Microsoft introduces their own tablets for Win 8 and Win RT

Microsoft announced a press conference last week, but kept the main subject to themselves fairly well.  Rumors of various types spread across the net this weekend, and now we finally have learned what Microsoft was keeping under wraps.  Microsoft is releasing two tablets, named Surface, one based on ARM hardware and the other on X86.

Though known primarily for their software, Microsoft has ventured into hardware sales before this, notably with their XBox gaming platform and with their peripheral hardware for computers.  So this is not entirely new territory for the software giant.

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These new tablets have magnesium shells, 10.6 inch Gorilla Glass HD displays, a built in stand, and a protective cover that also acts as multi-touch keyboard and trackpad.  They will have HDMI, USB2, a micro SD slot and either 32gb or 64gb of onboard storage space.  And built in Wi-Fi of course.  The ARM based tablet will use an Nvidia processor.  The X86 tablet will use an i5 Ivy Bridge cpu.

The Surface tablets seem to take up position in functionality between laptops and the tablets we've seen so far from Apple.  The main question is, can they compete in the luxury market that Apple now controls?  These Surface tablets do not look like they are meant to compete in the lower price tiers, though that is speculation on my part, since no pricing has been announced so far.

You can find the Surface tablets at Microsoft's site.  And there are many articles regarding the tablets, including this one at Endgaget.

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And at The Verge.

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