Rumors about a smaller 7- or 8-inch version of Microsoft's Surface tablet have been brewing for some time, but today a report claims that the tablet will have features that are not available on its current 10.6-inch models.
China's WPDang - which has a decent track record when it comes to this kind of thing - reports that the Surface Mini will indeed be an 8-inch tablet and will have some Kinect-like capabilities. Specifically, its unnamed sources claim that it will have a way to recognize the face of its owner, which in theory could be used as an alternative to a password. In addition, the Surface Mini could allow touch-free hand gestures to control certain features on the tablet.
The report also claims that the Surface Mini will have a 1080p display. However, the article, or at least our translation of it, seems to be confused on whether or not it will have an Intel Bay Trail-based processor or an ARM-based Qualcomm Snapdragon chip, as earlier rumors suggested.
The report repeats earlier stories that the Surface Mini could launch sometime in the spring of 2014. Microsoft has confirmed that a Surface tablet with LTE wireless features will be released next year but details have yet to be revealed.
32 Comments - Add comment