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Meet Microsoft’s Surface 2 And Surface Pro 2

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Today Microsoft took the wraps off its holiday hardware lineup, unveiling two new tablets, and a number of new and updated accessories. It’s a lot of information to process, so let’s go through each piece in order.

 

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I spent time in Redmond last week with the new hardware, and the team behind the Surface project itself. Hands on notes regarding the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 will be published following this piece, along with an extensive interview with Brian Hall, current general manager of the Surface effort, and Panos Panay, corporate vice president at Microsoft and chief of Surface.

 

For now, you need an overview of what’s new. We’ll get granular shortly. Here’s the once-over.

 

Surface 2

The Surface 2 is the second generation of the Surface RT, though its name doesn’t take after its ancestor. In its most basic formulation, the Surface 2 is quite similar to its predecessor: It is an ARM-based tablet that supports attachable keyboards, and is built to make Windows 8(.1) sing.

 

That aside, Microsoft has made across-the-board improvements to the product itself. Battery life has been bettered by 25%. A new processor (the NVIDIA Tegra 4 chip) has improved speed and graphical performance. The kickstand now includes a second, deeper angle that makes using the device on your lap far simpler. It has a new look, with a silver magnesium case that resists fingerprints, and is sturdier. It has improved cameras to better support low light settings, helping you Skype with folks in darker rooms. And, it’s cheaper, starting off at $449 – Surface RT headed into the market for $499.

 

If you think that Windows 8.1 matures the Windows 8 platform sufficiently for daily use, and that the Windows Store has become populated enough with applications in its year of life, the Surface 2 could be a device that you enjoy. Certainly, the hardware has has improved greatly since its first generation. The question becomes how well Windows 8.1 can take advantage of those upgrades.

Frankly, the Surface 2 is a very good-looking device, and one that I would feel great using at a cafe if I ever worked in such desultory locales.

 

In that vein, its success is quite tied to that of Windows 8.1: The better Windows 8.1, the more the Surface 2′s upgrades can shine through. The Surface 2 (again, in my very limited hands-on time) proved a capable device. I can see students loving it, for example.

 

Surface Pro 2

If the upgrades to the Surface 2 were broad and various, the changes to the Surface Pro 2 are targeted and vertical: It’s all about battery life, baby. According to Microsoft – and more on this later – it received constant feedback that business customers were interested in the Surface Pro, but could not bear its underperforming battery life. The company is frank that its first generation Pro lacked in that department.

So, instead of changing the device externally a single mote, Microsoft rejiggered the guts of the unit into what it calls the Surface Pro 2, which will have around 60% better battery life, a figure that it claims can skew higher in certain use cases.

 

The Surface Pro 2 has been bumped up to the Haswell generation of Intel chips, can contain up to 8 gigabytes of low-power DDR RAM, and a SSD that can reach the half-terabyte mark. It also receives the new kickstand position, which Microsoft is proud of, mostly because it works.

 

The Surface Pro 2 looks like its predecessor, is the same size and weight, but lasts longer, and goes harder and faster if you kit it properly. It starts at the same price point as its forefather: $899.

 

read the rest via > http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/23/meet-microsofts-surface-2-surface-pro-2-new-touch-type-covers-and-more/

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