Microsoft is all set to unveil the Surface mini, a 8 inch Windows tablet at an event in New York City on the 20th of May. It is just 13 more days until the announcement, and we don’t even know how it looks, but are finally starting to see some bits and pieces of information floating around the internet. Bloomberg’s Dina Bass reports that the Surface Mini will come with a Qualcomm processor, unlike its bigger brothers Surface RT and Surface 2, which run on rival Nvidia’s chips. Nokia was the only other OEM to come out with a ARM based Windows tablet in 2013, which coincidentally ran on the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor.
Neowin has a lot more information on the Surface mini, which includes a 8 inch screen, stylus-laden note taking abilities with deep one note integration, Windows RT(which is now obvious) and the availability of specialized covers acting as the kickstand. But we still do not know how it is going to look or generally placed in a market that is already starting to grow in the negative. Apple’s iPad mini and Google’s Nexus 7 (2013) have been the fan favourites and that has translated well into sales, but most people seem to not mind of a brand-less tablet either. Most tablets are reportedly only being used for media consumption, which is unsurprisingly one of the most common use cases for a large screened device. With a market leaning into consumption, especially in the smaller sized segment, can the Surface Mini provide a different take? Will students replace their notebooks with tablets that tout digital inking? We certainly think that’s what Microsoft is going for here, especially since Apple has no plans to bring a pen-based device anytime soon.
We can know how well it goes only when the device launches, but there are also other rumours that the event is going to see devices other than the smaller Surface. Currently, we don’t know anything about them, but we still have a couple more weeks to find out. So, stay tuned as we keep digging for more information regarding the latest Microsoft event.