And each includes a built-in storage and charging tray for Surface Slim Pen 2. Each is coated with Alcantara, which makes sense since this is the “signature” material associated with Surface, though there don’t seem to be all that many colors choices right now. There are three versions: The Surface Pro Signature Keyboard, which retails for $180 the Surface Pro Signature Keyboard with Slim Pen 2, a bundle that costs $280 and the Surface Pro Signature Keyboard with Fingerprint Reader, which costs $200 and adds a Windows Hello-compatible fingerprint reader to the right wrist rest. (With previous Surface Pro models, Microsoft offered Type Covers and Signature Type Covers, the latter of which typically came with an Alcantara top. And it starts with the name: The Type Cover name is gone, replaced with the more generic Signature Keyboard naming convention. With Surface Pro 8, things are finally changing improving after several years of iteration. Despite what many might assume would be a bouncy and flimsy experience, Type Cover delivers on a laptop-like typing and pointing experience, one that exceeds laptops in some ways because it supports two typing angles: magnets in the base of Surface Pro have always helped to enable this functionality, and it’s one of those features we’ve seen other hardware makers copy for their own products. Helping matters, Type Cover has always worked well, too. But because Surface Pro was-and is-really just a PC at heart, the more traditional Type Cover, with its hardware keyboard and integrated touchpad, always made more sense to customers. If you think back to the original Surface Pro in 2012, it’s perhaps sobering to know that Microsoft originally thought that the Touch Cover would be the more successful peripheral because it provided a touch screen-like typing experience without hiding any of the display. But it’s also the best version yet, thanks to its integrated Surface Slim Pen 2 storage and charging tray.īut then, I’ve always liked Microsoft’s Type Covers. In many ways, the new Signature Keyboard for Surface Pro 8 isn’t a major update when compared to Type Covers past.

Keyboard for surface pro 8