Surface with Windows 8 Pro: DOA - InfoWorld

Sometimes I wonder if Microsoft's Surface efforts will ever get the chance to evolve beyond the "version 1.0" stage. Case in point being the latest announcements about the upcoming Surface with Windows 8 Pro. If you missed the evening news or the Official Microsoft Blog, let me hit the high points for you.

Surface with Windows 8 Pro will arrive in January. It'll certainly be sold in Microsoft Stores and online thru Microsoft. No indication yet if you'll be able to get it elsewhere.

If you want a keyboard, the cheapest Surface Pro costs more than a thousand bucks.

For a thousand bucks, you get 64GB of SSD storage. We don't yet know how much of that SSD will be eaten up by the operating system, but Microsoft says the 64-bit Windows 8 Pro takes up 20GB. If you install Office 2013, Microsoft says you'll use 3GB more, leaving you with 41GB of usable space, give or take a bit.

The screen runs 10.6 inches, at 1,920-by-1,080 pixels, driven by an Intel HD 4000 chip. No, I won't draw a comparison to Apple's 2,048-by-1,536 Retina display.

You also get 4GB of RAM, an i5 "Ivy Bridge" processor, a USB 3.0 slot, and Mini DisplayPort; Wi-Fi but no 3G or 4G; and a stylus. Of course. It's a Microsoft tablet, it has to have a stylus.

If you want Office, you will pay more. Although Office 2013 Home & Student RT (sans Outlook) comes with the Surface RT tablet, Surface Pro doesn't have Office built-in. Office 2013 isn't available at retail yet, but expect to add at least a couple hundred dollars more if you want to buy Outlook. 

Then there's the battery. Microsoft studiously avoided discussion of the battery life in all of its official material. Surprisingly, it was Surface honcho Panos Panay (the person who controls the @surface Twitter account) who let the bad news slip in a tweet: 

Surface pro will have approximately half the batter[y] life of Surface RT.

The folks at Engadget, who publicized the tweet, figure that means the Surface Pro will run about four-and-a-half hours on a charge.

Did I get this right? The low-end Surface Pro will set me back $1,300 for a 2-pound Windows 8 touch tablet with keyboard, Outlook, 1,920 by 1,080, a bit over 40GB of usable storage -- and a battery that lasts four hours?

I think I'll run out and buy a dozen.

This story, "Surface with Windows 8 Pro: DOA," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.