Articles about Surface 2

What, you were expecting dancers and clicking covers? No, it turns out having tried and failed to sell the original Surface in that way, Microsoft has decided to take a different tack for the follow ups, with an advert that actually highlights -- at speed -- some of the reasons why you might want to consider buying the updated tablet.

The 30-second spot, titled "Surface 2: Thinner. Lighter. Faster" focuses on (can you guess?) the tablet’s dimensions, weight and speed, but also very briefly shows the revised kickstand’s two angles and Surface’s choice of clickable covers, including a backlit one.

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If we are to believe all the comments posted on the Interwebs by Microsoft fanboys, then the Surface lineup should have delivered two of the most popular tablets on the market and Apple and Android OEMs should have gone out of business by now. But, once reality sets in and we overlook the silly one-sided comments, people just don't care enough about Microsoft's slates -- the 4.5 percent Windows market share, from IDC's Q2 2013 report, coupled with the $0.9 billion write-off speak for themselves.

Now there's a second-generation Surface lineup which was unveiled yesterday, comprised of Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2, that quietly wants to change people's perception about Windows-based slates and their preference towards Android tablets and iPads. On paper, the new Surfaces look great. Microsoft appears to have gotten the hint -- more power, more battery life, more versatile kickstand, more accessories. The new Surface lineup is simply "more" than its predecessor. Yet I don't think many people will notice that and rush to pre-order now or buy on sales day.

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11 months ago my colleague Joe Wilcox asked BetaNews readers if they intended to buy Surface RT. Then a month later he posed the same question for Surface Pro. Out of the 2,753 responses to the first question, a sizable 61.75 percent said they would buy the tablet at some point. Which, judging from the poor sales Surface RT experienced, may have been over optimistic. Unless a large portion of the RT tablets Microsoft sold were snapped up by BetaNews readers…

The positive response was echoed in the Surface Pro poll, with a whopping 73.4 percent of 2,165 responders saying they would buy the flagship tablet, and just 16 percent giving a definite no (10.67 percent were uncertain). Clearly this shows people like the idea of Surface, and are enthusiastic about it, but just not enthusiastic enough to get their wallets out.

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Today Microsoft opens the pre-order books for its second-generation Surface lineup. The two slates, Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2, come with major under-the-hood and external changes, including beefed-up processors that are faster and help deliver better battery life and revisions to the built-in kickstand, as well as a slew of new accessories.

Surface 2 comes with the most noteworthy improvements of the two new slates. It now sports an Nvidia Tegra 4 processor which Microsoft says is up to four times faster than the Tegra 3 chip from the old generation, offers 25 percent more battery life, comes with a two-angle kickstand and features a full HD -- 1920 by 1080 resolution -- display which, again, is better than before (Surface RT's panel has a lower resolution of 1366 by 768). Pricing starts at $449 for the base 32 GB model. The 64 GB model costs $549.

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Microsoft has taken over the tech news today with its Surface 2 launch, but the company doesn't stop there, keeping the ball rolling with a bit more news, this time from the cloud. SkyDrive has become tightly integrated with today's marquee products, Windows and Office, as well as being a competitor to rival services from Google and Amazon. Now the company announces a new storage tier.

"Today, we are happy to introduce a new storage option to add 200 GB of additional storage to your SkyDrive for $100 per year", says Omar Shahine, Group Program Manager for SkyDrive. For perspective, Microsoft describes this as enough space to store one photo per hour from birth through college graduation -- this obviously depends on average image size, which continues to grow.

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At an event in New York, Microsoft reveals the successor to the Surface RT and Surface Pro -- the predictably named Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 (interesting to note that the "RT" is gone from the former's name) -- and Brian Fagioli was live-blogging from the event. So what do we have to look forward to from the product refresh?

The first generation Surface tablets suffered poor sales and came in for criticism from many quarters, so there is certainly room for improvement.

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