Microsoft Corp. unveiled the cheapest-ever model\u00a0of its Surface laptop,\u00a0aiming to take a larger share of the lucrative notebook computer market by targeting students and budget shoppers.<\/p>\n
The Surface Laptop Go, starting at $549, is smaller and lighter than the company\u2019s other notebooks\u00a0and has\u00a0a fingerprint scanner to log in.<\/p>\n
The device\u00a0comes in three metallic finishes \u2014\u00a0ice blue, platinum and a pinkish-gold color that Microsoft calls sandstone, and has 13 hours of battery life and\u00a0an Intel Corp. processor.<\/p>\n
Customers can pre-order Thursday ahead of the laptops\u2019 availability\u00a0 on Oct. 13, Surface Vice President\u00a0Pete Kyriacou\u00a0said<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Microsoft is releasing its second laptop, expanding the Surface product line in the traditional notebook-computer market after starting off by pioneering a different type of device —\u00a0the two-in-one or detachable tablet, which consists of a touch-screen that separates from a keyboard.<\/p>\n Apple Inc.\u2019s cheapest laptop is the $999 MacBook Air, while Google-software based Chromebooks from various manufacturers start at about $250 for a decent model. Google’s Pixelbook Go, that company\u2019s lower-end laptop, retails for $650.<\/p>\n The software maker uses the Surface business to showcase its Windows and Office programs and to experiment with different hardware designs.<\/p>\n Microsoft has a far smaller position in the notebook market than the detachable-tablet space, where it\u2019s No. 2 behind Apple.<\/p>\n In the June quarter, Microsoft sold more than 1.61 million detachable machines and 245,934 laptops, according to IDC.<\/p>\n The laptop market is a far larger prize, worth nearly $44 billion in the June period, compared with less than $10 billion for detachable tablets, IDC said.<\/p>\n In the year ended June 30, Surface sales rose by 8%, or $457 million, Microsoft said in a filing, without specifying total revenue. That\u2019s a slower rate than the 23% increase the year before.<\/p>\n The company reported $6.46\u00a0billion in devices revenue for the year, a metric that includes Surface devices, as well as mice and keyboards.<\/p>\n The Redmond, Washington-based company also unveiled a new Surface Pro X, an update to its detachable tablet device that runs a custom chip developed with Qualcomm Inc. and using ARM Ltd.\u2019s technology.<\/p>\n The new model is faster and gets 15 hours of battery life, said Robin Seiler, a Surface vice president, in a video shared with reporters. The updated versions of the Pro X start at $1,499.<\/p>\n Microsoft will also start selling Surface in\u00a0eleven new European markets: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and\u00a0Slovenia.<\/p>\n Microsoft Corp. unveiled the cheapest-ever model\u00a0of its Surface laptop,\u00a0aiming to take a larger share of the lucrative notebook computer market by targeting students and budget shoppers.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341034,"featured_media":369841,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[22711,123,12647,66909],"class_list":["post-369837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gadgets","tag-laptops","tag-microsoft","tag-microsoft-surface","tag-surface-laptop-go"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369837"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Now read: Microsoft cloud services suffer global outage<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"