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Microsoft doesn’t want to take any chances with Windows 8—if it’s going to be the best tablet OS ever, it’s going to need some serious hardware. So Microsoft is getting serious and building its own tablet. Meet Surface.
Microsoft’s home cooked tablet is a very thin cookie: the non-Pro version is only 9.3mm thick (a little less than the iPad), 680 grams (a little more than iPad), and packs a 10.6-inch, 16:9 “ClearType” (think Retina) display, available with either 32 or 64 GB of storage. It’s got tablet standards like front and rear-facing cameras and a full-sized USB port, along with some neat tricks: magnesium casing, HDMI out, Gorilla Glass, a kickstand (hmm) and a subtle groove around the entirety of the device to help keep the Pro version cool.
This is an Ugh!/Yeah! depending on who you are, but Surface, like everything Windows, will come in two flavours. The aforementioned super-skinny variant runs Windows RT on an ARM processor (like the one in your phone, or most other tablets), while the Pro copy runs an Ivy Bridge Core i5 x86 processor and “ultrabook specs,” whatever that might mean! It’ll be a little thicker and heavier, though not by much. The Pro Surface will be available with either 64 or 128 GB of storage.
Surface is designed specifically for Windows 8′s best tricks: it’ll support semantic zoom (awesome!), a stylus (not awesome!), while providing a perfectly superflat frame for the perfectly superflat Metro UI. It’ll also run the standard Windows desktop, meaning requisite software like Office and Photoshop are on the go with you, plus tablet standards like Netflix. The best of both worlds, we’d hope.
The Surface can be paired with a magnetic cover, just like the iPad’s. But the Surface’s cover also doubles as a full, extremely thin keyboard and multitouch trackpad, whereas the iPad’s is just… a cover. This is a brilliant move on Microsoft’s part—one of the most clever things it’s ever squeezed out, and something that instantly makes Surface one of the most exciting devices we’ve eyed in some time.
Unfortunately, no word on pricing (beyond a meaningless claim of “competitive”) or availability.
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Love the idea of the touch cover being a keyboard. The pro version sounds pretty exciting, I can just imagine running some of my less taxing Steam games on it lol…
I disagree about the stylus, I think this is an awesome option to have as it can’t be beaten for precision writing/drawing/sketching or annotations.
agree on the stylus. why is supporting anything bad if it doesnt have a knock on affect anywhere else?
as you say drawing could be cool. i could imagine some cool uses of stylus in photoshop or those live paint programs.
stylus sounds like a wasted opportunity
dunno if u draw much or not but unless a stylus/pen has a decent amount of sensitivity (like on a wacom tablet, with its pressure sensitivity & especially the new barrel rotation feature) its not really much good for drawing
It looks really good, first time I’ve thought that about a Microsoft product for years.
The thing is, it DEFINITELY has a fatal flaw. I think the reason Microsoft didn’t give us a full spec list is because they know it.
Eg: “battery life – 4 hours”
Some really great ideas there from Microsoft, and I hope that they are as good as they look.
Apart from price the other important thing I want to know is battery life, I’m guessing that the ARM version will have better battery life.
I also think that the syylus is a great idea, it means that you can use one of these things as a gaphics tablet, as long as it’s not required for the OS, and just an option.
Shop assistant: “You can have one with an ARM or Ivy Bridge Core i5 x86 processor.”
Average buyer: “What the f*** is that? Actually, you know what? Don’t bother. I’ll just take the iPad I originally asked for before you started saying acronyms.”
I don’t think Microsoft understand the iPad’s mass-market appeal.
You can have on that runs all your old Windows programs or one that doesn’t.. Or if you REALLY want you can have an overgrown iPhone.
You clearly don’t seem to understand how a brick-and-mortar tech store (such as PC world) works.
They won’t talk to you about the specs, because they have those on the paper in front of the product, they WILL tell what the key differences are for everyday life between the two types are.
“and now I’ll explain to you again, sir, that we currently do not have any iPads in stock, which is why I offered you a different option in the first place.”
Retail employees are never told to outright offer you something you haven’t asked for, if they are offering alternatives you’ve either:
A) told them you’re looking for “a tablet (computer)” which is vague so they’ll start talking about the tablets they stock.
or B)asked for an out-of-stock/unstocked item, which they will explain in very plain English is unavailable.
My point wasn’t about sales techniques. My point was about how the mass market for the iPad exists because Apple are enticing new punters that would’ve been turned off by talk of processors and acronyms, like my mum. My mum wanted “an iPad”, not a “tablet”, and she sure as hell didn’t care about tech specs.
MS might market the Surface right, but if they present the choice between two models as being between an “ARM or Ivy Bridge Core i5 x86 processor” it simply won’t be a 100% competitor for the iPad. It’ll compete for people who are interested in, or can cope with, tech talk, but a large proportion of the iPad customers will be turned right off and be unpoachable as a result. It’ll all come down to simple, direct marketing and product presentation, something MS have in the past struggled to do effectively to non-tech audiences.
not everyone who buys a tablet is your mum
No, but the mass market is.
Well as the price of the 32 GB Surface is the same as the 32 GB iPad @ $599, Microsoft is the clear winner.