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If you were a little disappointed by the Surface Pro being exclusive to the US, you won’t have much longer to wait — Microsoft is bringing the full Windows 8 Surface to Britain “in the coming months”.
While Microsoft didn’t exactly offer much explanation as to how many months that would be, or if it’ll be on sale in John Lewis like the ARM-powered Surface RT, it did say the rollout of the Surface PCs to more countries will begin in late March — and why wouldn’t the UK be an early bird? After all, we did get the RT early. Lucky us.
The Surface Pro won’t only be hitting the UK — it’ll be reaching our chums in Australia, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong and New Zealand. The Surface RT will also be rolling out in Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan.
One thing to note is the Surface Pro sells for much more than the RT — currently in the US it’s $899 (£560), but if you’re hoping for an exact like-for-like conversion, then you’ll be sorely disappointed. The Surface RT, like most other tech products, is cheaper in the States than in the UK, mainly due to VAT. If I were to take a guess, I’d say the Surface Pro will land at around £700.
When our very own Luke Westaway took a look at the Surface Pro, he loved that the full Windows 8 OS was on-board, but he also had several reservations — mainly the chunkier form factor and Windows 8’s touch-friendliness (or lack of).
The Surface Pro has also played host to many other controversies — most notably the fact you get much smaller storage space than advertised, meaning if you buy the lower-end model, you’ll find yourself running out of room very quickly.
If you don’t want to wait another minute for a fully fledged Windows 8 tablet, you do have other options. We recently reviewed the Asus VivoTab Smart and Acer Iconia W700 — both of which received a very respectable four stars.
Is the Surface Pro exactly what you’ve been waiting for? Or is it too little too late? Let me know in the comments or surf on over to our Facebook page.
