Microsoft has no plans to launch Surface Book in India anytime soon, revealed Inferse. The main reason for the delay is attributed to poor Surface Pro 4 sales in the country with the shipments from Amazon not going on expected lines.
Even though Surface Pro 4 has earned positive and critical reviews with the sales gaining momentum in the US, the scenario is different in India because of the high price tag which is not affordable to common people.
While Surface Pro 4 was touted as a premium tablet device, Surface Book was the first device in the laptop category from the Redmond-based software giant. However, Microsoft had to face a lot of anger from customers since the device had issues associated with sleep/wake, which is now rectified in the latest drivers and firmware updates.
Nowadays, it has become a routine affair from various manufacturers to release OTA updates regularly and Microsoft also adopting the same technique not only to add new features but also to rectify problems reported through the various feedback channels.
The Surface Book is currently available in Austria, Australia, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the UK after the announcement of Microsoft in January 2016. Prior to that, the device was available only in US and Canada.
Microsoft launched Surface Pro 4 in January and exclusively made available via Amazon.in for the first six months of the availability of the devices in other online retailers and offline stores after the expiry of initial six months.
On the specifications front, the Surface Book features a 13.5-inch PixelSense touch screen (3000×2000) display, Intel Core i5/i7 processors and delivers up to 12 hours of battery life.
While there are 4 variants with 8GB RAM, there are only two variants with 16GB RAM. Coming to storage segment, there are different variants with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB respectively with 8GB RAM/128GB storage starting at $1499.
Microsoft had bundled Surface Pen with the devices which are loaded with Windows 10 Pro. The Surface Book weighs 1516 grams, which is very high compared to Surface Pro 4 but the device is capable of running advanced software applications such as Adobe Creative Cloud, AutoCAD, or Visual Studio without compromising performance.
If Microsoft ventures into the Indian market by converting US dollar price of Surface Book into Indian currency, then the devices will not find any light among customers since people in India and more inclined towards low budget devices.
Microsoft have to think about the pricing strategy of both Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book devices if the company would like to see higher sales revenue. The company can also think of being part of Make in India initiative to cut down the cost of the devices.
Microsoft is all set to release Surface Book 2 in October and it remains to be seen whether the company release the version in India or not.
