The Xbox Surface is reportedly a 7-inch gaming tablet which is being developed by Microsoft currently, according to a rumor doing the rounds. Gamers might remember that specifications of the said product had leaked in June this year, right before the unveiling of the company’s Windows 8-based tablets. While many thought that the gaming slate will also be revealed at the event, it was not to be.
It is now in November that the product has surfaced once again, thanks to multiple sources who’ve told The Verge that initial hardware planning for the device is currently underway. The website has also been confronted that the initial specs which were leaked in June are ‘accurate,’ and that their final implementation is being worked on.
The Xbox Surface will probably ship with a custom ARM processor, with its focus set on gaming rather than usual computing. It is also being said that its initial specifications might be altered to slip in an unannounced Intel SoC. As far as its OS is concerned, this Microsoft device will supposedly be running a custom Windows kernel. Other tablet-based features may well be supported by it, but the heart of this product will be its gaming attributes.
According to its specifications sheet which was leaked out earlier, this slab will carry on it a 7-inch screen with a maximum resolution of 1280 x 720. A whopping 5GB of DDR3 memory is told to be present on the device, along with an AMD graphics processor with 1.2GB of memory. It will also kick in support for Dolby TrueHD audio, along with 48KHz 24-bit audio, 26-bit audio processing, AAC, LPCM, Dolby Digital 5.1. 22.2 surround sound and more.
The sheet also says that the tablet will be compatible with up to four wireless controllers, and that each controller will have its own headphone jack. 4 USB 3.0 ports, an Ethernet port and a component video/HDMI port are some of its other attributes. Whatever the Xbox Surface gaming tablet is, one thing we’re pretty certain about is that it will in some way or the other act as a build-up to the long-due Xbox 720 home console. We’ll have more on it, should some more information come out.
