Microsoft Announces Special Edition NFL Type Covers for Surface Pro

This morning, Microsoft announced a new line of Surface Special Edition NFL Type Covers. Designed for Surface Pro 4 and Surface Pro 3, these new Type Covers are available for all 32 NFL Football teams and will cost $160 in the US and Canada.

“just in time for the 2016-2017 season, we are introducing the new Microsoft Surface Special Edition NFL Type Covers,” Microsoft’s Panos Panay reveals. “Officially licensed by the National Football League, the new type covers let you support your favorite team in style with beautiful full-bleed NFL logos printed on premium and durable material. And of course it takes advantage of our latest Surface Pro keyboard technology to give you the perfect amount of travel in every keystroke, spaced keys for fast typing, and a large glass trackpad.”

I’ve been testing an NFL Type Cover since last week—I teased it previously on Twitter—and have a few observations.

No fingerprint reader. Seeing the photo on Twitter, a few people asked me if it included the fingerprint reader you can get on the Surface Pro 4 Type Cover with Fingerprint ID. It does not, sorry.

Not Alcantara. Though all of the NFL Type Covers are a medium gray color, they are not the same as the Signature Edition Type Cover, which is made of alpaca—sorry, Alcantara—material. But they’re still really nice.

The logos are way off-center. This apparently now true of all of the NFL Type Covers, but the New England Patriots version I got, as well as the one from that minor league club that Brad follows, are not centered properly on the cover. Instead, the logo is pushed to the bottom.

You can’t see the logo when you’re using it. Because the team logo is on the back of the keyboard, you can’t see it when you’re using your Surface. They should include a laptop skin for your Surface Pro as well, methinks.

Anyway. It’s very nicely done for the most part, with the same high-quality materials found on other Type Covers, and the same excellent typing and pointing experiences.

The Microsoft Surface Special Edition NFL Type Covers will be available soon from the Surface web site. (The link isn’t working at the moment.)