Microsoft’s Surface 2 finally gets 4G LTE

There’s good news and not-so-good news about Microsoft’s Surface 2 with 4G LTE. The good news is it’s available starting tomorrow, March 18, at Microsoft retail stores, MicrosoftStore.com and Best Buy in the U.S. The not-so-good: The $679 estimated retail price, reported last week by WPCentral.com, is correct. And that’s for an ARM-based Surface 2 with no keyboard/cover included.

Dropping the other shoe on one of tech’s worst-kept secrets, Microsoft has officially unveiled the cellular broadband-ready Surface tablet, officially called the Surface 2 (AT&T 4G LTE). The update comes more than a year after Microsoft first launched the Surface tablet (originally called Surface RT), a few months after Microsoft’s own Surface lead Panos Panay promised the mobile broadband option, and potentially puts it on more equal footing with Apple’s iPad, which has had mobile broadband support since its launch in 2010 and Amazon’s Kindle Fire HDX 4G.