Microsoft’s flagship Windows PC lineup will drop reportedly drop budget options — firm prunes Surface Go and Surface Laptop Go

Microsoft is further shrinking its Surface lineup of flagship Windows devices. According to a report from Windows Central, citing “sources that are familiar with Microsoft’s hardware roadmap,” the company is no longer manufacturing its budget-focused Surface Go 4 and Surface Laptop Go 3, and doesn’t plan to follow them up with new devices.

Over the last few years, Microsoft has discontinued many of its most interesting designs, including the powerhouse Surface Laptop Studio, the Surface Studio desktop, Surface Headphones and Earbuds, the Surface Book, and the Surface Duo smartphone. The entire line has been simplified down to the Surface Pro and Surface Laptop, with the Surface Laptop Ultra coming later this year with Nvidia’s RTX Spark. (Microsoft’s RTX Spark Dev Box is also Surface-branded, but isn’t consumer-facing).

But the Surface Pro and Surface Laptop each come in more sizes than ever. The Surface Pro comes in 12- and 13-inch sizes. That 12-incher, starting at $849 with Snapdragon X Plus, could arguably be a replacement for the Surface Go, except that it’s far more expensive than the Surface Go 4 was priced at $579. On the Laptop side, there are 13-, 13.8-, and 15-inch systems, with the smallest using the same chip at $949.99 that could be considered the entry-level option.

It’s possible that you may find these systems in stock at some retailers, but they’re hard to find. The Surface Go 4’s last iteration was only ever part of Microsoft’s Surface for Business line and was seemingly popular with commercial customers that needed a device for fieldwork.

Microsoft didn’t immediately return Tom’s Hardware‘s request for comment. A representative pointed Windows Central to Microsoft’s Surface website, which doesn’t list either the Surface Go or Surface Laptop Go, but just a simplified lineup of the Surface Laptop, Surface Pro, and upcoming Surface Laptop Ultra and the Dev Box.

Windows Central‘s sources suggested that the decision to end these device lines was made prior to memory price hikes due to component shortages. Either way, with just two main device lines, Surface, which used to be a playground for form factors under former head Panos Panay, has been extremely simplified and far less experimental —if you could call it that at all.