Microsoft Surface

(Windows Surface with Type cover)

Microsoft held a conference yesterday and I am pleasantly surprised by what they announced. Two tablets and accessories. One with an ARM processor, and one with an Intel processor.

Hardware

The ARM version features:

OS - Windows RT (Windows on ARM)

Processor - Most likely Tegra 3 (no exact info yet)

Weight - 676 grams

Thickness - 9.3mm thin

Display - 10.6" "ClearType HD Display" (presumably around 1280x720 or slightly above that)

Battery - 31.5 Watt hours

Connections - microSD, full size USB 2.0, micro HDMI, dual WiFi antennae.

Case - "VaporMg case", as in molded magnesium and gorilla glass 2.

Storage - 32GB or 64GB

Microsoft Office 2013 is preinstalled on the ARM version.

The Intel version (also called Pro) features:

OS - Windows 8 Pro

Processor - Ivy Bridge i5

Weight - 903 grams

Thickness - 13.5mm thin

Display - 10.6" "ClearType Full HD Display" (presumably 1920x1080, which means the PPI is higher than that of the new Retina Macbook Pro)

Battery - 42 Watt hours

Connections - microSDXC, full size USB 3.0, mini DisplayPort, dual WiFi antennae.

Case - "VaporMg case", as in molded magnesium and gorilla glass 2.

Storage - 64GB or 128GB

Battery life

Microsoft did not mention battery life so these are just "educated" guesses.

ARM version - ~9.5 hours when web browsing.

The Transformer Pad 300 has a 22Wh battery and gets 7.58 hours when web browsing. The dock has its own 15Wh battery and boosts that battery life up to 11.32 hours. The Windows ARM tablet has quite similar specs, but with a battery capacity in between that of the regular Transformer pad 300, and the docked 300. This is just an estimation so give or take an hour or so. For comparison, the new iPad (gen 3) gets 9.28 hours.

Source: Anandtech

Intel model - ~5,2 hours

The Zenbook Prime has a 35Wh battery and lasts 4,38 hours when web browsing. The Microsoft Surface's battery is 20% bigger but the rest of the specs are pretty comparable so I just added 20% to the battery life of the Zenbook Prime UX21A. For comparison, the 11" Macbook Air (mid 2011) lasted 4,3 hours in the same test.

Again, this is just a rough estimation since we do not have any real numbers yet.

Source: Anandtech

Digitizers

The Pro model has two different digitizer technologies. One which allows you to use your fingers on it, but one which allows you to use pen input, and the nice thing is that if you use the pen, then the digitizer which controls finger input will be turned off, so you can lay your hand on the screen without messing things up. The pen is sampled at 600 dpi resolution, so the lines you draw with it will look very smooth, even when zoomed in.

General things

Both tablets got the standard tablet stuff like accelerometers and sensors but also front and rear facing cameras, stereo speakers, dual microphones and a very nice kickstand which is also made out of magnesium.

The cooling is pretty nice as well. The vents are all around the tablet, but only a small strip all around the tablet, which means that you won't block the vents completely, no matter how you hold it, and you won't really feel the vents either.

Covers

Microsoft also announced two covers. They say that the covers are not really needed since the case is so strong, but these two covers also has keyboards on them, with trackpads and two mouse buttons on them, as well as some Windows 8 specific buttons. Both covers are attached via magnets to the bottom of the tablets. The "touch cover" is just 3mm thin and according to Microsoft is on average twice as fast as typing on glass. The touch cover is very interesting because it's what you'd call a real "smart cover". It feels how much force you put on each key, and can determine if you're actually pressing the key, or just resting your hand on it. It also has an accelerometer which is used for determining if the cover should be turned off or on. For example, if you flip the cover so that it's on the back (with the keys facing outwards) then it will be turned off.

The touch cover also changes the color of the background in Metro. If you have a blue touch cover, then the background color will change to blue when the touch cover is connected.

Here is a picture of touch covers:

The other cover is called "Type Cover" which has real switches (1.5mm travel distance) in it. I sadly don't have much more info about it (like thickness and weight, or if it feature an accelerometer). Picture of the Type Cover is in the beginning of the post.

Price and availability

The price is said to be competitive so my guess is that the RT version with the ARM processor will be ~500 USD, to compete with the higher end tablets. The Intel version will most likely cost ~1000 USD to compete with ultrabooks like the Macbook Air. 

It will be be sold through Microsoft's physical stores in the US and some selected Microsoft Online stores. Hopefully some regular retailers as well but we do not have any info on that yet.

The ARM tablet will be released around the time Windows 8 is released (maybe Christmas this year?) and the Intel version will be released around 3 months after that (so with a bit of luck, early 2013).

Info such as more exact prices will be announced when it's closer to release date.

Why is this post kind of messed up with white blocks and stuff?

I have no idea, and I can't fix it. Yes it sucks. Not even rewriting the post fixes it... God I hate Blogger...