Microsoft’s Surface tablets will be filling the shelves, and hands of consumers in the coming months, but we have no idea what type of price they’d be hitting us with. Until now, there have been estimations and predictions, but Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sat down with The Seattle Times recently, and talked of the upcoming slates.
Ballmer hassaid that the Surface tablets price will be “probably $300 to about $700 or $800, that’s the sweet spot”. Hitting the middle of that price is the current king of the tablet hill, Apple’s iPad. Surface RT running Windows RT will most likely be the consumer-based version of Surface, at around $300. In the $700-$800 range, we should expect the full Windows 8 OS on Surface tablets. Ballmer says:
I think most people would tell you that the iPad is not a superexpensive device. … (When) people offer cheaper, they do less. They look less good, they’re chintzier, they’re cheaper.
If you say to somebody, would you use one of the 7-inch tablets, would somebody ever use a Kindle (Kindle Fire, $US199) to do their homework? The answer is no; you never would. It’s just not a good enough product. It doesn’t mean you might not read a book on it….
We already have the Nexus 7 available for US$199, and the rumored iPad mini, so Microsoft’s Surface tablets are going to have a hard time selling themselves at different price points to those who aren’t too tech savvy. Microsoft will have to tread very carefully with Surface, before we start making puns about ice breaking, and Surfaces.
