Microsoft is holding a big education-related launch event early next month where Windows 10 Cloud is expected to be revealed, and some fresh details have been leaked showing exactly how lightweight notebooks running this OS will compete with Google’s Chromebooks in the education sector.
You’ve almost certainly heard of Windows 10 Cloud – which is essentially a cut-down version of Windows that’s locked to running only universal apps from the Windows Store. Windows Central has published an internal Microsoft document showing performance targets for machines powered by the operating system.
Boot boons
These notebooks are also expected to compete pretty closely with Chromebooks in terms of boot times, with an anticipated cold boot to login screen time of 20 seconds, compared to 15 seconds for Google’s laptops.
Loading from the login screen to the actual desktop environment is expected to take five seconds, a process that is instant on a Chromebook.
Of course, we’ll still have to wait for the actual press event on May 2 for all this to be confirmed, but the nuggets of information spilled here seem both detailed and official.
As we said before, the grapevine has asserted that Microsoft won’t reveal a new Surface Book sequel at this spring event, although there is a chance we could see a Surface Pro 5 (but if we do, it will probably be a very minor refresh).
What’s looking more likely is a fresh 2-in-1 hybrid device powered by Windows 10 Cloud, as the operating system is likely to be very much the focus of the event, as well as knowing where the OS sits in the education arena (the event has been teased as ‘#MicrosoftEDU’, after all).
Of course, what Microsoft’s hardware partners will make of a ‘Surface Lite’ style device being launched at a much more wallet-friendly price tag than the rest of the Surface range remains to be seen. We can’t envisage any party poppers being set off by such manufacturers, though.
- We’ve highlighted the best Chromebooks of 2017