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Many people are waiting with baited breath for the upcoming release of Windows 8 tablets, however if initial reports from the Far East are to be taken seriously, it looks like many of the tablets may cost between $600 and $900, which could translate to a minimum of £500. If this is right, Microsoft may have a hard sell in an iPad dominated market.
Digitimes reported that problems between Microsoft and Intel may be part of the problem, with Intel “unwilling to drop their related hardware and Clover Trail-W prices.”
It is worth pointing out to UK punters that an iPad 2 can be bought in the US for $500 (16GB version), so the Microsoft tablets may very well cost even more than the Apple products. If the upper end price point of $900 is accurate, then the tablet price will be very close to the entry level Ultrabooks which Intel are keen on selling in 2012. If that is the case, then Microsoft are on a slippery road.
Microsoft may very well have to look at processors from other companies such as ARM or Nvidia if they want to achieve reasonable price points. They will also need to be seriously sexy to get the attention of the mainstream punter who has already accepted the iPad tablet computers with open arms.
Kitguru says: Would you pay more than an iPad for a Windows 8 tablet?
No not a chance if they can not get a tab out at either the same price or below then I think many will just go in another direction & by something else & leave the win 8 tabs on the shelf to collect dust. Actually if \ms could bring these tabs out at the same price or slightly higher than a kindle fire then they would have a real winner on their hands & I am not talking about something with an ARM CPU in it its got to have an x86 cpu or it is a bust for most people.
The biggest thing MS will have going for it is x86 since that is what 98% of the software around the world supports . So to recap they need a cheap priced tab that has x86 & they will sell like hotcakes. MS really need to get Intel on their side since Intel just released Midfield SoC this would work well with win 8 by the time win 8 comes out Intel most likely will have a dual core option which would be even faster.