Microsoft Surface Pro LTE Edition now shipping to corporate customers
As promised by Microsoft in October and in accordance to a leak a month earlier, the Redmond company is now ready to ship its Surface Pro 2017 series with integrated 4G LTE catered specifically for enterprise users across both North America and most of Europe.
LTE options will be limited to the passively-cooled Core i5-7300U SKUs for now, however, because of space restrictions in the actively-cooled Core i7 configurations. As noted by Neowin, the Qualcomm Snapdragon X16 LTE module will be installed exactly where the active fan on the Core i7 configuration would be located. Thus, there is simply no room for the Snadragon X16 in the more powerful Surface Pro SKUs.
One notable feature of the LTE-enabled Surface Pro is its support for eSIM. It was reported earlier this year that both Intel and Microsoft would be pushing for eSIM integration onto more laptops and tablets to encourage "always-on" connectivity and to boost Intel's IoT vision. Users can take advantage of the tablet's LTE features without needing to swap or insert SIM cards. Thankfully, a nano-SIM slot is still available for those who want to enable LTE the traditional way.
The Microsoft Surface series is becoming notorious for excluding a host of features normally found on many modern laptops or tablets. USB Type-C, Thunderbolt 3, easy serviceability, and LTE connectivity are but a few notable examples where the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 tablet or HP ElitePad series have had the advantage. LTE was completely omitted from the Surface Pro 4 and is now finally coming to the Surface Pro 2017 a full six months after launch.
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