Microsoft unveils new tablets

Microsoft has launched a brace of new Surface tablets as it urgently tries to turn itself into a gadget and services company like rival Apple, The Australian reported.

Microsoft rolled out new Surface Pro 2 and Surface 2 tablets at an event in New York to revamp the Surface Pro and Surface RT tablets that launched the software giant’s foray into making mobile computing hardware last year.

“We have been working on the second generation of these products for the good part of eighteen months,” said Panos Panay, Microsoft’s vice president for Surface.

Processors and screens on both devices have been upgraded with the Surface Pro 2 getting an Intel Core i5 ‘Haswell’ processor and an upgraded graphics processor claimed to give a 20 perc ent performance improvement and 60 per cent-longer battery life.

Colour accuracy on the Surface Pro 2’s 1920 by 1080 screen is claimed to be 50 per cent better.

The Surface 2 scores an Nvidia Tegra 4 processor and the screen resolution has been bumped up from 1366 by 768 pixels to Full HD resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels. Battery life climbs from a claimed 8 hours on the Surface RT to 10 hours on the Surface 2.