Microsoft releases requirements for tablet Windows 8 logo

Microsoft has recently released the full criteria that manufacturers must meet before they can label their tablets with a Windows 8 sticker.

According to the documentation, a rather large list of requirements must be met. Fortunately, blog site WithinWindows.com has pointed out some of the more interesting requirements from the official Microsoft document. Amongst the requirements is a multi-touch display capable of registering at least 5 fingers, exactly 5 hardware buttons (Power, rotation lock, Windows key and volume up/down rocker), an NFC marker that signifies where the NFC transmitter is located and a 2-second resume time for x86-based tablets. Interestingly, ARM is exempt from the last requirement for reasons unknown, although we suspect that it may be because Windows is still fairly new to the ARM architecture and there is still plenty of room for optimizations. In terms of hardware specs, the absolute minimum, as posted on WithinWindows.com, is shown below:

• Storage: At least 10gb free space after the out-of-box experience completes
• System firmware: UEFI
• Networking: WLAN and Bluetooth 4.0 + LE (low energy)
• Graphics: Direct3D 10 device w/ WDDM 1.2 driver
• Resolution: 1366×768
• Touch support: At least 5 touch points, must pass all tests
• Camera: 720p
• Ambient Light Sensor: 1-30k lux capable w/ dynamic range of 5-60K
• Magnetometer
• Accelerometer: 3 axes w/ data rates >= 50Hz
• Gyroscope
• USB 2.0: At least one controller and exposed port
• Speakers

Interestingly, the CPU and RAM have been overtly excluded in the minimum requirements. But, with dual- and quad-core CPUs and 1GB RAM becoming standard, we imagine that most big name tablets coming out to market should have adequate performance for running a Windows 8 OS.

The operating system itself is currently scheduled to ship later this year, possibly even by October.

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