When creating the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2, Microsoft's ambition was not to reinvent the device but simply to make it better. The company is committed to the basic Surface concept of a tablet with a kickstand and detachable keyboard, and the second generation devices do nothing to shake up that formula. Like before, the goal is to make tablets that are highly productive.

Aesthetically, the devices look extremely similar to their predecessors. On the Pro version, the only obvious change is the logo on the back. Where before there was a Windows logo, there's now a Surface logo.

The ARM version (which no longer sports the "RT" moniker; it's simply known as Surface 2) has this logo too, but it also has a more obvious visual change: it's now grey. Instead of the black finish of the first generation devices (and still found on the Surface Pro 2), it's a bare metal device. The front is black glass, but all the other parts are metal grey. There won't be a black option either.

The thing that set Surface apart from other tablets, the kickstand, has also been refined. The new kickstand has two open positions instead of one. In addition to the old 22 degree angle, there's a new one that holds the screen at about 45 degrees.

The new angle is intended to make the tablets more convenient when used on your lap or even on desks when you're tall.

From my brief experience with this, I think it's somewhat successful. There is no one "right" screen angle. It'll depend on how you're using the thing—watching a movie on a plane is different from Tweeting on a sofa, which is different from working at a desk—how tall you are, and so on and so forth. Adding another angle means that the kickstand will prop the thing up in a comfortable way more of the time, and I would definitely use the new angle at least some of the time. All that said, it's still not as flexible as a laptop-style hinge.

Even with adding another position, the kickstand clicks reassuringly into place. Whether it will continue to do so after thousands of openings and closings remains to be seen. I trust Microsoft has tested it and made sure that it withstands reasonable wear-and-tear without getting loose.

I may have imagined it, but the new kickstand also felt ever so slightly as if I were flexing it when I opened it. The first generation devices never had that sense, and Microsoft says that some of the metal is thinner in the new device to make it lighter, so some small differences in how it feels may be the result.

I also don't have a good sense, right now, of whether it will be easy to accidentally knock the kickstand from its old position to the new one. I think that this should become clearer once we get systems in to review.

Both devices also have better speakers, with Microsoft licensing some kind of Dolby-branded technology for the version two products. In the noise of the launch event, it wasn't possible to know what difference this makes in practice.



Surface 2

The first Surface was criticized for having a low resolution (1366×768) screen, a slow processor, and a high price.

This time around? The screen has the same 10.6 inch diagonal, but it now comes with a resolution of 1920×1080. This is the same resolution (and same unit) as is found on the Surface Pro 2. Microsoft says that it has improved the color accuracy of the screen by nearly 50 percent. I don't know about that, but it's certainly a nice looking screen.

The processor is now a four core NVIDIA Tegra 4 running at 1.7 GHz. Memory bandwidth and Wi-Fi performance are both claimed to have been doubled. The USB port is now USB 3 instead of 2. Other major specs remain the same: 2GB RAM, 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4, and 32 or 64GB of storage.

The few apps I tapped to open did seem to open quickly enough, and Tegra 4 certainly should be quite a bit faster than the old Tegra 3. Again, the full picture will only become clear with longer testing. Windows RT 8.1 will add Outlook to its existing Office apps (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote) and for me, the real test will be to see how well it copes with my quartet of inboxes and tens of thousands of preserved e-mails.

According to the spec sheets, the new device is a hair thinner (shrunk by two hundredths of an inch) and a fraction lighter (sub-1.5lb). Unsurprisingly, this difference wasn't perceptible when I actually held the thing.

Even with this better performance and marginal weight saving, battery life is estimated at around 10 hours, up from the eight hours of the first device.

We found the cameras in the first generation device extremely poor. They were barely acceptable for Skyping, and you'd never want to use the rear camera to take photos. They've been substantially upgraded in the Surface 2 (though peculiarly, not in the Surface Pro 2). The rear camera is now a 5MP device; the front one 3.5MP. Both are capable of capturing 1080p video. Picture quality appears to be better, as one would hope.

The cameras also support burst image capture. The Windows 8.1 camera app, on hardware that supports burst capture, will automatically capture multiple images when a picture is taken. This allows the best image from the bunch to be selected, potentially salvaging images otherwise ruined by an inopportune blink.

All that's left is the question of price. Microsoft is keeping the old model on sale at $349. The new one will be $449 for 32GB, $549 for 64GB. That still feels a bit expensive for a tablet.

If you look at it as being a robust, secure system that's ideal for students and home users who want or need to run Office (especially now that Outlook is included), I think it feels a bit less expensive. The build quality and general level of fit and finish remain ahead of netbooks or other cheap laptops. With Surface, Microsoft has always been aiming at creating "productive tablets" (where "productivity" spans a fairly full range of typical office tasks). If that productive aspect is important, then the price is reasonable.

A couple of promotional extras might make it even more compelling. Buyers of Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 will also receive a year of "Best of Skype," which provides a year of free international calls and free Wi-Fi at any hotspots that can be paid for via Skype (which I believe in practice means Boingo hotspots). They'll also receive 200GB of SkyDrive storage for two years. Buying these would cost about $120 and $200, respectively. If you're going to make use of these extras, the Surface 2 looks like a decent value.

Surface Pro 2

If Surface 2 felt similar to its predecessor, it had nothing on Surface Pro 2. Surface 2 is, at least technically, lighter and thinner than the first model. Surface Pro 2 isn't even that. Externally, aside from the new logo and dual position kickstand, it's identical to the first model. The changes are all on the inside.

The cornerstone of that change is the use of Intel's 4th generation Core processors, which is to say, Haswell (specifically, an i5-4200 with HD Graphics 4400). The CPU runs at a base speed of 1.6GHz and can turbo boost up to 2.6GHz. This should improve lots of things at once: Microsoft claims that it's 20 percent faster in CPU workloads, 50 percent faster in GPU workloads, and that it has a whopping 75 percent more battery life. A tablet that lasted four to five hours before will now last, theoretically, eight to nine hours.

Just as with Surface 2, Microsoft wanted to make Surface Pro 2 a better Surface Pro. The major complaint leveled at Surface Pro was that its battery life was poor. The internal improvements made to Surface Pro 2 substantially address that.

That change is, however, basically invisible. The device looks and feels almost identical to the old one. It just goes faster and runs for longer. In practical terms, those are huge improvements that will make the new device far better than the old one. In a few minutes of hands-on time at a launch event, however, you'd never notice the difference.

Further strengthening its productivity credentials are additional RAM and storage. Four models of Surface Pro 2 will be offered: 64GB storage with 4GB RAM at $899, 128GB with 4GB at $999, 256GB with 8GB at $1,299, and 512GB with 8GB at a rather eye-watering $1,799.

Overall, it's clear that Microsoft isn't going to abandon its productivity tablet idea any time soon. If the Surface concept appeals, the new devices are in every sense better. They address the major shortfalls of their respective predecessors. In so doing, they become a lot more appealing.

If, however, the productivity tablet idea has no appeal—if you just don't care about Office or just can't give up the laptop form factor—then the new devices won't fundamentally change that. For that, Microsoft will need to take another step down its path to becoming a Devices and Services company. They'd need to develop, for example, an eight inch "Surface Mini" and perhaps even a Surface Ultrabook.

Both of Microsoft's new tablets will be available to buy on October 22 with preorders starting on September 24.