Microsoft and Samsung uncloak slimmer Surface
Touchable tabletop maxi-tab goes second-gen
Microsoft and Samsung have confirmed that the next iteration of the Surface tabletop computer system will go on sale soon.
The Samsung SUR40 will feature a 40-inch 1,920-by-1,080-pixel touch screen with a 178 degree viewing angle in a 1,095 x 728 x 707.4 mm table that weighs 45kg. The guts of the machine include an Athlon X2 Dual-Core 245e running at 2.9GHz, with 4GB DDR3 memory. The touchable beastie runs Windows 7 x64.
“We listened to our partners and customers’ requests for a lighter and thinner form factor that gives them flexibility because there’s no one-size-fits-all in the retail space,” said Somanna Palacanda, director of Microsoft Surface, in a statement.
I have the touch
The Surface platform was first shown off by Redmond in 2007, but has had little traction in the market (despite sci-fi product placement) – although Microsoft uses them a lot in-house. The Redmond campus uses Surface for everything from giving directions to displays in the Microsoft museum to power and ventilation controls in the company’s HPC testing unit.
Microsoft is pitching the system at retail and customer service centers, and claims they get a much better consumer response thanks to the large screen and interactive touch interface. In trials with the Royal Bank of Canada, Microsoft claims they got 10 per cent of customers engaged using the platform, prompting the canny Canadians to place a large order for the units. ®
COMMENTS
10% of customers got engaged
too each other? Just what was on that screen?
90% presumably already married or couldn't get near the dam thing.
Nope, I use a 40" samsung TV as my primary monitor, it's sat on my desk right in front of me and looks lovely. I can barely make out the pixels.
I have a 24" monitor too, which is quietly gathering dust in the box room... I really don't have space for a dual monitor set up, but if I did I'd probably drag in my old 32" TV instead. I used that for years and although it's only 720p what forced the upgrade wasn't the visibility of the pixels, just that the low resolution was annoying.
@Chris 19
"If they made it smaller, say 32" screen or less, fairly thin so it could be laid flat (preferably with a slight slant) on a table"
Err it's not laid on a table, it IS a table (otherwise the 45kg would be awkward).
Also you probably want to avoid the "slight slant" bit. Table multi-touch systems are designed with multi user collaboration in mind. so you want people to be able to stand around it and use it easily from all sides. This requires that it is both level and also reasonably large .
how much does it cost?
i want on in the lounge
not that i'd ever really use it, but surely you could get a MAME emulator running on it and play old fashions pub table space invaders on it, no?
