Microsoft's canceled Surface Mini in 2014 surfaced in photos

Microsoft's 2014 Surface Mini had been held off by officials and now photos of the said tablet have surfaced.

microsoft ceo satya nadella
Reuters

The mobile tech space has been buzzed after photos of Microsoft Surface Mini, supposedly released in 2014 but to no avail, have circulated online since a couple of days ago. No one at Microsoft has spoken of how the company came up with the decision to hold it off, but based on its specs Microsoft could be right to cancel Surface Mini's release.

The Surface Mini tablet is the 2014 product of Microsoft's corporate vice president for Surface Computing Panos Panay's during his helm. Although it was announced for release back in the day, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella and executive vice president Stephen Elop came up with a decision to abort the planned rollout.

Specifications-wise, the device sports a Snapdragon 800 CPU, 1 gigabyte of RAM, Adreno 330 GPU, and an 8-inch 1440 x 1080 resolution. It has a microSD slot, pen slot, headphone jack, USB charging port, and USB-OTG.

The Surface Mini is portrait-oriented with a kickstand that works similarly to the Surface 3. The device's angled bezels make it look like a product that is released way before 2014.

The 2014 tablet runs on Windows RT which can be found in the Surface 2 which Microsoft later killed off. According to Panay, the Surface Mini tablet was designed for note-taking.

It remained a speculation why Nadella and Elop dismissed the Surface Mini tablet until "official" images and details emerged on Windows Central. From the looks of the device, specifications and design-wise, the tablet may have poorly competed against products of Samsung and Apple that were released in 2014.

The Surface Mini was said to offer nothing new as it is much like the other variants Microsoft offered during the time. Apparently, interested fans will not be able to lay hands on the device as Microsoft has no plans of releasing.

This article was first published on July 3, 2017
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