Microsoft Surface Mini Images Leaked By Windows Central

Microsoft was working on their smallest Surface tablet ever up to 2014, but it was never launched, despite a few leaks in advance and afterward. Surface chief at Microsoft, Panos Panay later admitted the existence of the Surface Mini, but didn't really reveal many details about it.

But yesterday, Zac Bowden at Windows Central leaked the exclusive pictures of the Surface Mini, while also announcing the purported specs.

It had previously been believed the be in the 7.5-inch to 8-inch area, but the specs now says that the Surface Mini was an 8-inch Windows RT tablet, with 1440 x 1080 resolution, powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, along with a Adreno 330 GPU, 1GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage.

Other revealed specs includes a micro-USB 2.0 port, and dual-band Wi-Fi.

The most stand out features, apart from the resolution and the processor, would have been the Surface Pen and the case – which was not removable, but really, really, built into the tablet itself.

That makes sense then, because back in October 2015, Panos Panay said in an interview with Wired, that the “Surface Mini was like a Moleskine.” He wasn't kidding then. And with that Surface Mini, came the instant-on pen, where you could tap the top of the pen to start an app of your choice.

The downside to the Surface Mini would of course have been the now defunct Windows RT, one of the ghosts of old Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer.

– Jim Miller