Microsoft Surface 'Power Cover' to Pack Integrated Battery

News
By Jane McEntegart
published

Word on the street is that the next Surface cover will also charge your tablet.

Though the Surface isn't the smash hit Microsoft had hoped, the company has been received a lot of praise for its Touch Cover and Type Cover accessories with built-in keyboards. Now it looks like Redmond plans to increase the utility of its cases even further. The second version of Microsoft's Surface Pro is rumored to be launching later this year, and rumor has it Microsoft will also release a case with with a built-in battery.

Paul Thurrott of Winsupersite corroborates Neowin's report that this so-called Power Cover will later this year. He says the cover will work with Surface Pro, the Surface Pro 2, and the Surface 2. As opposed to the super slim Touch Cover, it looks like this cover will use the slightly bulkier Type Cover-style keyboard, and will "significantly" extend the battery life of the Surface (though it's not clear what capacity the battery will be). It will apparently be double the weight of the current Type Cover (1.1 lbs vs .55 lbs), and almost double the thickness (9.75 mm compared to 5.33 mm). Ultimately, this sounds like more of a dock than a cover, so it'll be interesting to hear how Microsoft pitches this one.

No word on release date, though the device isn't expected before the launch of the Surface 2/Surface Pro 2. The Surface is rumored to pack Intel's Haswell (Core i5), Windows 8.1, 8GB of RAM, and an improved kickstand. The current generation of Surface Pro is on permanent discount, so we probably don't have long to wait for the next verison.

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Jane McEntegart
16 Comments Comment from the forums
  • ingtar33
    more well designed junk. i have to admit the hardware in those surface tablets is impressive. However, as long as they run win8 they are and will remain basically junk.
    Reply
  • wemakeourfuture
    ingtar33

    more well designed junk. i have to admit the hardware in those surface tablets is impressive. However, as long as they run win8 they are and will remain basically junk.


    Problem is not the OS on Surface Tablets, its Price, Price, Price. They way over priced their devices compared to Android and iOS and have suffered the failure many expected as myself.

    Do you want them to put XP, Vista or Windows 7 on their touch tablets instead of Windows 8? You gotta be crazy
    Reply
  • warmon6
    So, MS is taking a page off of Asus Transformer/VivoTab tablets....
    Reply
  • pbrigido
    I love my Surface Pro. Don't compare this with a tablet, because it is more of a laptop with a removable keyboard. Compare it to other pieces of hardware with similar specs, and you'll find the price to be right on par.

    I probably won't upgrade when the successor comes out...maybe the generation after that though I'll pull the trigger.
    Reply
  • universal remonster
    11494763 said:
    more well designed junk. i have to admit the hardware in those surface tablets is impressive. However, as long as they run win8 they are and will remain basically junk.

    Baaaahh mmmBaa a a ahh Baaa ahh.

    Get back in line with the rest of the sheep and discuss how GREAT of a touch experience Surface would have been with Win 7. Now THAT would be a dream machine am I right?? Sorry that it takes more than 6 minutes in a Best Buy to figure things out, or maybe it's your non-conductive sheep hoof that's giving you troubles navigating the device. The rest of us Surface Pro users can all see that in a tablet environment, Win 8 works great.
    Reply
  • stevejnb
    11494763 said:
    more well designed junk. i have to admit the hardware in those surface tablets is impressive. However, as long as they run win8 they are and will remain basically junk.

    This is why I have trouble taking a good portion of the Windows 8 hatred seriously. Where I can totally understand that it's not ideal for a lot of scenarios (businesses, non-touch screen devices) and that a lot of people simply don't want to deal with the hassle of learning its new interface, when you have people who come in and blindly declare a device junk when the device was almost designed from the ground up for Windows 8 and would benefit significantly from having it on there, you know that it really is utterly blind hatred. I swear some of you come into forums like this and say "Ok, what's it cool to dislike today?" without having a clue what the hated device is actually like.

    Seeing as the Surface Pro's biggest weakness is probably its battery life - and, arguably, price point, though I think it's inching towards the right ballpark here - this is not a bad device advancement in itself. That being said, for those who have already forked out the $100+ for a touch/type cover, the idea of getting another keyboard will rankle. The keyboard covers are overpriced to begin with - seriously, Bluetooth keyboards cost about half as much and many of them work far better than the touch cover - and if MS is going to pull an Apple and release an update every year or two on horribly overpriced hardware, it won't do anything more than hurt their already lacklustre sales. Get it through your head MS - you are NOT Apple, and cannot push your weight around like they can. Your devices may be good, but they are NOT "cool" and don't command the must-have muscle that Apple products do.
    Reply
  • gfontana1986
    Sounds interesting, worth checking into...
    Reply
  • back_by_demand
    A lot of big ifs here, but if the new Surface Pro 2 has 7 hours+ of battery and this cover can give another 7 hours, you just created an instant market leader
    Reply
  • d_kuhn
    I've got a Surface Pro, I think it's a great machine and if they were a bit cheaper I think they'd sell well. Win8 is not a perfect tablet os by any means but it's a whole lot better than any of the other windows operating systems. I also have an iPad and while the Surface Pro is a LOT more useful (iPad isn't used much anymore), they have a bit of work to do before the user experience matches the iOS machines.
    Reply
  • w8gaming
    11495497 said:
    Seeing as the Surface Pro's biggest weakness is probably its battery life - and, arguably, price point, though I think it's inching towards the right ballpark here - this is not a bad device advancement in itself. That being said, for those who have already forked out the $100+ for a touch/type cover, the idea of getting another keyboard will rankle. The keyboard covers are overpriced to begin with - seriously, Bluetooth keyboards cost about half as much and many of them work far better than the touch cover - and if MS is going to pull an Apple and release an update every year or two on horribly overpriced hardware, it won't do anything more than hurt their already lacklustre sales. Get it through your head MS - you are NOT Apple, and cannot push your weight around like they can. Your devices may be good, but they are NOT "cool" and don't command the must-have muscle that Apple products do.

    The problem with MS is they do not seem to know what they really want to achieve. If they are really interested to become a "device" company, then they better hurry up and release hardware at faster pace. For a late comer that has little market share, they cannot hope to be like Apple and release one or two product in a year and hope for the best. They need to be more like Samsung to swarm the market with various devices and see which one sticks. Or if they are not really interested to be a dominant hardware vendor, then they should have made it clear that they are not interested to become a "device" company, but are only making hardware to showcase what W8 machine should be like, control the number of units produced and not making too many that they cannot sell and have to be written off. I really do not think MS at the moment knows how to run a successful hardware business.
    Reply