Microsoft lathers up Windows 8.0 Surface RT for quick price shave

£300 too much.

You can get a portable web browsing machine for around £50.

$349 just so I can use Internet Explorer?

Nothing else on RT is useful, so that leaves using it just as a web browsing tool but even the browser is a total horror with most sites having support for Safari on iPad.

Thanks Microsoft, but seriously, no thanks.

Never mind the RT....

...they need to address the eye-watering cost of the Pro as well. I went to have a look at one with a view to a later-in-the-year purchase, £799 is just too rich for my blood - especially with the, to my thick-thumbed-hand, touch keyboard. Drop it by at least £200 and chuck in the physically better keyboard FoC, then you might start getting more interest. Sad about the RT not being better than it is. Best kill it off now and nudge Nokia into doing a WP8 Phablet instead methinks....

Can you even still buy Surface RT?

Just been the MS website to look at how much the RT actually is (end of year, tax write off, all that) - and if you click on the RT links, it takes you round and round and only ever shows you Surface Pro details!

Have they killed it?

I just got two nicely working Android tablets for less than that

One for the kids, one for the (alleged) grown-ups in the house ;-)

Both sport 1280x800 resolution, dual core processor with quad core graphics, so quite decent spec for (ultimately) fairly light use. OK, they have a "mere" 16GB storage (and micro-SD slot for expansion), but they run LOADS of useful apps, and I do not need MS-Office. Why should I go for WIN-RT (RT for runt of the pack?), if I can get two android tablets for less money?

Its going to need a brazillian

and then some wax to get it to the right price.

MS going the way of HP and BB

Am I right in thinking the Surface is circling the drain like HP and Blackberry's efforts in this area ?

$449?

I could buy a very nice Washburn WD30cse acoustic guitar for that & I bet it would give me a lot more enjoyment than Windows 8! ;^)

Kinda grows on you

I actually bought a Surface RT 32 GB through the educational discount, considering CDN $323 to be a reasonable price for a bundle with the Type cover. It's not a general-purpose computer, and does not pretend to be - I'd put it somewhere between my Kobo e-reader and a good netbook. I am still learning what it will and won't do. I like the display, the way it handles pdfs, and the few apps I've added (good for the Economist and CBC), and I will certainly use Word when traveling. I've streamed some HD video which looked good and did not stutter. Battery life is decent (6-8 hours) and the small charger is convenient; the whole kit is compact and lightweight. The Windows 8 interface is a matter of taste, as annoying on a Surface as it is on a desktop, but it does work although not intuitively.

Don't dismiss the Surface RT - it has its place. I quite like it.

How much!

32GB model $349

64GB model $449

They want $100 for 32GB of flash. What sort of planet are they on? Do they think they're Apple or something? 32GB has got to be worth $20, maybe $25, hell even if you had to buy the whole 64GB you're not in that ball park. A 120GB Samsung 840 SSD only clocks that much and they ain't going to be using anything that fast, there would be no point.

MS still doesn't get it do they, they ain't got a clue. How much more will they cut off the price next quarter? Wonder what their supply chain orders are looking like, or is this just an over optimistic fire sale.

And that is why closed-source is a bad idea

One does not simply recompile an application to a new target platform. One has to wait for the company/person that wrote the application and hope they will do it.

Linux has a rich ecosystem on apps on every platform it runs on because most applications can be compiled easily, with little or no modification.

I quite like it

Long time lurker, first time poster.

Have to say I don't quite get all the hate for the Surface RT.

I bought mine after some considered research into what I wanted a tablet for - a lot of it probabaly comes down to mangement of expectations but, put simply, no other tablet ticked as many of the boxes as the Surface within the same price point. I think the issue is that people (a) were (probably justifiably) wary of a MS tablet and (b) just didn't look into what the tablet could do (not helped by MS itself, I will readily concede).

Essentially, I wanted something primarily for media consumption when travelling but (a) do not like media format restrictions, (b) hate iTunes with a passion and (c) was reluctant to buy what is essentially a toy at the price Apple et al. were offering - I wanted to be able to be productive with it if required.

So:

- it plays everything I have thrown at it, including FLAC, MKV and RAW.

- it has an HD screen (no, it won't hit the "retina" or Nexus 10 PPI, but it's a 10" tablet, not a 60" flatscreen so this does not bother me at all). 720p and 1080p movies and high-res. photos all look great on it - from the video perspective the aspect ratio is better (in my opnion).

- it has a USB port and expandable micro-SD memory. I can swap out and manage my media and, more importantly, can back up all my RAW photos on the go (suprisingly useful on a long holiday anywhere slightly removed from civilisation). Both of these are MASSIVE benefits.

- Office transforms the tablet and raises it head-and-shoulders above the competition. I have not yet tried the Outlook beta, but having Word, Excel and PPT on the go has proved amazingly useful for those odd occasions where I need to work when on hols. The whole licence issue has been massively exaggerated imho.

- there are sufficient apps for what I want (which, is admittedly, not a lot). I have yet been unable to find a good app for something I want to do.

- battery life is really quite impressive.

No, it doesn't run legacy apps, but, for a significant user base (essentially, those looking for a tablet rather than a computer), that's probably not important. It's also obvious from basic pre-purchase research (admittedly more so now that in its infancy).

There are, of course, some things I would improve if I had a say in it, such as processing power and speed. I suspect the Surface 2, if ever produced, will be a significant step-up.

For a casual user, though, I'd say the discounted bundle is a steal.

Calling all shavers

A "shave" perfected in the Sweeny Todd school of personal care might what's really needed here.

Three words

Ballmer.

Garage.

Sale.