Yep, it’s a tablet: Microsoft introduces the Surface

Microsoft unveiled an elaborately shrouded product announcement Monday, showing off a new Windows 8-based tablet called the Surface at a press event in Hollywood.

Microsoft CEO Steven Ballmer took the stage at a small Hollywood production facility to introduce the new product, which the company hopes can cut into the dominant tablet-market position currently enjoyed by Apple’s iPad.

Weighing in at just under 1.5 pounds, measuring 12 millimeters in depth and arriving with a 10.6-inch diagonal display, the Surface features a magnesium body and has a 3mm-thick magnetic cover that doubles as a keyboard and trackpad.

A family of Surface devices will be produced, some of which will run Windows 8 on Intel processors and some of which will run Windows RT, the version of Windows for mobile processors based on the ARM chip.

More to come…

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