New Rumors Won’t Let Surface Mini Stay Dead

You can’t keep a good tablet down, it seems. A fresh batch of rumors claim that Microsoft will make an announcement about the Surface Mini tablet sometime this month. Before you get a tablet-sized stocking hung on the wall, however, keep in mind that this is far from the first time the Surface Mini’s impending release has been rumored, only to be revealed to be utter and complete bunk. Bunk, I say!

The latest rumor comes courtesy of a post on G for Games, which, citing the Chinese blog UDN, says that Microsoft could announce the Surface Mini tablet sometime this month, sometime before the rapidly approaching holidays. The original blog post adds that the Surface Mini will feature either an 8 or 10.1-inch display, and will run Windows 10 – the latter of which is a confusing detail, since Windows 10 won’t officially launch until sometime next year. Does that meant that Microsoft will only announce the Surface Mini this month, but not release it for sale by this Christmas? Or will it actually be released running Windows 8 in the next few weeks?

I say that both possibilities are bogus, though, and there’s more than enough evidence to suggest that these latest rumors are more of the same: nothing. When the Surface Mini was initially scrapped in May earlier this year, inside sources were quoted as saying that “the product in development wasn’t different enough from rivals and probably wouldn’t be a hit.”

If that was true in May, what could possibly make it untrue in December? Or even more unlikely, sometime next year? It seems like an open secret that Surface Mini tablets are sitting in a warehouse somewhere, with the door locked tight. The underpowered, undersized tablets weren’t interesting enough to be sent to stores in 2014, and more tablets have been released since then. Why would Microsoft release the Surface Mini now?

The simple answer is that it won’t. The details of the rumor are confused and confusing, and there have already been claims that the Mini would launch any minute that turned out to be false – like this one in July, and then another one just recently in October.

Perhaps even more baffling is the fact that these rumors continue to persist despite little to no evidence that they’re the real deal. Unless Microsoft surprises us with a big announcement sometime in the next few days, I think it’s safe to put this latest rumor in the “probably not” category and move on with your life.

[Sources: G for Games, UDN]