Microsoft's Surface Pro hasn’t really enjoyed relative success since its official launch back in January, and according to a new retail listing, a 256GB variant is soon to be headed to the U.S. market. In what will certainly go down as a win for power users looking for vast quantities of storage real estate, the device will cost $1199, and since the leaked listing has been sourced through one of the Redmond's authorized resellers, should be available very, very soon.
The Surface RT was released with a great deal of excitement, and although it has been spoken of positively by many corners, it's still yet to find itself a firm place in the iPad dominated tablet industry. In an effort to change the fortunes of the Surface RT, sources familiar with Microsoft's internal plans are suggesting that the Redmond company are planning on launching a new variant of the tablet, but this time choosing Qualcomm Inc. as their preferred processor suppliers.
According to sources of Digitimes, Microsoft is planning to release the second generation of its Surface tablet computer at the BUILD Developer Conference commencing from June 26th. Digitimes is famously hit-and-miss with this kind of "upstream supply chain" information, but with the Redmond company certainly playing catch-up in the tablet market, a swift follow up to the inaugural Surface would certainly help the Windows maker's cause.
For years, PC users have figured out ways to modify OS X in order to run it on regular non-Apple-designed machines. According to a video published on YouTube, a Microsoft Surface Pro user has managed to install Apple’s newest operating system on the newly-released Microsoft PC device.
If you have been hoping to pick up a Microsoft Surface Pro this month as your late Christmas present, you may be disappointed, since the shipping date has been pushed back slightly, to February 9th, in both the United States and Canada, along with several accessories to please anybody’s ‘wants’ and ‘needs’.
With Windows 8, Microsoft took some rather bold and unprecedented steps. The RT version of the operating system, found on the company’s Surface tablet (and perhaps, soon to land of similar offerings from a plethora of other manufacturers), enabled the software giant to enter a market that was previously dominated by Apple’s iPad and various-manufacturers’ Android-based tablets. Judging by the response that Surface has received from the consumer population, Microsoft’s entry in this niche seems to be playing out well as of yet. The good thing is that the RT version of Windows doesn’t suffer from a serious lack of apps, considering as how a lot of legacy apps are becoming available in their Modern UI versions for the platform. Things do seem to be headed in the right direction.
There is a lot of fuss being made in the tablet industry at the moment, centering around the pros and cons of the most well-known tablets on the market and which piece of hardware will reign supreme in the race to be king of the slates. Contenders include the Apple iPad, the Microsoft Surface, the ASUS Nexus 7 and the Nexus 10 manufactured by Samsung. They are all extremely capable options, but look past their feature sets and you will ultimately find that they all have a similar set of issues that affect our user experience. If you happen to have opted for the Microsoft Surface RT tablet, then the discoveries of one individual could go some way to eradicating any touch-screen responsiveness issues you may have been facing.
This past Monday, we reported on a jailbreak for Windows RT that allowed it to run apps available outside of Microsoft’s Windows Store. The Redmond company has now come out, not to condemn the jailbreak, instead simply to confirm that it poses no security threat.
The open source nature of Android gives it one particular edge over other smartphone and tablet platforms, in being available for a lot more development – both on the app side and modifications – and thus, having loads more to offer than other tablet OS. However, that doesn’t mean it will remain exclusive in all areas where open source matters. Windows is the most favored operating system for desktops, and with the introduction of Windows RT and the Surface tablet, Microsoft, it seems, is looking to gear things up a bit. The recently released SNES emulator for Microsoft Surface, Snes8x, which works with Windows RT, does well to prove that point, and does it really well.
According to MS_nerd, a guy renowned for leaking information about Microsoft, the Redmond company is planning the release of up three versions of the Surface tablet at some point next year. With most tablet vendors offering two or three different variants to consumers, Microsoft believes three models is the right number to curtail this most competitive of markets.
