Surface RT will get 4 1/2 years of support from Microsoft

At least it is 2 1/2 years more than Apple gives it's iPad's.

You might not be thinking about it right now, but if you're a recent owner (or to-be purchaser) of one of Microsoft's new Surface RT tablets with Windows RT baked in, there will come a day when Microsoft will no longer officially support your device.

If you're a previous iPad owner, or know someone who is, this day tends to come sooner than one might expect. For example, Apple's first iPad – released in 2010 – doesn't qualify for iOS 6 and will surely be left out of any future iOS updates to come, all of two years or so after the tablet first hit store shelves.

As for Microsoft's Surface RT tablet, the company plans to extend a (relatively generous) support cycle of no less than four years for the consumer device.

But here's where it gets tricky.

The Surface tablet integrates Microsoft hardware and software within a single device, and these two worlds play differently when it comes to the support that Microsoft offers for each. As a result, the Mainstream Support End Date for the tablet will officially be on April 11, 2017 – just over four years since the official launch of the tablet, but a bit shorter than the conventional five-year support cycle Microsoft typically gives new iterations of the Windows OS.