The Surface Pro is to be launched in Japan on 7th June which is relatively late compared to many other territories but the land of the rising sun gets quite a few added bonuses as consolation. The Surface Pro in Japan will be available with storage capacities of both 128GB and 256GB. Buyers will get a free pre-installed copy of Microsoft Office 2013 Home & Business. Also some unique touch cover designs are to be made available for Japanese consumers.
Price matters
First let us have a look at the prices compared to the UK. The UK Surface Pro 64GB costs £719 direct from the Microsoft online store. Japanese customers won’t be offered such an SKU. The UK Surface Pro with 128GB of fixed storage costs £799. In Japan this model will cost ¥99,800 which converts to around £650 today. Japan’s Surface Pro with 256GB of fixed storage is listed at ¥119,800 which converts to around £780.
The additional storage will be very welcome, especially to users who might want to use the Surface Pro as their primary computing device. Being short of storage was a criticism of both the Surface RT and Pro versions released in other territories. The Microsoft GB Surface information pages still contain a ‘warning’ of sorts spelling out how little user storage is available on a new machine.
Having a full version of Microsoft Office 2013 Home & Business bundled in Japan is also a very nice carrot to would-be buyers. In the UK buyers are given the option on the order page to buy Office 365 Home Premium for £60 (including a £20 discount special offer for first year).
The Japanese market will also have a new range of custom touch covers made available, designed by popular local artists. You can see an initial trio of designs pictured below.
Surface 2 models are coming soon anyway
With rumours of a completely new line of Surface computers set to be revealed in June these Japanese market upgrades to the original line might not be so interesting to buyers in the US, for example. The new Surface computers are reckoned to include smaller screened versions and, being revealed at Microsoft’s Build Developer Conference at the end of June, should benefit from newer Intel Haswell processors which will have been launched by then.
