Next-gen Microsoft Surface table ready to order

The first Microsoft Surface 2.0 multi-touch table, the Samsung SUR40, has gone up for pre-order. Those in 23 countries can request the new Surface ahead of its launch in January. A handful of companies have already publicly lined up, including aircraft maker Dassault, Fujifilm, and Royal Bank of Canada.

Although intended for business, Microsoft has noted that the tables can be bought one at a time, at a price of about $7,600 each.

The new tables rely on PixelSense, or a form of touchscreen display that relies on optical sensing to not only recognize the contact itself but its appearance. Its screen allows for more complex interaction, but it also allows for much thinner Surface tables that are thin and light enough to be mounted on the wall. A SUR40 table can recognize as many as 50 contact points, or the hands of five people, and can 'scan' objects placed on the table, like RBC's brochures for a contest.

It also gets a modernized Windows 7 underpinning, instead of the original Vista, and uses a much faster 2.9GHz AMD Athlon II X2 processor mated to a Radeon HD 6700M-series graphics chip.

By Electronista Staff