Microsoft is gearing up for its next big release, the Windows Surface Pro tablet. The company’s one more attempt at hardware has kept the industry thinking on many aspects. One of them is whether the forthcoming device is a tablet or a PC.
A tablet is a touch-screen device with a slab design which provides basic computing capability but is not actually a computer. The tablet, in fact, serves as a bridge between smartphones and the personal computers. Microsoft, with its Surface Pro tablet, is trying to build a new bridge, to bring the distance even closer. The Windows OS maker has not been a successful name in the hardware field, with only Xbox to save some grace. But still, the company is hopeful of a turn of fortunes.
The Surface Pro looks like a tablet and works like one too but the machine has the soul of a PC. The device is based on Intel chip processors and has two fans integrated into the hardware. It can manage to run heavy duty PC software like iTunes, Photoshop and others.
The tablet has a bright 1080p screen but projects a better resolution picture of 2550×1440, when connected to an external display such as a TV. The tablet supports all the peripherals supported by a normal PC such as external drives, flash drives, keyboard, mouse and others.
The tablet-PC comes with a special keyboard cover, designed exclusively for Surface Pro by Microsoft. The Touch Cover serves the dual purpose of a cover as well as of a keyboard. The keyboard has a keyboard layout sketched on to the cover and works like an actual keyboard hardware. There’s also another variant called Type Cover which has actual keys and a trackpad also.
The Surface Pro tablet has been priced at $900 for the 64 GB model, and the 128 GB variant will retail for $1200. But the question is whether such a device may manage to do well commercially in a highly competitive market where the same amount can fetch a nice lightweight laptop with much more memory capacity. The Surface Pro has the mobility aspect going for it, which works in portrait mode also.
The 10.6 inch tablet with an innovative metal kickstand which helps it sits easily in the desk. The Surface Pro has been a significant improvement over the previous Surface RT. The screen resolution has increased and the software support also in the latter version. The device weighs lighter than a laptop but heavier and thicker than average tablets available in the market today. The battery life too takes a beating as it fares worse than most tablets as the PC level features juice out a lot of power.
The storage capacity on the hardware is very low as the 64 GB model has only 23 GB usable memory. The 128 GB model makes only 83 GB available for storage. Both the devices have a lot of space dedicated to the Windows operating system.
The Surface Pro is being launched as marketed as an ultra-powerful tablet which is able to turn into a laptop on-the-go, increasing mobility of the device and enhancing the productivity significantly.
But it remains to be seen whether the latest device is able to win the hearts of the average user looking for a tablet or a computer and which market welcomes it with more warmth. Or will Microsoft again get a cold shoulder,The picture will become clearer when Windows Surface Pro goes on sale this Saturday.
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