“Microsoft Corp unveiled a tablet called Surface on Monday, in a move to rival Apple Inc’s massively successful iPad,” Lisa Richwine reports for Reuters.
“The tablet will come in two versions, one running on traditional Intel Corp chips, and another using ARM Holdings. Both will have a fold-out cover that becomes a keyboard,” Richwine reports. “A prototype was demonstrated by Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer at an event in Los Angeles. The tablets will be available when Windows 8 ships later this year, according to a Microsoft statement.”
Richwine reports, “No details on pricing were mentioned, except that it would be “comparable” with current ARM tablets and Intel-powered Ultrabooks.”
LOS ANGELES — June 18, 2012 — Today at an event in Hollywood, Microsoft unveiled Surface: PCs built to be the ultimate stage for Windows. Company executives showed two Windows tablets and accessories that feature significant advances in industrial design and attention to detail. Surface is designed to seamlessly transition between consumption and creation, without compromise. It delivers the power of amazing software with Windows and the feel of premium hardware in one exciting experience.
Advances in Industrial Design
Conceived, designed and engineered entirely by Microsoft employees, and building on the company’s 30-year history manufacturing hardware, Surface represents a unique vision for the seamless expression of entertainment and creativity. Extensive investment in industrial design and real user experience includes the following highlights:
• Software takes center stage: Surface sports a full-sized USB port and a 16:9 aspect ratio – the industry standard for HD. It has edges angled at 22 degrees, a natural position for the PC at rest or in active use, letting the hardware fade into the background and the software stand out.
• VaporMg: The casing of Surface is created using a unique approach called VaporMg (pronounced Vapor-Mag), a combination of material selection and process to mold metal and deposit particles that creates a finish akin to a luxury watch. Starting with magnesium, parts can be molded as thin as .65 mm, thinner than the typical credit card, to create a product that is thin, light and rigid/strong.
• Integrated Kickstand: The unique VaporMg approach also enables a built-in kickstand that lets you transition Surface from active use to passive consumption – watching a movie or even using the HD front- or rear-facing video cameras. The kickstand is there when needed, and disappears when not in use, with no extra weight or thickness.
• Touch Cover: The 3 mm Touch Cover represents a step forward in human-computer interface. Using a unique pressure-sensitive technology, Touch Cover senses keystrokes as gestures, enabling you to touch type significantly faster than with an on-screen keyboard. It will be available in a selection of vibrant colors. Touch Cover clicks into Surface via a built-in magnetic connector, forming a natural spine like you find on a book, and works as a protective cover. You can also click in a 5 mm-thin Type Cover that adds moving keys for a more traditional typing feel.
An Amazing Windows Experience
Two models of Surface will be available: one running an ARM processor featuring Windows RT, and one with a third-generation Intel Core processor featuring Windows 8 Pro. From the fast and fluid interface, to the ease of connecting you to the people, information and apps that users care about most, Surface will be a premium way to experience all that Windows has to offer. Surface for Windows RT will release with the general availability of Windows 8, and the Windows 8 Pro model will be available about 90 days later. Both will be sold in the Microsoft Store locations in the U.S. and available through select online Microsoft Stores.
Additional Product Information
Surface for Windows RT
• OS: Windows RT
• 676 g *
• 9.3 mm *
• 10.6” ClearType HD Display
• 31.5 W-h battery
• microSD, USB 2.0, Micro HD Video, 2×2 MIMO antennae
• Office ‘15’ Apps, Touch Cover, Type Cover
• VaporMg Case & Stand
• 32 GB, 64 GB
Surface for Windows 8 Pro
• OS: Windows 8 Pro
• 903 g *
• 13.5 mm *
• 10.6” ClearType HD Display
• 42 W-h battery
• microSDXC, USB 3.0, Mini DisplayPort Video, 2×2 MIMO antennae
• Touch Cover, Type Cover, Pen with Palm Block
• VaporMg Case & Stand
• 64 GB, 128 GB
*Actual size and weight of the device may vary due to configuration and manufacturing process.
Suggested retail pricing will be announced closer to availability and is expected to be competitive with a comparable ARM tablet or Intel Ultrabook-class PC. OEMs will have cost and feature parity on Windows 8 and Windows RT.
Some information relates to a prerelease product, which may be substantially modified before it is commercially released. Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, with respect to the information provided here.
Source: Microsoft
MacDailyNews Take: “Conceived, designed and engineered entirely by Microsoft employees.” Which is why it looks pretty much like an Apple iPad, except with a blurry screen, a rear and sides designed by Sony in 1985, in the wrong aspect ratio, with a logo that serves as a warning label to informed users, festooned with bunch of unnecessary ports (of course), and a silly made-to-be-broken-off “kickstand” with a bastardized Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover for iPad hanging off it in your choice of horrid hues chosen by the usual color-blind Microsoftie.
Apple iPad with Retina display and Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover
BTW: Windows “partners,” you just got PlayedForSure™. Sleep tight.
And, the best part: It’s all still just vapor. No prices. No shipping date(s). No actual sizes and weights. No nothing. 30 months after Steve Jobs first unveiled the iPad.
Oh, and “software takes center stage?” Seriously? What software? Microsoft is completely delusional.
Yikes! “I’ll give them a year or two before they’re turning out the lights on this painful and expensive endeavor.” Or something like like that anyway. Lol! I’d say it’s 50/50 that either one of these make it to market.
Once again, more VAPORWARE from Redmond, WA! Cost? Shipping date? Explanation for the object’s thinness in the front photo and the unbelievably THICK rear shot with the kickstand?
Yep, so proud of their center staged software that they only show a glimse of it in the last few seconds of a 60-second ad.
What a fricking waste of time. Here’re some clues to do better:
1. Ship poduct when you announce product.
2. Show what good your product can do.
3. Hire some good aesthetic/UX design folks.
4. Do your own thing.
I get it if you own Apple products and love them. Good to see the news covered on this web site. Very funny sarcasm on the “MacDailyNews Take” section at the end.
For those that haven’t read up on it, yes Word will on both models on both OS’s. Yes it seems a little awkward offering two hardware designs with two OS variants. But it may play out a successful strategy over time.
Focussing on the entry level product announced today. It will be available at the same time as Windows 8, this year. I’m happy to see Microsoft take some time and effort to bring a “pure tablet” to market at presumably a comparable/competitive price point to other ARM based tablets. I think it is important they put down a marker.
I also hope their OEM partners innovate and bring a solid range of variants to market, each offering something for what they see as clear market opportunities.
I recently purchased a “new” iPad and a Sony Android tablet. There is a lot (a real lot actually) to like about the iPad. Great hardware, very good OS and easy to get several things done. I’m not so impressed with the Android tablet. It is “OK” at a bunch of things, but just lacks a cohesive, simple, clean feel the iPad has.
I have put Windows 8 Release Preview on my laptop. It works well as the next Windows 7, and I occasionally run the Metro UX, it is fresh, fast, clean, but I’d don’t yet feel it is where I want to hang out all day on a PC.
I’m really looking forward to having a tablet with good touch hardware married up to Metro on a biggish screen, like the entry level ARM tablet Microsoft announced today. I think there is potential here and the keyboard, optional as it is (there is an onscreen touch keyboard in Windows 8), and the ability to swap files easily with USB and microSD and connect it to a TV or monitor is great.
I’ll definitely take one for a spin when it comes out.
I’m quite surprised at a lot of the condescending and negative feedback here. I agree with some points, like why do this in June if you are going to release just before Christmas? But at least the OEM partners and ISV ecosystem has been forewarned, etc.
Happy days, more innovation and more choice in the market! It will be great to see how Android tablets evolve and how Apple responds (with product innovation) not only over the next 6 months, but in this great category over the next 6 years.
well, you’re being generous. and that’s ok. good for you.
but:
– this is an Apple fan site;
– and the gushing hype today about the totally unproven, unreleased, and largely unknown Surface was absurd on its face;
– while however there is no question that MS has now strategically double-crossed its longtime Windows OEM’s.
1. That thing is f-u-g-l-y from a design standpoint. Reminds me of my Sony Vaio from 10 years ago.
2. Is it going to compete with the iPad or the Macbook Air 11″/13″?
3. Does it have a touchscreen keyboard as well as the touchpad?
I guess people who just want to buy something/anything that is not an iPad will buy this, but iPad killer???? Not so much.
Did Microsoft purposely make this the ugliest copy of an iPad ever seen, so that Apple would be too embarrassed to sue them for “look and feel” odd an iPad?
Seriously, there needs to be a law that prohibits the use of the word “innovate” when describing a yet-to-be-released (if ever) netbook-sized laptop with a stolen Atari 400 keyboard glued onto a stolen iPad cover, running a user-unfriendly OS having large, solid-colored, Playskool®, squares with micro-text as a GUI. Oh, …and a kickstand stolen from a Schwinn bicycle.
“I have found that all ugly things are made by those who strive to make something beautiful, and that all beautiful things are made by those who strive to make something useful.”
Oscar Wilde
ironic:
it’s called Surface! haha!
exactly: A superficial surface job, a facade & farce of a product.
nothing original.
all cumbersome.
legacy crapware.
Microsoft has produced nothing of original or revolutionary value since day 1, over 3 decades now, yet it was hailed as an economic superpower?!
Just like Dull Dell, it has claimed much, but only with arrogance, not brains. Michael Dell was hailed for diluting PCs?!!? humans are supposed to be proud of such genius?!
is it not amazing that Microdough has had all these years and all they can come up with with their 1million employees or brains, is to challenge Apple’s iPad with a keyboard and watch tech surface?!!? god damn. so help us God, as if that’s all we can fathom, we’re doomed as a species. no wonder the economy everywhere sucks as much as Microdough.
Steve Ballmer should commit suicide – at least career-wise. but if their board keeps him so long, they deserve to rot. shame for the rest of the employees, but then again, they choose to work there. shame for the stockholders? no, they choose to buy into ti. imagine if no one bought MSFT stock…
How am I supposed to eat and drink on top of that little tablet with a flimsy stand?
All I’m saying is, MS should to stick to what it’s good at instead of trying to chase Apple everywhere. And what they are good at is building 500 pound tables.
Yikes! “I’ll give them a year or two before they’re turning out the lights on this painful and expensive endeavor.” Or something like like that anyway. Lol! I’d say it’s 50/50 that either one of these make it to market.
Yawn!
Fugly POS…yep, 30 years (!?!) of Microsoft hardware engineering shows.
Once again, more VAPORWARE from Redmond, WA! Cost? Shipping date? Explanation for the object’s thinness in the front photo and the unbelievably THICK rear shot with the kickstand?
Just another fsking joke from Ballmer and Bros.
Thanks again microslut, for engineering another utterly spectacular failure. Keep up the good work!
Magnesium huh? Just wait til a flaming battery ignites the whole thing…
The movie was creepy…
MS get a clue: it is going to take a lot to pry my 2+ year old iPad out of my hands. I like using it. I don’t like using my windows computer.
Another clue, I’ve had it with the aholes in IT in my company… Wonder why?
Microsoft must have seen the huge sales of add-on keyboards for the iPad and thought ‘Hmmm’.
Hang-on, what sales of keyboards???
Don’t forget the biggest flaw?
It runs Windows!!! I give it two years before it is totally forgotten about.
Yep, so proud of their center staged software that they only show a glimse of it in the last few seconds of a 60-second ad.
What a fricking waste of time. Here’re some clues to do better:
1. Ship poduct when you announce product.
2. Show what good your product can do.
3. Hire some good aesthetic/UX design folks.
4. Do your own thing.
Can someone tell me if this thing has an on screen keyboard or do you have to type on that flap???
Another piece of convoluted crap from Mister Softie! Did we expect anything else?
Wow – tough crowd.
I get it if you own Apple products and love them. Good to see the news covered on this web site. Very funny sarcasm on the “MacDailyNews Take” section at the end.
For those that haven’t read up on it, yes Word will on both models on both OS’s. Yes it seems a little awkward offering two hardware designs with two OS variants. But it may play out a successful strategy over time.
Focussing on the entry level product announced today. It will be available at the same time as Windows 8, this year. I’m happy to see Microsoft take some time and effort to bring a “pure tablet” to market at presumably a comparable/competitive price point to other ARM based tablets. I think it is important they put down a marker.
I also hope their OEM partners innovate and bring a solid range of variants to market, each offering something for what they see as clear market opportunities.
I recently purchased a “new” iPad and a Sony Android tablet. There is a lot (a real lot actually) to like about the iPad. Great hardware, very good OS and easy to get several things done. I’m not so impressed with the Android tablet. It is “OK” at a bunch of things, but just lacks a cohesive, simple, clean feel the iPad has.
I have put Windows 8 Release Preview on my laptop. It works well as the next Windows 7, and I occasionally run the Metro UX, it is fresh, fast, clean, but I’d don’t yet feel it is where I want to hang out all day on a PC.
I’m really looking forward to having a tablet with good touch hardware married up to Metro on a biggish screen, like the entry level ARM tablet Microsoft announced today. I think there is potential here and the keyboard, optional as it is (there is an onscreen touch keyboard in Windows 8), and the ability to swap files easily with USB and microSD and connect it to a TV or monitor is great.
I’ll definitely take one for a spin when it comes out.
I’m quite surprised at a lot of the condescending and negative feedback here. I agree with some points, like why do this in June if you are going to release just before Christmas? But at least the OEM partners and ISV ecosystem has been forewarned, etc.
Happy days, more innovation and more choice in the market! It will be great to see how Android tablets evolve and how Apple responds (with product innovation) not only over the next 6 months, but in this great category over the next 6 years.
well, you’re being generous. and that’s ok. good for you.
but:
– this is an Apple fan site;
– and the gushing hype today about the totally unproven, unreleased, and largely unknown Surface was absurd on its face;
– while however there is no question that MS has now strategically double-crossed its longtime Windows OEM’s.
i mean, this is red meat here. yum.
No, it literally has no chance of succeeding.
Metro is a widely reviled, catastrophic disaster on any form factor. The traditional Windows UI is a catastrophic disaster when it’s put on a tablet.
Both UIs the Surface is capable of running act as complete sales-poison towards it.
On top of that, what does it even bring to the table versus the iPad and existing Android tablets? A freakin’ kickstand?
It’s a day late and a dollar short, to put it very kindly.
Didn’t they do this a few yarins ago?
1. That thing is f-u-g-l-y from a design standpoint. Reminds me of my Sony Vaio from 10 years ago.
2. Is it going to compete with the iPad or the Macbook Air 11″/13″?
3. Does it have a touchscreen keyboard as well as the touchpad?
I guess people who just want to buy something/anything that is not an iPad will buy this, but iPad killer???? Not so much.
Surface. The one word in nautical vocabulary, that precedes OMG in significance.
LMAO! Google “Microsoft Surface”, and look what you see:
You can’t make this stuff up! 😀
Absolutely….PRICELESS!
What’s that whistling sound? I think I hear another Microsloth bomb dropping.
And THANK YOU BALLMER!! You’ve done it again. May your reign be long as King of the Microslothian Kingdom!
Did Microsoft purposely make this the ugliest copy of an iPad ever seen, so that Apple would be too embarrassed to sue them for “look and feel” odd an iPad?
Impressive. Hope battery life is good.
Seriously, there needs to be a law that prohibits the use of the word “innovate” when describing a yet-to-be-released (if ever) netbook-sized laptop with a stolen Atari 400 keyboard glued onto a stolen iPad cover, running a user-unfriendly OS having large, solid-colored, Playskool®, squares with micro-text as a GUI. Oh, …and a kickstand stolen from a Schwinn bicycle.
“I have found that all ugly things are made by those who strive to make something beautiful, and that all beautiful things are made by those who strive to make something useful.”
Oscar Wilde
ironic:
it’s called Surface! haha!
exactly: A superficial surface job, a facade & farce of a product.
nothing original.
all cumbersome.
legacy crapware.
Microsoft has produced nothing of original or revolutionary value since day 1, over 3 decades now, yet it was hailed as an economic superpower?!
Just like Dull Dell, it has claimed much, but only with arrogance, not brains. Michael Dell was hailed for diluting PCs?!!? humans are supposed to be proud of such genius?!
is it not amazing that Microdough has had all these years and all they can come up with with their 1million employees or brains, is to challenge Apple’s iPad with a keyboard and watch tech surface?!!? god damn. so help us God, as if that’s all we can fathom, we’re doomed as a species. no wonder the economy everywhere sucks as much as Microdough.
Steve Ballmer should commit suicide – at least career-wise. but if their board keeps him so long, they deserve to rot. shame for the rest of the employees, but then again, they choose to work there. shame for the stockholders? no, they choose to buy into ti. imagine if no one bought MSFT stock…
How am I supposed to eat and drink on top of that little tablet with a flimsy stand?
All I’m saying is, MS should to stick to what it’s good at instead of trying to chase Apple everywhere. And what they are good at is building 500 pound tables.
“called VaporMg (pronounced Vapor-Mag)”
Hey, let’s give it a name nobody can pronounce without written instructions. Brilliant. What next – “Wndws (pronounced Windows)”?!
Classic Microsoft: user-hostile right down to the naming.
The cover colors are repulsive.