Demand for the Microsoft Surface [product information] may not be quite as high as Microsoft had expected or hoped for but that does not appear to be deterring it from forging ahead with its next generation of tablets. Well known insider MS_nerd today revealed that the company could have three new models in the works for next year:
- Surface RT 2 with an 8.6-inch display and a Qualcomm chipset (replacing the NVIDIA Tegra 3 used in the current model)
- New Surface Pro model with an 11.6-inch display and a yet-to-be-released AMD “Temash” APU
- “Surface Book” with a 14.6-inch display and a 22nm Intel “Haswell” chip
Neither the AMD “Temash,” the successor to AMD’s Hondo tablet-specific APUs, nor the Intel “Haswell” processors, set to succeed current Ivy Bridge processors, are likely to be ready until mid-2013, suggesting that these models will launch in the latter part of 2013. With the Surface with Windows 8 Pro tablet [product information] set to launch in January, the timing does not appear unreasonable.
Past rumours have also indicated that Microsoft is working on a 7-inch Xbox Surface tablet and a Surface smartphone.