Still not sure if you should get a Microsoft Surface RT tablet? How about if you could get the keyboard case for free? All of this month, Microsoft is throwing in a free Touch or Type Cover keyboard — normally $100 extra — when you buy any Surface RT model from Microsoft’s online store or participating retailers in the U.S. and Canada.
Normally, the Surface RT tablet bundled with a keyboard starts at $599, but this month, you can get both starting at $499, which is the retail price for the 32 GB Surface RT alone. The Surface RT has a 10.6-inch, 1366 x 768 display that runs Windows RT on ARM and NVIDIA Tegra processors.
The 1.5-pound tablet comes with 2 GB of memory, 32GB of internal storage, and USB 2.0 and microSD card slots for connecting to additional storage or peripherals. The Surface RT comes with Office Home and Student tablet-optimized applications (not the full desktop version of Office), and has a 31.5 W battery that lasts about 8 hours per charge.
Although the Surface RT has garnered mostly great reviews, sales have been hurt by consumers’ continued loyalty to the iPad, as well as a deluge of cheap Android tablet competitors. In response, some Microsoft partners have limited their participation in Windows RT, and have pushed price cuts on their initially expensive Windows 8 tablets. Microsoft’s Surface Pro — which comes with Windows 8 and the full Office suite — is still going for its full $899 to $999 price without the keyboard, but with other Windows 8 tablets now going for much less, we think it’s only a short matter of time before those prices drop a bit.
Although Microsoft claims that the Surface RT tablet-plus-cover deal is only good through June 30, we would not be surprised if the company extends — or even sweetens — the offer if it still doesn’t move enough units. The Surface RT is now 8 months old and some analysts think Microsoft will introduce a new Surface tablet at its annual Build developer conference, which kicks off June 26. So if this price cut is not a huge motivator for you, then our advice is to wait that much longer to see what happens.
