Microsoft’s next round of Surface slates may include a competitor to the iPad Mini and Kindle Fire.

The company is reportedly working on a 7-inch Surface tablet, which is expected to go into mass production this year, the Wall Street Journal reports. It’s unclear if this is the same gaming-focused 7-inch Xbox Surface tablet we heard about last year — but I’d wager they’re two separate products.

From what we’ve heard of the Xbox Surface, it’s going to be jam-packed with cutting edge hardware, which means it likely won’t go cheap. At the same time, Microsoft will also need an inexpensive small tablet to compete with Apple and Amazon.

Small tablets (under 8-inches) accounted for half of all shipments in the fourth quarter, according to IDC. Given just how much cheaper smaller tablets tend to be — ranging from $200 for the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7, to $329 for the iPad Mini — they’ll certainly end up taking over much more of the market over the next few years. Microsoft simply can’t afford to wait on developing an inexpensive small tablet.

Additionally, the WSJ notes that Microsoft is still testing a Surface phone, though component suppliers aren’t able to confirm if it will ever be released. We’ve heard a Surface phone could appear this year, especially if Windows Phone 8 fails to catch on with consumers.

Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

This year, the mobile industry showed us what lies ahead for computing.

We saw surprising new devices that gave us a glimpse at what personal computers could look like several years from now. We got an operating system that straddles both desktop and mobile. And we watched manufacturers obsessively refine what smartphones and tablets can be.

While 2012 didn’t have any single products that were as exciting as when we saw the iPad or iPhone for the first time, I have a feeling we’ll look back at this year as a turning point. This is the year that significant developments in mobile shaped the tech world for years to come.

The new platform wars begin

The mobile industry has been mostly about iOS and Android for the past few years. Research in Motion has been in a freefall in market share, while Microsoft struggled to find its legs in mobile.

But this year, Microsoft finally started to matter, posing even stronger competition to Google and Apple with both Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8. The software giant showed that the next platform wars will be all about uniting the desktop and mobile — something that Google and Apple still need to work on.

The latest version of Windows Phone actually runs a version of Windows 8’s kernel, which in theory should make it easier for developers to create apps for both platforms. Windows 8 is an interesting beast as well. By making a tablet-focused touchscreen interface the centerpiece of its desktop operating system, Microsoft has literally placed a bet on the future. Eventually, most PCs will look like tablets, but for that to happen, there needs to be a tablet OS that’s as productive as a desktop platform.

And while Apple will undoubtedly introduce touchscreen MacBooks soon, it still has to deal with the fundamental divide between iOS and OS X. Microsoft may be off to a messy start with Windows 8, but it will surely have an easier time dealing with the inevitable union between tablets and laptops. (More on that below.)

The biggest loser in the future union between tablets and laptops will likely be Google. Android has always been focused on mobile devices, and it still took Google some time to fully adjust it to tablets. I don’t see much hope for Android when it comes to mimicking desktop productivity on future tablet-like PCs. (And yes, I know I may eventually eat these words. But the glacial pace of Android’s evolution doesn’t really give it much chance as a future Windows-killer.)

The line between mobile and desktop is blurring

You need only look at Microsoft’s Surface tablet to see how the face of mobile and desktop computing is changing. Is it a tablet, or is it a laptop? In truth, it’s both — though that idea has been difficult for even some tech pundits to wrap their heads around. The Surface the physical representation of everything Microsoft is trying to do with Windows 8, and while I was disappointed with it in my review, I can’t deny that this is where we’re headed. Tablets need to get more productive, and laptops need to be as convenient as tablets.

Microsoft is gearing up to launch the Surface Pro early next year, which will run both Windows 8 apps and older Windows programs. Sure, it’s twice as expensive as the first Surface, but it shows that Microsoft’s bold hardware concept has plenty of potential.

Windows 8 has also spawned plenty of other notebook/tablet hybrids, like the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga (which we found brought out the best and worst of Microsoft’s new OS) and HP’s Envy X2. We’ll likely see manufacturers experiment with different variations on tablet hybrids over the next few years. That’s a good thing for consumers — eventually you’ll be able to get a hybrid computer that suits you perfectly.

iPhone 5 and iPad Mini: The (small) shape of things to come

Both the iPhone 5 and iPad Mini show that, in the world of smartphones and tablets, smaller is often better. Down the line, I expect we’ll see more reasonable screen sizes in both smartphones and standalone tablets (at least those that aren’t trying to be laptops as well).

Almost paradoxically, most smartphone manufacturers have been obsessed with bigger screens over the past few years, to the point where they’re barely even “mobile” anymore. Last year Samsung’s 5.3-inch Galaxy Note was considered ludicrously large, but this year, 4.8-inch and 5-inch smartphones were practically the norm. (The Galaxy Note II, for the record, moved up a 5.5-inch display). Meanwhile, Apple’s “big” screen bump was from a 3.5-inch screen to a wider 4-inch display on the iPhone 5.

The iPhone’s smaller screen hasn’t stopped consumers from lapping it up. And it’s hard not to see the logic for bigger screens from other phone manufacturers — it was a very clear way to show how they offered something more than Apple. (Never mind that they didn’t have the same level of apps or build quality.)

But there’s no way the screen-size race can continue at its current rate. Once you start getting past 5-inch screens, you begin to inch into tablet territory, after all.

With little room to grow, we’ll likely see most smartphones sticking with screens around 4.5-inches in the future. I’ve found phones bigger than that to be too awkward to handle with one hand, and sticking with a more reasonable screen size also helps to conserve precious battery life. The iPhone 5 is still my preferred smartphone experience today, even though I also walk around with a Nexus 4, which has a big 4.7-inch display.

Apple will have to offer a bigger iPhone screen eventually, but I can’t see it going much bigger than 4.5-inches. This is a company that’s so obsessed with one-handed usability that it chose to make the iPhone 5’s screen taller and wider, rather than just grow it proportionally like many other manufacturers.

The iPad Mini, meanwhile, shows precisely why smaller tablets are ideal. It’s my favorite tablet so far, right behind the 7-inch Nexus 7, because it’s so light and portable. Smaller tablets also have a big price advantage: The iPad Mini starts at $329, while the Nexus 7 starts at $199. Starting with the first iPad, Apple has been trying to the idea that tablets around 10-inches were ideal, but I’ve always found those to be too clunky for prolonged use, and too expensive for many consumers.

Eventually, there won’t be any room in the market for big standalone tablets. Smaller tablets will beat them on price and convenience, and hybrid notebooks will be able to offer big tablet-like experiences with the productivity of a full-fledged PC.

Wrapping up

In the end, 2012 was more about the gradual evolution of the mobile industry, rather than any singular groundbreaking announcements. But it was still an important year for anyone interested in the overall direction of computing. It was also a clear indicator that we’ll soon have little reason to isolate “mobile” from the rest of computing.

The iPad Mini is proof positive why technical specs don’t matter anymore. It’s slower than both the third and fourth-generation iPads, and it features a significantly lower resolution screen that doesn’t even meet HD video standards.

And yet, its miniscule size and overall convenience makes it the best iPad I’ve ever used and the best tablet on the market.

The original 9.7-inch iPad basically created the modern tablet market, and Apple’s iPad line still accounts for more than 50 percent of new tablets sold (according to IDC). But I’ve never felt truly comfortable using any iPad for prolonged periods of time — and the same goes for every other tablet I’ve used that’s around 10 inches. They’re tough to hold with one hand, and even with two hands, it’s not exactly effortless to hold large tablets for hours on end.

Smaller tablets don’t have any of those issues. You can throw a small tablet in a bag and forget it’s even there, and they’re generally light enough to hold with little effort, like a paperback book. Given their size and flexibility, they’re naturally more focused on content consumption.

With its 7.9-inch screen, the iPad Mini is slightly larger than its 7-inch Android counterparts. But it still has all the makings of a small tablet, and that extra screen real estate actually makes it far better for reading.

Apple has struck a balance between size and performance with the iPad Mini — and it’s one that will resonate in the tablet market for years to come.

The good: Smaller really is better

I can go on and on about the iPad Mini’s thinness and lightness — but really, you have to hold this thing to understand why it’s so special. At just .68 pounds and 7.2 millimeters thick, it weighs about the same as a typical paperback book, and it’s thinner than the already ridiculously thin iPhone 5.

Holding the iPad Mini makes it clear that the sheer size of standard iPads are an issue, even though that didn’t stop more than 85 million consumers from making that tablet a huge success for Apple.

For a device that we’re holding in our hands most of the time, it makes sense that being more comfortable trounces having the better hardware. Together with the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire, the iPad Mini shows that smaller tablets are the ideal tablets.

The obvious benefit of going small is cost: The iPad Mini starts at $329, making it the cheapest iPad option yet. It’s still significantly above its $200 Android competitors, but the higher price is well worth the bigger and better iPad app ecosystem. Apple’s decision to go with a 7.9-inch screen also makes the iPad Mini more versatile than 7-inch tablets — you can see more content from web pages, and games feel as if they have more room to breathe.

It’s almost as if the bigger iPads are just a beta test. It was likely too difficult for Apple to successfully build something like the iPad Mini back in 2009 — for one thing, hardware components probably weren’t small enough (just look at how thick the first iPad was). And while the bigger iPad isn’t going anywhere any time soon, the unceremonious way Apple revealed the fourth-gen iPad alongside the iPad Mini is telling.

Over the next few years, expect far more innovation from the iPad Mini than the standard iPad.

For me, great technology should be both uncompromising (which Microsoft’s Surface, sadly, wasn’t) and effortless. The iPad Mini hasn’t cracked the uncompromising nut just yet (more on that below), but it’s by far the most effortless tablet I’ve ever used.

Even though it has a bigger screen, the iPad Mini is 32 grams lighter (for the Wi-Fi model) and noticeably thinner than the Nexus 7, which has been my favorite small tablet so far. Ultimately, this means that everything — reading, watching a movie, or playing a game — simply feels better on the iPad Mini because it’s not a chore to hold. It also helps that the tablet feels so solid — you can feel all of Apple’s experience with building the iPad and iPhone in the iPad Mini’s strong body.

Movies and games don’t look as sharp as they do on Retina Display-equipped iPads, but it’s a more than worthy tradeoff. It takes a discerning eye to notice the benefits of Apple’s Retina Display, but anyone can immediately recognize how much more convenient the iPad mini is. (And naturally, that’s a problem that will be fixed in future models when Apple brings Retina Display quality to the iPad Mini.)

With the iPad Mini, you’ll never think twice about taking it along when you leave the house or grabbing it to peruse Twitter while watching TV. And the device itself becomes practically invisible as you use it.

In the end, isn’t that exactly what a tablet should be?

The bad: Yes, we’re evolving backward (for now)

The iPad Mini is basically running the same hardware that powers the iPad 2. It has the same dual-core A5 processer and 512MB of RAM. And for the screen, instead of the lush Retina Display resolutions of 2048 by 1536, we get the same 1024 by 768 resolution we were so happy to run away from two years ago. (Since the iPad Mini’s screen is smaller, its resolution still looks sharper than on previous iPads.)

It’s difficult to recommend the iPad Mini to someone who’s already shelled out for a third-gen iPad. But in my experience, I still end up reaching for the Mini more than the sharper-screened iPad.

For most of the apps I’ve used — including Twitter, news readers apps like Pulse, and Instagram — the iPad Mini performed admirably. Games suffered the most with the older hardware, but most consumers won’t notice the slightly lower-res and less-detailed graphics, even with graphics-heavy titles like Infinity Blade 2.

It’s a shame that Apple couldn’t at least deliver a Retina resolution, but this makes sense. It would have required a more powerful processor and graphics capabilities, which probably would have made the price of the iPad Mini even higher. For now, it’s a tablet that’s ideal for most consumers — but those looking for Retina sharpness should wait for the inevitable upgrade in next year’s model.

The verdict: The best iPad experience yet

The iPad Mini is all about tradeoffs. Instead of a sharp Retina screen and powerful hardware, you’re getting a slimmer device that’s far more convenient. For me, the tradeoffs are worth it.

Big tablets certainly have their place, but I think we’ll see those becoming increasingly specialized. Most consumers would be better off with the size and price of the iPad Mini than splurging for the iPad fourth-gen. And as for big Android tablets, the Nexus 10 is really the only one worth considering.

I’ve been recommending the iPad Mini without hesitation over the past week. If you’ve been holding out on getting a tablet, it’s almost a no-brainer. You can save a bit by going for the $200 Nexus 7, but you’ll be giving up a far better tablet app ecosystem.

If you can’t swallow the compromise with the iPad Mini, then hold off until next year’s update. And if you already own one of the Retina Display iPads, then you’re probably better off waiting as well (or just starting pricing your iPad on a gadget reseller service like Gazelle).

If anything, I feel vindicated by the iPad Mini. Here’s a device that proves, once and for all, that smaller slates are far better at fulfilling the promise of tablets.