A eagle eyed techie has spotted some confirmation of the Surface Mini in the online user manual for the Surface Pro 3. Silly Microsoft… Never underestimate the tech community, they really like to dig deep for exclusive info on new releases. The discovery came from Paul Thurrott of Supersite, be sure to follow him on Twitter.
Anyway, Paul was poring over the user manual for Microsoft’s new tablet/laptop hybrid and came across the info confirming the Mini in a section which details how to use a pen… well, not just any pen, the Surface Pen, a battery operated pen tool which allows input on a range of Surface devices, and no you don’t have to pay extra for it, it comes with them.
Here’s a pic of the confirmation, you can clearly see the Surface Mini reference at the bottom of the image.
The Surface Mini has been rumoured for a while now, as we reported a few weeks ago. You can read the article here. We also covered the accidental outing of the Surface Pro 3… and yes Microsoft is now two for two on accidental Surface confirmations.
Possible rumoured specs point to the Mini being a 7-inch or 8-inch tablet, much like Surface 2. Other rumours on hardware said that the Surface Mini may include a 7.5-inch 1440×1080-pixel resolution display with a 4:3 aspect ratio, apparently powered by a Qualcomm processor and could include Windows RT. All speculation, I know but it sounds good.
Earlier last month Microsoft invited several big tech industry names and members of the press to a Microsoft Surface event, where we hoped we would see the Surface Mini or another smaller Surface tablet, however, we didn’t since allegedly plans for an announcement were cancelled. The Surface Pro 3 was well received by many however.
Microsoft has also refused to confirm the existence of the Mini numerous times, plus the link to download the picture above has gone missing, presumed taken down.On previous occasions such a move is considered further evidence of confirmation, and in this case that assumption may be correct.
Watch this space, when Microsoft eventually does show off the Surface Mini, or something else going by that name, we’ll be sure to let you know about it.
Sources: Microsoft, Paul Thurrott