Microsoft and Samsung uncloak slimmer Surface

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. ®