Samsung's 40-inch Microsoft Surface Demonstrated on Video

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How long before people describe the Surface as a giant iPad?

Even though it's not exactly a bleeding edge concept anymore with tablets everywhere you look, Microsoft's Surface technology is still cool. On display at the Samsung booth at CES 2012 is the SUR40, which is a 1080p 40-inch LCD that runs the latest Microsoft Surface software.

It's not going to make anyone want to ditch their iPad, Android tablet or even the cheap PlayBooks and TouchPads they're using for couchside browsing, but then again, those aren't huge like Surface. You'll likely find this in business trying to show off their products in a new and innovative way. Check out a video demo below:

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
21 Comments Comment from the forums
  • d_kuhn
    1080p is horrible resolution for a 40" computing device display... heck it's horrible for a 20" computing device display. Crank the resolution up (4k hd would be reasonable), give it enough GPU and computing umph to run it snappily... and you've got a cool system - but it better cost less than $2500. (not at all demanding am I?)
    Reply
  • alvine
    it will serve as a nice coffee table
    Reply
  • dragonsqrrl
    D_Kuhn1080p is horrible resolution for a 40" computing device display... heck it's horrible for a 20" computing device display. Crank the resolution up (4k hd would be reasonable), give it enough GPU and computing umph to run it snappily... and you've got a cool system - but it better cost less than $2500. (not at all demanding am I?)Nooo, not at all... a 40" 4k display would cost more than $2500 by itself.
    Reply
  • ankaJ42
    Why is 1080P the magic number for display panels?
    Reply
  • whiteodian
    This reminds me of the movies when they would have a display laying flat like this and have battle plans or something on it. In a few years it will probably have 3D (without glasses) and be just like those movies. Cool to look at, but not sure I need one.
    Reply
  • dragonsqrrl
    Am I the only one who thinks that gigantic ass bezel kills the "interactive surface" illusion? I think the experience would be more effective (and more unique) if the entire surface of the table were interactive and dynamic. The large scale multi touch interactivity looks great, the physical shell not so much. It looks like you're interacting with a TV monitor that happens to be rotated 90 degrees so it can also function as a table surface, instead of it being an interactive table surface.
    Reply
  • dragonsqrrl
    ankaJ42Why is 1080P the magic number for display panels?Because it's the current HD standard.
    Reply
  • Nakal
    Apple will probably sue them for it because it looks like an IPAD, just bigger....
    Reply
  • Looks clunky to me. Typical Microsoft. The user interface has such a long delay you can see users struggling to move and re-size objects.
    Reply
  • mrtaylorfrank
    This was in development way before the iPad 2 was even conceptualized
    Reply