Surface RT Midnight Launch New York. Holy Hell.

[Squilliam]

Slimebeast said:

Squilliam said:
Windows 8 is pretty good value. On the high end by the time you get an iPad with 64GB of space and 4G support you can pretty much get a significantly higher performance Pro tablet with way better specs and storage. On the low end of the scale you can get something which runs a lot better than Android.

In the mid range the Surface offers a pretty decent value compared to the iPad. The device itself definitely has some strong pros such as the built in kickstand and touch cover even if the device itself doesn't match the specs of the iPad it is reasonably close enough.

The only problem really is the low end as there really isn't a 'great' competent tablet in the market to compete with the 7" Androids and 7.9" iPad mini.

Overall I suspect that Windows RT is more of a problem for Android market share than Apples given that it is a more competent alternative.

On a different note, since you are familiar with memory prices and tech details, can you explain why the Surface 64GB version costs $699 compared to $499 for the 32GB? How much of that difference ( -- what the hell is the right word to use here? -- ) is explained by the bigger memory and how much by the other features (Touch cover and stuff)?

What I'm getting at is that isn't a 16GB flash memory module supposed to be dirty cheap by now?

Well the number of chips are quite small so the size of the individual chips are huge and large flash chips tend to get expensive if they're higher quality. Costs scale by percentages too so a small change in manufacturing cost adds up to a big cost when they add their own margins and retailer margins on top of that. For instance laptops which cost hundreds of dollars more may only cost $70 extra in parts because it flows through as higher margins throughout the distribution chain.

Of course the other reason is that you can't buy it online without the touch cover, in retail it'll probably be a little cheaper as they don't give you that many options to start with like switching the touch for a type cover.