Next SurfaceRT To Come With Qualcomm Snapdragon 800, LTE

recoiledsnake writes "Following up on our previous discussion of Microsoft selling discounted SurfaceRT tablets to schools (which fueled speculation about the future of Surface RT), Bloomberg is now reporting that Microsoft is fast at work on the next Surface RT which will replace the current Tegra 3 with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chip which has stellar benchmarks against the likes of the upcoming Tegra 4, Apple A6X, and Exynos processors, especially in the GPU and graphics department. Since the SoC comes with 3g/LTE, this might be the first Surface to support integrated cellular data. There are also indications that there could be an 8" version, and that the new versions might be revealed alongside the Windows 8.1 preview bits at the upcoming BUILD conference, starting on June 26."

Re:Gets it right on the third go

[Vanderhoth]

Not getting the start menu. It's getting a start BUTTON. It still takes you to metro, so no thanks. It's a crap product that no one wants.

Re:So what?

[Missing.Matter]

The single biggest advantage is the ability to display more than one app at a time. When I show my iPad using friends this, they get very jealous. I've personally switched 4 people into the Windows RT camp using this feature alone. Windows 8.1 will make it even better by adding the ability to run multiple instances of an app, between-app information sharing, and variable width frames.

Aside from that, in no particular order:

• Multiple user accounts
• Flash support (means free Hulu)
• Built in: USB, video out, micro SD
• An actual file manager
• An actual process manager
• Better multitasking. By this I mean in iPad, you have to double tap to see a list of open apps, which only display an icon. This double tap operation usually inturrupts anything that's going on in the app (i.e. pausing a netflix video). In Windows you swipe in and get thumbnails of the actual apps running, and nothing is paused. You can then drag in the app and dock it next to the running one.
• Mouse support and better external display support. Works just like Windows when plugged into a keyboard and mouse. iPad has extreme trouble with this.
• Even Windows RT supports more peripherals like printers, scanners, game pads, external harddrives, external optical drives, USB drives, and again mice.
• In many cases, Windows RT tablets are cheaper than iPad.
• Live tiles. Slashdot loves to bash them, but all you get on iPad are static icons. Don't display information. Don't update based on app state. Can't resize based on preference. Boring and useless.
• More customizable. on iOS your choices are limited to a wallpaper and apps on your launcher. On Windows you choose the background, wallpaper, accent color, which tiles are pinned, how to arrange and group them, how to resize the tiles, which tiles display information, etc.

That's the short list. If you want more, I can go on an on. I'm a user of both, and I vastly prefer Windows RT over iOS. In my eyes there is literally nothing redeemable about iOS over Windows RT except the app situation, and that is easily correctable with time.