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The Microsoft Surface Pro 2 is a 10.6 inch tablet with a full HD display, an Intel Haswell processor, digital pen input, and basically everything you could want from a modern laptop. It just happens to come in the shape of a tablet… with an optional keyboard cover.
When the Surface Pro 2 launched in October, it shipped with an Intel Core i5-4200U processor. But it looks like Microsoft has started shipping new models with a slightly faster CPU at no additional charge.
The difference probably isn’t great enough to really annoy early adopters. But it’ll probably mildly irritate them.
Here’s a roundup of mobile tech news from around the web.
- Microsoft gives Surface Pro 2 tablet a faster CPU
Microsoft has quietly replaced the 1.6 GHz Core i5-4200U chip in its new Surface Pro 2 tablets with a faster 1.9 GHz Core i5-4300U chip. [The Verge] - Mozilla’s delayed Firefox app for Windows 8 gets delayed again
Tired of waiting for a tablet-friendly version of Firefox for Windows? Tough. [Engadget] - A look at the webOS projects HP canceled
LG is about to unveil its first TV running webOS software. But if HP hadn’t canceled it webOS plans, we’d have a whole slew of new phones and tablets (and OS updates) by now. [The Verge] - How to use Amazon Instant Video on an Android device
If you have an Amazon Kindle Fire you can stream Amazon Instant Video to your mobile device. But if you have a normal Android tablet, not so much… unless you jump through a bunch of hoops involving Adobe Flash Player and a web browser that supports it (as well as user agent switching). [The Digital Reader] - Update: Winamp may not be shutting down after all
Winamp was supposed to shut down last month. It didn’t… that might be due to a deal in the works for AOL to sell Winamp and Shoutcast to online radio station aggregator Radionomy. [TechCrunch] - First look at graphics performance of Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 805 chip
Not surprisingly, Qualcomm says it’s faster than the Snapdragon 800. [Engadget] - Android 4.3.1 running on an OLPC XO-4 touchscreen laptop
The latest OLPC XO tablets are low-cost devices that ship with Android software. But if you want to run Android on one of the group’s laptops, you can do that too. [Christoph Derndorfer]
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I got my surface 2 pro about a week ago, and noticed almost immediately that I have the 4300U, versus the 4200U in the launch version… Had some weird data points showing, so dug around the web, and saw that the surface 2 was listed as an intel 4200U… And i was showing a 4300U. ark.intel shows the only real differences as the speed, and the trusted execution, plus a slightly higher GPU clock speed. (1.1 on the 4300, versus 1.0 on the 4200…)
I have been using the technique described above to access my Amazon content for a few weeks now.
It’s imperfect as stated, but still better than nothing.
I wonder why MS didn’t use this chip in the first place. They supposedly cost the same.
Most likely a heat issue
90%+ users won’t even notice the speed boost difference between the surface pro 1 and 2.