Microsoft Surface 2 spotted - and it's running Windows RT

Surface 2
Surface 2 will be Surface RT number 2. Got it?

Yep, we thought Windows RT was probably dead, too.

Instead though, it seems Microsoft is ignoring the $900 million that unsold Surface RT tablets cost it, and decided to press ahead with a second version of the Surface RT. Which, we're led to believe, will be called

Surface 2

, dropping any mention of RT.

Despite the original Surface's problems, we knew that Microsoft would sell a second version of the tablet. You might think this is a bad idea but hey, this is a company that just splurged several million euros on Nokia's mobile phone business.

The clues about the Surface 2 come from Dutch site TabletGuide.nl, which discoved the information in the GFXbench database.

Surface 2 runs Tegra 4

The interesting stuff? Surface 2 is running Nvidia Tegra 4 which should mean a decent performance improvement over the preceding Tegra 3.

It's ARM-based (because Windows RT is ARM-based) but we must confess that we were expecting a Qualcomm processor inside the tablet due to Microsoft and Nokia's Windows Phone partnership with the company. (All Nokia's Windows Phones have Qualcomm chips inside.)

Surface 2

Surface 2 has appeared in a benchmarking database [Image credit: TabletGuide.nl]

But the performance signs aren't good. The Surface 2's score on the 3D GFXbench test is 573 frames, which isn't great compared to various Android tablets which score several hundred frames more.

And further bad news surrounds the display spec. While the Surface Pro had a 1080p Full HD resolution, the Surface 2 appears to be sticking with the Surface RT's 1,366 x 768 pixel resolution.

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Dan (Twitter, Google+) is TechRadar's Former Deputy Editor and is now in charge at our sister site T3.com. Covering all things computing, internet and mobile he's a seasoned regular at major tech shows such as CES, IFA and Mobile World Congress. Dan has also been a tech expert for many outlets including BBC Radio 4, 5Live and the World Service, The Sun and ITV News.