Microsoft is now taking orders for the Surface Power Cover. It’s a keyboard cover for the latest Surface tablets which also includes an integrated battery that can give you up to 70 percent more battery life.
First introduced in September, the Surface Power Cover is expected to ship starting March 19th. It’s available for pre-order from the Microsoft Store for $200.
Like the company’s Touch and Type covers, the Power Cover acts as a protective cover for a Surface tablet and also as a keyboard and touchpad.
What’s new is the built-in battery that lets you extend battery life on a Surface Pro, Surface Pro 2, or Surface 2 tablet. The Power Cover isn’t compatible with the original Microsoft Surface RT.
Microsoft says the Power Cover should provide up to 70 percent longer battery life with the Surface 2 or about 60 percent more run time with the Surface Pro or Surface Pro 2 when playing videos. Actual results will depend on what activities you’re using the tablet to do.
Thanks to the built-in battery, the Power Cover is a bit thicker and heavier than other Surface tablet covers. It measures about 0.4 inches thick and weighs about 1.1 pounds.
At $200, the cover’s not exactly cheap. But since Microsoft charges $120 for a Touch Cover 2 or $130 for a Type Cover 2, the new Power Cover isn’t completely out of line with Microsoft’s existing Surface cover prices.
via ZDNet
some ppl just cant get the difference
I can buy an Android Tablet for half that much!
You could but it would not be a full fledged ultra thin laptop with an i5 processor.
I don’t get it. I have a Surface Pro 2 — it’s already fat and heavy. You add this keyboard+battery, you basically have a heavy laptop, with crappier ergonomics: a 10″ screen high-DPI screen is very uncomfortable for non-metro software. And the trackpad blows.
It’s also got a Wacom digitizer. For anyone who does design or art, the Surface Pro 1 & 2 can’t really be compared to any other currently-sold tablet or laptop.
Like most tablets, you can’t just swap batteries for longer run times and you can’t always have access to a AC plug on the go or even a DC car adapter…
A keyboard with extra battery is often the only practical solution short of lugging around a big external battery pack… which you can’t just fold against the tablet like you can with the Keyboard cover!
So it’s the lesser inconvenience compared to other solutions and the keyboard is preferable for typing… Even for devices like the iPad, keyboards are often considered useful enough to compensate for the extra inconvenience of lugging them around… While, being able to leave them behind still preserves the usage of the tablet as a tablet…
I would disagree on the weight being equal to a heavy laptop as heavy laptops can easily be more than twice as heavy and remember that with a laptop you can’t detach the keyboard and leave it behind when you don’t need it…
The Screen is also 10.8″, which is a bit larger than 10″ for not as bad as you’re thinking… and the WACOM digital pen more than compensates for the trackpad…
Sure, it’s not for everyone but there are people it would appeal to… I’m sure there are many things you prefer that other people wouldn’t like either… doesn’t change that a device that fits your needs is still a good product… we’re all different and it’s a mistake to think of products in only how they would appeal to ourselves!
The surface pro and pro 2 are full fledged ultra thin laptops. Having the expectation of a thin tablet profile is not a fair expectation of a device that is a full i5 powerhouse. Therefore, a keyboard that is a hair thicker that significantly extends battery life is no problem at all.
“It’s already fat and heavy” that’s what she said….(Michael Scott)