After hearing the news today, a few things came to me that I thought are worth posting.
– The Surface Pro is big and heavy for a tablet (and it’s not cheap either), there is no ‘normal’ sized Surface tablet, so there is an untapped market here.
– with Android tablets effectively discontinued, there is now an opportunity here for Windows/Surface tablets (Chrome OS tablets suck and will continue to suck for some time, and at the moment there is only 1 in existence)
– The hardware is ready: Microsoft and Intel have figured out how to make a fanless tablet with good performance. The i5 Surface Pro and i5 Surface Book clipboard are fanless.
– Intel has improved a lot since the m3 processor in the Surface Pro 4, and I believe the upcoming version will have a PCH chipset made on the 14nm process for better battery life and less heat, which is especially important in a small fanless tablet and package such as the Core m3
– Microsoft has figured out how to make a cellular Surface, the Surface Pro got great reviews and people will want that option in a 10″ tablet
– we now know that Windows + ARM is not a good experience and possibly won’t ever be a good experience, Intel is the way to go for Windows tablets
Overall, a 10″ Intel powered Surface tablet just makes sense at this time, it certainly makes more sense than the Surface Laptop. I think it could sell well and surprise some people
Bats
<p>The problem with Surface is not hardware. It's software. People don't buy the iPad because of it's internals. The buy iPads it's because they can do things with it and rather easily. Windows is Windows where it takes a lot of clicks to do one or more things. It's confusing. </p><p><br></p><p>I true iPad competitor has to match or surpass iPad's ease of use. The iPad is so easy a 1 year (seriously a 1 year old) can use it.</p>