Microsoft Surface Resurfaces, New Samsung SUR40 Goes Up for Pre-Order

Posted 11/17/2011 at 8:40am | by Paul Lilly

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Microsoft announced a second, more retail-friendly version of its Microsoft Surface built by Samsung. It's the Samsung SUR40, purportedly a more versatile device with new features baked in and a slimmed down profile that enables a new form factor by allowing it to be turned onto its side.

The SUR40's screen is only four inches thin. Customers can use it horizontally as a table, hang it on a wall, or even embed it into furniture, according to Microsoft Surface director Somanna Palacanda.

"With what's happening in the world of touch and the fact that touch is becoming ubiquitous, people are looking for more immersive relationships with screens," Palacanda said. "The new Surface takes technology that’s always existed in the backs of stores and brings it front and center. So now customers and retailers can interact together, a doctor and a patient can have a more immersive consulting experience, and a banker and a customer can sit together and work on a simulation where in past the banker would be the only one in control."

One of the fancy new features is PixelSense, a technology that allows an LCD to recognize fingers, hands, and objects placed on the screen with more than 50 simultaneous touch points and immediately process and interpret what's going on. Or as Palacanda describes it, PixelSense technology "lets LCD panels 'see' without the use of actual cameras."

As to the hardware inside, the Samsung's SUR40 packs an embedded AMD Athlon II X2 dual-core processor clocked at 2.9GHz and Radeon HD 6750M graphics with DirectX 11 support. The panel is 40 inches and supports Full HD 1080p.

The SUR40 is available for pre-order now to businesses in 23 countries. Shipments are expected to kick off early next year. It will sell for $8,400 in the U.S., and vary in other parts of the world.

Image Credit: Microsoft