More details have emerged about new 10-inch Surface tablets to be released by Microsoft later this year. After the new hardware
has apparently been cleared by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Roland Quandt from the German blog WinFuture has shared new details about the possible specs for the tablets.
A previous Bloomberg report suggested that the 10″ tablets would be powered by Intel processors, and according to Quandt’s sources, these will actually be low-cost Pentium processors. More precisely, the base model will reportedly come with a Pentium Silver processor, while the higher-end model will feature a Pentium Gold CPU.
The new, cheaper ~10inch Microsoft Surface tablet will be based on Intel Pentium Gold ("Kaby Lake") and Pentium Silver ("Gemini Lake") SoCs: https://t.co/w2OwBN9aFA
— Roland Quandt (@rquandt) July 4, 2018
Details about the new tablet are still scarce, though according to Bloomberg we should also expect these tablets to come with a USB-C port, a kickstand, as well as 20% lighter body with rounded corners. Bloomberg expects an LTE option as well as a smaller battery compared to the 12-inch Surface Pro.
The Surface 3, the last 10-inch Surface tablet from Microsoft came with Intel Atom processors, which are now a bit underpowered to run Windows 10 properly. Intel’s low-cost Pentium CPUs are not mobile processors like the company’s now-deprecated Atom line, and it makes sense for Microsoft to go with these chips to make the tablets more affordable than the Surface Pro line. Bloomberg previously reported that these new 10″ Surface tablets could start at $400, which could be great value for consumers and Microsoft fans.
