Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2: Microsoft refreshes its hybrid tablet

Microsoft has announced a “fundamental revamp” of its Surface tablets, with second generation models offering improved battery life and processing speed. The original Surface and Surface RT were launched in June last year.

The new tablets have been designated the Surface 2 and the Surface Pro 2.  The new Surface tablets both have full 1080p, 10.1-inch HD screens and upgraded processors. The Surface 2 uses Nvidia’s Tegra 4 1.7GHz processor whilst the Pro 2 has Intel’s fourth-generation Haswell i5. Battery life on the Pro 2 is said to be 75 per cent better than the previous generation with 20 per cent better graphical performance.
Customers also have more memory and storage options to choose from. The Pro 2 will be available in 64GB and 128GB versions with 4GB of RAM, or with 256GB and 512GB of internal memory and 8GB of RAM.  The cheaper Surface either comes with 32GB or 64GB of storage and 2GB of RAM.
As well as updating the internal hardware, the new Surface tablets also come bundled with Windows software. Surface 2 gives users the full Office suite, "best of Skype" for a year, and 200GB of cloud storage via SkyDrive.