Microsoft has introduced Surface 2, the successor to the ill-fated Surface RT, for which the company booked a US$900 million loss. So, what’s the difference between the first iteration and this new version?

“Surface 2 is not subtle, but is a revamp. It is not the simple changes that everybody wants, but it’s the changes people need,” said Panos Panay, Surface Chief of Microsoft.

It’s powered by the NVIDIA Tegra 4, which should provide a major performance boost over the first-generation Surface RT tablet. The chip’s ARM Cortex-A15 quad-core CPU and 72 GeForce GPU cores should help the device fly across web browsing, zip through Office applications and deliver immersive DirectX gaming experiences.