When Microsoft released their Surface RT device the market was a little confused and as such sales did not impress, it wasn’t until the company finally released the Surface Pro several months ago that the public began to see where Microsoft wanted to go. Early sales were a little slow, as there had been trouble with stock, and also affecting sales was the fact that the Pro was only available to the US and Canada.
However, last week we were informed that the Surface Pro would be made available internationally, and Microsoft has already seen a huge demand with pre-orders. It’s this unexpected popularity that rumors of a new Surface Pro 2 and Surface Mini does not seem as far-fetched anymore.
We already assumed that Microsoft were working on a new Surface range of devices, but we’re shocked to learn that the Surface Pro 2 release and Surface Mini could be sooner than we think. We say this because there has been a report suggesting that there will be new 7-inch and 9-inch versions of the Surface device, and that supply chains indicate they will be on the market earlier than we assume.
DigiTimes has been keeping a close eye on the supply chain and has already seen some interesting movement of some of the expected parts for these new devices. From what we can see the Surface Pro 2 specs will not feature radical changes, but rather a minor refresh, so we might have to what for the Surface Pro 3 to get the new Intel Haswell processor.
We have to wonder if Microsoft is reacting to the imminent arrival of the Apple iPad 5 and iPad mini 2, along with the next version of the Nexus 7. However, we still have to remember that while the Surface isn’t a tablet, many consumers will still purchase one as a replacement to an aging tablet.
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