Microsoft has heard the people’s call for a cheaper Surface Pro tablet, and has decided to drop the price by $100 for the month of August. According to the official Surface site, the price drop will remain in effect until August 29 or stocks last.
The Microsoft Surface Pro has been heralded by geek icon Gabe (Mike Krahulik) from Penny-Arcade as being a pretty solid drawing tool. At PAX Australia this year Gabe and Tycho were able to put together a Penny-Arcade strip whilst on stage answering questions using a Surface Pro.
Surface Pro
[youtube url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCKWn1zjejE” fs=”1″]
The price drop means that you can now get a 64GB Surface Pro for $799, and a 128GB Surface Pro for $899. Microsoft is also offering a discounted Surface Pro bundle that comes with Office Home and Student 2013, 2-year warranty, type cover, a Surface sleeve and a screen protector for $310.
When it comes to gaming the Surface Pro can use touch controls in the Windows 8 optimized version of Civ 5 and by all accounts can run Minecraft and Portal 2 without much problem. There are also videos floating around of gamers who have even gone as far as running Skyrim or the latest Call of Duty on their Surface Pro.
Last month, Microsoft dropped the price of the Surface RT to $349 in an attempt to get people buying Windows RT machines again. After all, the company took a $900 million hit in unsold Surface RT devices in its last quarterly report. By all accounts, the Surface Pro is doing much better.
The Verge suggests that the recent price cuts might be the heralds of new Surface models. Of course, we probably won’t see a new Surface until Windows 8.1 launches later this year. Microsoft has already stated that it has some big plans for Windows 8.1, and some new Surface models would fit well in that.
For now though, just enjoy your slightly cheaper Surface Pro. I would argue that it could stand to be even cheaper, but a $100 discount is nothing to scoff at. If you absolutely must have a Windows 8 tablet, you can’t do much better than the Surface Pro.
