The original Surface with Windows RT could be getting a successor sometime next year, if one rumor is right.
We"re unsure of this latest rumor that"s appeared in relation to Surface tablet successors, but the content as posted by well-known Microsoft leaker MS_nerd details plausible specs for upcoming Microsoft-made tablets. Here"s what was leaked in the space of a 140 character tweet:
- There will be a Surface RT 2 that uses an 8.6-inch display and will have a Qualcomm chipset, as opposed to the NVIDIA Tegra chip used in the current Surface RT
- The Surface Pro will be updated to an 11.6-inch display, and will ditch the Intel Core i5 CPU for an upcoming and yet-to-be-released AMD "Temash" APU
- There will be a third Surface called the "Surface Book" that has a 14.6-inch display, and an Intel 22nm "Haswell" chip
The use of a next-generation Intel Haswell processor in a so-called Surface Book is not surprising, as the Haswell chips are the successors to the Ivy Bridge line currently on the market. At a rumored 14.6-inch display on a tablet is reasonably large, so it"s unclear what Microsoft may trying to target with this sort of product.
More surprising is the rumored inclusion of a Temash APU from AMD in the Surface Pro 2. Temash is the successor to AMD"s current Hondo range of tablet-specific APUs (which combine CPU cores and a GPU on the die), however the Hondo chipsets have only just started to emerge so it will be a long while before Temash APUs are ready for production. Plus, with Microsoft"s tight relationship with Intel it"s odd that they would use an x86 AMD low-power chip over one from Intel.
Both Haswell and Temash chips won"t be ready until at least mid-2013, so there is still some time before anything will start to come together in regards to successors to Microsoft"s Surface line. Plus, the Surface Pro hasn"t even gone on sale yet so you would think (or hope) a sequel is more than a year away.
Source: MS_nerd