Maybe Microsoft plans to release new models soon?

They already announced that they don't want to stay a software-only company and want to sell more hardware. But it's a well-known fact that the Surface tablets released so far are not selling and Microsoft is sitting on huge stockpiles. So in case they plan to release new and improved models in the near future, they finally have to get rid of the old stock, for few people buy the old model when a new and improved successor model is already out.

It just simply is not worth the price, especially once you throw in the cost of the keyboard. There are a dozen other things I would buy ahead of this.

A lot of people don't really want a hybrid, they either want a tablet or a laptop, and there are much better options if you're looking for either of those.

Microsoft has surface tablets sitting in warehouses just dying. Surface has bombed miserably and at this point Microsoft's just trying to staunch the bleeding.

I mean seriously, all you needed to do was launch an Android tablet with a couple full sized USB 2.0 drives and price it at $199. Heck, you could sell it for $250 or $300 preloaded with Office and it'd sell like crazy. Everybody has USB sticks and accessories. But no. It has to be as big and expensive as my laptop and half as functional because WINDOWS 8.

It's like Microsoft is incapable of doing elementary market research.

Strange, Microsoft itself is calling it a "tablet", and so do pages like Wikipedia.

I have a tablet running Windows 8 too. It cost just about 250 Euros, runs Photoshop, Visual Studio and Diablo 3.. But that still doesn't change the fact that it's a tablet.

lol they need to lower it alot more than that for people to care

What is the benefit to having the Surface pro over the Surface RT for the average consumer? That is a huge price difference, so there should be some obvious and large differences.

Calm down lol This is not an bash Microsoft threads, no need to reply this non-sense just because a comment is favoring Microsoft :)

It is a laptop. And BasilZero got my point (Looks like you did not).
Call it a tablet if you want but you cannot compare it to another "tablet" like the iPad; you need to compare it to laptop or even netbook...

Also before claiming such things, just link where you can buy a tablet for 250 euros who can run Diablo 3, Photoshop and Visual Studio just fine (need an i5 not an Atom... by running I mean USABLE)... Other than eBay...
Stop the hating seriously...

I mean that the price needs to be compared with  i5 laptop/netbook :) Not tablet with ARM or even ATOM CPU like the iPad!
I'm better than Sales2009! BETTER

The surface pro can run traditional Windows software, the Surface RT can't.

That's almost the only noteworthy difference, but it's a very important one: When you buy a Surface RT tablet, you get the main disadvantage that non-Windows-operating systems have always had: You cannot use all that software you've been using for years.

Who the hell wants to shell out 800$ for a tablet?