A post on Microsoft’s Surface blog from Brian Hall, general manager for Microsoft Surface, has confirmed that the Intel Core i5-powered devices will be available in Ireland "before the end of May".
At that time, the Surface Pro will launch in widely in Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
Additionally, the Surface RT will be made available in Malaysia by the end of April, Mexico by the end of May and in Korea and Thailand in June. The expansion of availability means that the Surface RT will be available in 29 markets.
Despite Hall claiming that "enthusiasm for Surface has been fantastic", sales of the devices have of not been stellar. The ARM-powered Surface RT in particular has not impressed markets, with some analysts arguing that it is already a failure.
However, many commentators expect the Surface Pro, which unlike the Surface RT can run legacy Windows applications, to fare better. There has already been criticism that the higher capacity 128GB versions were initially in short supply. Demand for the larger storage version may have been due to media coverage of the fact that the operating system footprint was relatively high for this class of device, leaving users short of space. However, with full USB 3.0 connectivity, this is less of an issue than with other, less well connected devices.
Hall did acknowledge this preference, saying, "one of our biggest challenges has been keeping our 128GB Surface Pro in stock. We’ve worked hard to increase availability, and most retail partners in the US and Canada as well as the Microsoft Store now have the 128 GB product consistently in stock".
There was no word as yet on euro pricing for the Surface Pro. In November of last year, a German site, Notebook.de did momentarily list the 128GB Surface Pro at €909, which is significantly higher than the dollar price being charged currently by Amazon.com of $1,049 (€806.25), or even the Microsoft online price of $999 (€767.72). Given the Surface RT 64GB version sells for €679 (with the Touch cover), compared to $767.99 (€590.481) on Amazon.com in the US, it is likely the Surface Pro 128GB will be in the €900 range.
Having covered the Surface RT fairly extensively, we will be reporting in similar fashion once we have had some hands on experience with the Surface Pro.
https://www.techcentral.ie/21064/pinnacle-of-evolution
https://www.techcentral.ie/20935/microsofts-slippery-surface
https://www.techcentral.ie/20979/surface-rt-what-lies-beneath
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