice for Microsoft's more expensive and more powerful Surface Pro tablets as anything other than an inexpensive quasi-runner next to the Pro tablets, and could not justify its existence.

But now we're reading reports that Microsoft may try again this week by debuting the new Surface Go 4. Windows Central reports that Microsoft has an updated (but still weak) Intel N200 chip in the Surface Go 4, which it claims will ship this year. If true, that's still pretty lackluster news.

More exciting would be the story that instead of making customers pay an extra $129 for the privilege of being able to type on their new Windows tablet, Microsoft will bundle a free removable Type Cover keyboard with every new Go sold I guess that's what they're talking about.

In addition to the new Surface hardware, we can expect to hear some explanations from Microsoft executives about the new features coming to Windows 11 and other Microsoft services, especially Excel, Outlook, and Word. Expect to see the term "AI" used a lot, as Microsoft is expected to continue down the path it began pioneering earlier this year with the launch of Bing with ChatGPT.

It is already known that Microsoft is experimenting with new ways to use chatbots trained with large-scale language learning models (LLMs) and its own data in apps like Word and services like Windows 11, Microsoft 365 Copilot and branding these new services with buzzwords like Windows 11 Copilot, which basically installs an AI assistant in the taskbar that can ask for help, is already in the Windows Preview Program and is being tested by some early adopters.

I also think we'll see some surprising new ways Microsoft is pushing AI in its services, but I may be biased since I reported earlier this week about Intel's new Meteor Lake chips that will debut in December. [i.e., separate for CPUs, GPUs, and VPUs (new processing units designed to specialize in compute-intensive tasks, such as scanning images and analyzing the text in them, or blurring the background of a video feed in real time, commonly referred to as "AI") slice.

Meteor Lake chips will begin to appear in Windows laptops later this year, and when they do, Windows AI will receive a subtle but significant upgrade.

Microsoft has a lot of work to do this week.

The company needs to get people excited about Surface computers again, and this is probably the only chance it will get this year, as Thursday looks to be the only big Microsoft press event of 2023. Windows 11 and AI are the company's will no doubt be a big story for the company, but it will have to do something about its lackluster laptop lineup if it wants to make its presence felt in the marketplace. [Because while recent Surface products like the Surface Pro 9 and Surface Laptop 5 are good enough, they are unacceptable when talking about Microsoft, a company that Windows built and a company that I am an avid Windows user and laptop It's a shame that I rarely recommend Surface laptops to people, even though it's the company that Windows was built on and I'm an avid Windows user and laptop reviewer by trade.

In fact, the Surface laptop is far from the best Windows laptop you can buy right now. This week, Microsoft has a chance to change that. But with the sudden departure of longtime Surface leader Panos Panay on Monday, I am less confident about the company's hardware plans for 2023.