The Microsoft Surface RT tablet hits the streets10 days from now, and it looks like Microsoft is finally (just about) ready to talk pricing. Earlier today a product page at the Microsoft Store went live revealing pricing details for the Surface RT tablet.

Update: Pre-orders are now open. You can order a Surface RT from the Microsoft Store for $499 and up.

Microsoft Surface RT

Microsoft is charging $499 for a 32GB tablet. For $599 you can get the same model plus a “touch cover” which serves as wireless keyboard for the tablet when it’s not busy protecting the screen.

There’s also a 64GB model with a touch cover for $699.

In other words, Microsoft is charging the same price for its 32GB 10.6 inch Surface RT tablet running Windows RT as Apple charges for a 9.7 inch, 16GB tablet running iOS.

The Surface RT features an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM. It measures 0.37 inches thick and weighs 1.5 pounds.

The tablet has a microSD card slot for expansion, a USB 2.0 port, and a micro HDMI port and features a 31.5 Whr battery.  There are front and rear cameras, and a kickstand on the back of the tablet that lets you prop it up while you’re using the optional keyboard cover.

It doesn’t have an iPad-like “Retina” display. This model has a standard HD display. But Microsoft plans to launch a Surface Pro tablet soon which features the full Windows 8 operating system and a 1920 x 1080 pixel display.

What the Surface RT does have is the Windows RT operating system which looks almost exactly like Windows 8. It just won’t run older apps designed for Windows computers with x86 processors. The Surface RT will ship with a pre-release version of Microsoft Office 2013, the new Xbox Music service, and other apps, as well as the new Windows Store (which happens to be the only official place to download Windows RT apps).

If you’re thinking the hardware looks nice, but you’d rather run Android or webOS on the Surface, you’re probably out of luck. Like most Windows RT devices, the Surface RT will feature tight security which will make it difficult to run unsigned code at boot. In other words, there’s currently no simple way to load an alternate operating system.

Microsoft isn’t the only company planning to launch a Windows RT tablet. The Asus Vivo Tab RT and Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 will also compete for consumers’ attention, and many full Windows 8 tablets with Intel Atom processors will sell for similar prices.

via TechCrunch and The Verge

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,547 other subscribers

11 replies on “Microsoft Surface RT tablet coming Oct 26th for $499 and up”

  1. “In other words, Microsoft is charging the same price for its 32GB 10.6 inch Surface RT tablet running Windows RT as Apple charges for a 9.7 inch, 16GB tablet running iOS.”

    Apple sells a 16GB tablet running iOS for $399, which is $100 less than the Surface RT.

    “It doesn’t have an iPad-like “Retina” display. This model has a standard HD display.”

    The $399 iPad model does not have a retina display either.

    1. The $399 iPad model is the older iPad 2, not the iPad 3 that starts at $499!

  2. Doomed for failure or early markdowns. You don’t come into a market you don’t currently compete in and drop a product that costs as much as the current leader’s. If they had the full version instead of the RT for $499, I might have said you got more value for your money since it could run all Windows applications. Oh well, latest in the line of failures from Microsoft. Oh, hot on the heals is the next failure, Windows Phone 8. Live tiles are a joke, just glorified icons. Why don’t they make interactive tiles you can do something with.

    1. It’s still a desktop based OS versus Mobile OS, even without legacy support and the more locked down features it’s still a more capable OS and will offer features and capabilities that most mobile OS tablets do not. It’s just a question of whether there’s a market for that in the mobile space.

      While the UI may not be for everyone, it’s in no way just glorified icons. The whole point is to prioritize information instead of graphics. It’s also highly customizable now.

      The only thing more interactive would be Widgets but they take up space and you’re more limited to how many you can have on screen at a time. While being more interactive doesn’t mean you necessarily get more information.

      So don’t confuse your preference with where the UI actually stands in comparison to others.

  3. so much for all the crap talk of $300.00 Surface tablets. although i knew all along the talk of $199.00, 299.00 even 399.00 was hype. everybody was talking out of their ass cuz their mouth knew better. i honestly think this and it lack of availability will drastically hurt it sales.

    MS should have introduced it at $399.00 just to enter the market, but MS always does this, they talk a good game them shot themself in the foot end the end.

    1. The low pricing was never realistic for a mainstream price. The only way it would make sense would be a subsidized price, such as using a membership deal for say getting a 2 year XBox Live Gold membership for example.

      That could still happen but we won’t know until after release and see if they start offering any deals.

  4. The Microsoft RT tablet is cool looking, however for $749 you can get a full Win 8 tablet with a keyboard and pen from Samsung. Why is Microsoft doing this to itself?

    1. That’s still a 50% markup. Price still a very important factor, even in that segment of the market. Not everybody is going to want a keyboard. Tablets are as much about consuming media as anything else.

  5. So all that talk about a $200/$300 starting price was just a ruse to generate a buzz? It worked, I was interested…but now I’m not.

    1. No, I doubt MS was particularly happy about those rumors–they probably should have tried nipping them in the bud, given that they raised expectations on pricing so high.

  6. please let there be a padfone2 version for windows ecosystem. surface phone to dock with suface tablet… windows phone 8 + windows RT/8….

Comments are closed.