It is projected that tablet PCs will see a boom in the coming years, largely thanks to the success of Apple’s iPad device. Leaked Microsoft documents gave us a first impression of the Windows 8 Tablet PC hardware requirement.
It has to be noted that Microsoft may change these at any time. The requirements have been extracted from a sheet detailing sensors and hardware capabilities. Some requirements might be optional as well.
- A 9″ diagonal display, at least 768px width
- A Direct X accelerated graphics processing unit (GPU)
- GPS for location aware applications (likely optional)
- Wireless LAN connectivity
- Camera for facial detection
- 3-Axis Accelerometer (likely optional)
- Ambient light sensor with adaptive brightness (likely optional)
Making those sensors a requirement makes sense, considering that Apple’s iPad offers most of them in one form or another.
