AT&T has announced it will begin selling the Samsung Ativ Smart PC in-stores and online starting November 9th. The Windows 8 tablet will run $800 for a model with built-in support for 4G.

In other words, don’t expect any carrier subsidies. You should be able to pick up a WiFi-only model of the same tablet soon for $650.

Samsung Ativ Smart PC

The Samsung Ativ Smart PC features an 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel PLS display, a 1.5 GHz Intel Atom Z2760 Clover Trail processor, 2GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage as well as a microSD card slot.

AT&T will also offer a $49 “stand dock” accessory which adds Ethernet and USB ports, as well as a $40 VGA adapter that lets you connect a VGA display to the tablet’s micro HDMI port.

There’s no mention of the optional keyboard dock which Samsung which Samsung has been showing off. The keyboard dock should let you use the tablet like a laptop, but unlike docks from some competitors, Samsung’s keyboard dock does not include an extra battery to provide longer run time.

It’s not clear when the WiFi-only version of the tablet will be available. But when the AT&T model goes on sale Friday it will be one of the first Windows 8 tablets with an Intel Clover Trail CPU to go on sale in the US.

Intel’s Clover Trail chips are low power x86 processors. Tablets with this chipset are expected to sell for about the same price as Windows RT tablet with ARM-based processors and offer similar battery life. But Windows 8 tablets will be able to run apps developed for the full desktop version of Windows 7 and earlier, while Windows RT tablets can only support apps developer for Windows RT.

AT&T will also start selling the Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1) tablet with 4G LTE on Friday. The Android 4.0 tablet will sell for $500 and up.

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7 replies on “Samsung Ativ Smart PC Windows 8 tablet coming to AT&T Nov 9th for $800”

  1. The keyboard dock doesn’t have an extra battery? That’s very disappointing and they still charge $100-150 for it? Wow.

    Anyway those tablets should be $650 (with keyboard included) at max.

    And RT tablets seem to be about $100 to $200 less expensive than these CloverTrail/W8 ones. Not the same price. But RT is useless.

    The combo ultrabook + 7″ Android tablet is still better value. Above all with the decrease in price of the W7 ultrabooks still in stock.

    1. Apparently, the Clover Trail model ATIV Smart PC XE500 is suppose to have a battery in the Keyboard dock… The higher end Pro model though doesn’t appear to have that feature…

      Price for Clover Trail models are actually about the same as the RT models, they just tend to add extra for the Clover Trail models…

      Namely features like WACOM digitizer pen, in the ATIV Smart PC case it’s the Samsung S-Pen. They’ll tend to be larger at 11.6″ instead of 10.1″… Samsung includes some of their S-Pen apps… Others like Lenovo offer to include full Office 2013…

      Keyboard is included for the Samsung options… And typically starting capacity is 64GB and goes up to 128GB.

      While more base models that better mirror the RT models are priced much lower. Like the Asus Vivo Tab Smart is priced at $499 for 32GB model… It just smaller at 10.1″ instead of 11.6″ like the Vivo Tab, doesn’t have the WACOM pen feature, and won’t be getting a keyboard dock but instead a smart cover and optional bluetooth keyboard.

      Similarly the Acer Iconia W510 starts at $499 for the 32GB base model.

      Tablets will always cost more than equivalent laptops. So while pricing will likely go down over time, don’t expect them to go that much further down… While as more models come out we should see a better range of options at least.

  2. The way these Windows 8 devices are being priced I dont see Microsoft having any impact on the tablet market. Android has them beat for price and specs, and the cool factor is covered by the ipad. Don’t see where these expensive tablets fit in.

  3. I have been waiting for this tablet for weeks. I am disappointed that there are only two companies offering their tablets for sale right now–Microsoft and ASUS. As of October 26th, there should have been more devices available. Microsoft must not have enough influence on their partners.

    1. I’d been hearing that Intel needed a little more time to get their Clover Trail chips to ship… but that doesn’t explain why we didn’t see more Windows RT tablets at launch.

      1. I just talked to a friend that works at Microsoft. He says they have no control over when their partners release products.

        1. There was some models released, seems to have been a extremely limited release but there are user reviews starting to come out…

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyaV_PxzhYU

          Online Flash games seem to work about as well as on a modern netbook… Interesting he was able to use Photoshop and claims he ran Red Alert 3 on default low settings.

          So there could be some good argument that even at that performance range that legacy support gives it a added value.

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