The Surface Mini Is The Bullet Microsoft Dodged

The Surface family of computers is a big part of Microsoft’s resurgence over the last few years. The Surface Mini was meant to accompany the Surface Pro 3 back in 2014 but Microsoft held it back. While it looks a lot like a Surface Pro that’s been cut down, it ran a Snapdragon processor, just 1GB of memory and 32GB of storage.

Windows Central managed to get their hands on the unreleased hardware.

Like its big brother, it boasted a kickstand and pen input, but had an 8-inch display. That pitched it against the iPad mini and smaller Android tablets.

The Surface Pro distinguishes itself from other tablets by being very much a productivity device. Smaller devices, around that 8-inch size, tend to be more about content consumption rather than creation.

According to Windows Central, the Surface Mini would have run Windows RT – which was canned not long after the Surface Pro 3 release. And that would have lumbered Microsoft with another device to support with an OS that was not long for this world.


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