Editor's Note: The Surface Laptop Go has officially been announced

Microsoft's next Surface Laptop will be announced soon, and it appears that a more affordable sibling may be joining the family At least, that's what new rumors suggest

Windows Central's Zac Bowden reported that sources tell him that a new Surface Laptop, codenamed "Sparti," is expected to sell for between $500 and $600 This is half the price of the $999 Surface Laptop 3, making the Sparti a potential product for more potential customers

The Surface Laptop Sparti will also be 125", smaller than the existing 135" and 15" Surface Laptop 3 models The report notes that one should expect the Sparti to have the same look and feel as other Surface laptops and tablets, ie, high build quality

Microsoft appears to see the advantages of the $399 Surface Go 2 and wants a non-removable traditional laptop version; what makes the Surface Laptop Sparti more interesting to me (and probably many others) is its display size is 2 inches larger than the Surface Go 2, which may feel a bit cramped, especially at the keyboard

The Surface Laptop Sparti will be available in October, which is when Microsoft holds its annual event to announce new devices

According to Bowden's sources, the Surface Laptop Sparti will start with a 10th generation Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage This would be a much more powerful CPU than the Pentium Gold processor found in the entry-level Surface Go 2 (with the same amount of memory and storage)

And like the Surface Go 2, the Surface Laptop Sparti ships with Windows 10 running in S mode; disabling S mode is easy, and many will want to be able to run non-Windows Store apps