Microsoft's Surface Pro 5 gets the China Compulsory Certificate

Microsoft is expected to announce new Surface devices sometime soon. The company was initially expected to announce its new Surface products at an event this month, but it still isn’t clear when or if that event is actually happening. Microsoft is expected to introduce the new Surface Pro 5 and Surface Book 2 sometime soon, but it was recently reported that the Surface Pro 5 and Book 2 might not even be announced at the Spring/April event.

Interestingly enough, the Surface Pro 5 has recently received the China Compulsory Certificate (CCC). As you can see in the screenshot below, the Surface Pro 5 from Microsoft passed the CCC on April 5th (the text in the image might be unclear, click on the image to get a better view):

The CCC, for those wondering, is a “compulsory safety mark for many products imported, sold or used in the Chinese market.”

The certification obviously doesn’t give us many details about the Surface Pro 5 at all, apart from the power usage related specs — but it does indicate that Microsoft might be pretty close to announcing the Surface Pro 5. Redmond may announce the device sometime later this month, but it’s possible the company will instead launch it at Build 2017 next month.

That’s mainly because the Surface Pro 5 isn’t expected to be a major upgrade over the Surface Pro 4. According to a recent report, the Surface Pro 5 would mainly be a spec refresh and the device will possibly sport a new CPU (Intel’s Kaby Lake) and maybe an improved display. Microsoft holding an event for such a minor upgrade is unlikely at this point, but the company’s Surface team might still have some surprises for us just like they did for the Surface Book and the Surface  Studio. We shall see, soon.

Huge thanks to Hyken Wong for the tip!