Microsoft’s Surface Pro Finally Has A (Surprisingly Low) Price

The Surface RT came out and sold only OK despite an uncharacteristically peppy and funny ad campaign from Microsoft. But the real money for Microsoft is and always has been large corporations and business types. So the Surface Pro was obviously going to cost a fortu…Wait, it’s $900?!

Admittedly, it’s more tablet than PC, but $900 gets you the Surface with Windows 8, stylus capability, an Intel i5 Core and, well, 64 GB storage, but hell, you can’t have everything. $100 more gets you into the triple digits, at least, and it does have USB ports. If nothing else, Microsoft can claim to have crammed an entire PC into a tablet form factor, which is no mean feat.

The Touch and Type covers are still sold separately, but those are both under $150, respectively, which is nothing to corporate IT budgets. You will come out about $20 more than a comparable MacBook Air, but then again, a MacBook Air and an iPad will run you at least $400 more.

The real question is, how well will these sell? The general public will probably like them, especially people hoping to slim down the amount of gadgets they carry. But this is the one clearly aimed at getting large companies to buy it in massive lots.

Our bet is that it comes down to that pen. If there’s a way to tightly integrate all of the Surface’s functions to actually make life in the office easier, Microsoft will sell billions of these things. Either way, though, if you’re looking for a laptop and tablet, the Surface Pro is suddenly pretty compelling.