It's rumored the x86 version will be $1000 and the ARM version will be $600. http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Microsoft-Surface-Price-Release-Specs-Windows-8-Tablet,16110.html If that's true, I would say this thing is dead in the water. No one is going to pay that much for what they're going to perceive as just another ipad knockoff. They need to drop the price by at least $300 on both versions to be competitive. As we saw last year with the "me too" tablet fiasco that nearly sunk several companies, $200 is about all people are willing to pay for a tablet that's not an iPad. Basically all of those tablets collected dust on the shelves except for the $199 Kindle Fire and the $99 fire sale HP Touchpads. People might be willing to pay a little more for some of the functionality the Surface offers, but if the ARM version costs any more than about $299, I just don't see anyone buying it. Microsoft needs to approach this the same way they approached the console market. They have no foothold in the tablet market and are up against tough competition (Apple is as entrenched as Sony was with the Playstation), and to break in they're probably going to have to take losses in the beginning. The original Xbox was an impressive piece of hardware relative to the PS2 that was also cheap (I got mine for $150 within a year of launch). They're going to have to do the same thing here if they want to succeed. Get people onboard, and then push more expensive, more feature packed tablets later once you have their attention. The 360 was expensive at launch, but by that time, Microsoft had a loyal following in the console market that was willing to pay the price. This is the same tactic drug dealers use when they give you a free sample in the beginning to get you hooked, and before long they have you draining your bank account to shoot black tar heroin. How I would have approached the surface: -Price the ARM version at $299 -Don't bother with the x86 version for now. -Have the Surface available at retailers within a week of announcing it -Launch Windows 8 at the same time as the Surface -Hype the shit out of Surface and Windows 8 with commercials and the news media Of course, Microsoft has shown time and again that they have no idea how to market anything, so both the Surface and Windows 8 are probably going to flop hard.
Kindle Fire shipments dropped off steeply after the initial launch, so you can't really use that price point as a template for success with tablets. I disagree about the high-end Surface tablet. I think Microsoft HAS to launch something like that, since the whole idea behind Windows 8 is that it does both legacy and touch based mobile computing, and it seems obvious that the ARM chip set isn't really meant to run the entire range of Windows 8 applications efficiently. Higher end programs would need the Core i5 to really be usable. That doesn't mean that I think the approach of mixing legacy with mobile touch is good, but MS is stuck with that. I've also read some opinions about Surface that seem logical: that MS has to enter the hardware market in order to increase profit due to declining PC sales. That in turn means that it doesn't make sense to for them to try and sell the hardware at a loss.
Maybe an i3 would make more sense then? That would make the x86 version significantly cheaper, and the Sandy Bridge i3 is no slouch in the performance department. These things need to be cheap or no one will buy them. The tablet fiasco of last year showed us that Joe Sixpacks perceive anything that's not an iPad as a knockoff and will only pay knockoff prices.
I tend to think that they're not going to get anywhere until they accept the idea of an OS that compliments Windows but isn't directly tied to legacy applications. Mobile computing is a reboot of the PC industry, not a continuation of it. They still seem to think that the product is "better" if it copies the old PC model more closely, which runs against what consumers are doing.
The strange thing is they seemed to be going in that direction with Windows Phone 7. They seemed to be moving away from Windows Mobile, where they basically tried to ram a desktop OS into mobile devices, towards a custom mobile OS similar to iOS and Android. Now with Windows 8 they're back to their old ways. The worst part is that I actually think the Metro UI is pretty good...on a mobile device. It has no place on traditional PCs.
I see the metro ui and it reminds me of the current Xbox dashboard, which I hate for many reasons. Chief among which is I can't look at it without hearing MS going "KINECT KINECT KINECT KINECT MOVEMENT GESTURES KINECT KINECT!"
I find it pretty decent besides the linear keyboard, which is horrible if you don't have kinect. All console on screen keyboards are bad but this has somehow made things worse, and there's no option to change to qwerty!
I can type messages much quicker on the ps3 on screen keyboard than the. Xbox one, always have been able to. I preferred the previous xbox dashboard but this new one seems to focus more on tv and adverts (they're everywhere now) and tucks the game tab away behind friends and tv and stuff. Plus it's ugly and looks haphazard.
Like I said I find it pretty good for a lot of things. I don't play games, just as a media server compared to PS3 I find XMB sort of dated now at times. I use each about equally, PS3 for streaming movies, Xbox for streaming most TV shows and IPTV.
Surface Pro prices with the Core i5 don't appear to have shown up yet. Looks like the keyboard cover accessory is priced similarly to things like the Zagg keyboard case for the iPad...around $100.
The future is looking a little bleak since MS isn't introducing a version with a lower pricepoint than apple's lowest pricepoint (ipad 2 16GB $399). Also, MS is running into a similar issue with their wp7 launch. Employees not having proper training. This is seriously a company that doesn't learn. There's more on the link. It's pretty bad as this is from Microsoft Stores. The Verge did update the article saying MS told them that they will be doing 15 hour trainings for employees, but I would've assumed they would've started the trainings before they started officially running their marketing campaign with launch dates and pricing info which was a few days ago. This thing launches in 9 days.
Ugh, that's embarrasing... The prices really aren't enticing, especially the premium for touch. All these tablets should be native touch. This is like releasing Wii with the option to buy a cheaper unit with only a classic controller :