Features - QOTW: How much would you pay for a Windows 8 tablet?

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And would you consider buying such a thing?

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£1.50 and not a penny more!!

Ideally less than £1 would be ideal.

Other tablets,less than 50P.

I would say £200 maximum for me. £150 seems fair. Hopefully we are seeing tablets becoming mainstream in the near future with Windows 8.. which means mainstream prices! :)

I think it really depends on what is ment by a tablet.

Is a tablet a large mobile phone? Or just a mobile phone without the radio.

Given that Apollo is supposed to run on both, equally, it will be interesting to see what appears in the lower priced end of the market. Myself I can't see the appeal from launch of an expensive ARM based tablet, its not what I'd want it for (that been long battery life simple web browsing), but I could see the appeal of an ultrabook style tablet, with completely detachable keyboard, costing £1k, as it would replace the laptop, and the tablet in one device. Kind of like they where always ment to be when I had my first TabletPC.

It needs to be the same sort of price as the comparitive iPad tbh, maybe a touch more by the time you add your MS licence to it, certainly more than the cheaper Android tablets..

I reckon they could get away with around the £400-£450 mark personally..

Having watched the tablet market over the past few years and understanding what the current state of the industry, we have to set expectations:

One of the reasons why there are $200/£200 tablets is from hardware subsidies. A Kindle Fire is produced at a loss because Amazon assumes you're buying e-books and consuming other content to help turn that loss on hardware production into a profit via software. A wireless carrier may sell a Galaxy Tab with 3G/4G data service, and the overhead in monthly costs is making up for the financial hit they took buying stock from Samsung at 2-3x the cost they sold it to you. (Note: I don't know exactly how true this holds in the UK, but it's practically a given in the US.) It may be cheap at the outset, but it gets expensive over time.

Another reason is HP and their abandonment of WebOS. Their TouchPad fire sale last year proved that, in order to move an otherwise mediocre product (blah hardware, in this case, despite the competitive software) the price has to reach a certain threshold. They effectively started what I hear as being referred to as 'The Race to the Bottom', where any Johnny-come-lately has a cheap tablet that runs some acrid mixture of an 'open' mobile OS installed on a dubious hardware platform that hardly differentiates itself from the rest of the ilk at the same price point.

Apple users, on the other hand, expect a price premium for a perceivably premium product, and thus willingly accept a £400/$500 tablet: Anything less "cuts corners" and, from the perspective of consumers, will probably be the 'gold standard' by which other tablets are held up to, price be damned. Think of the once-equally priced Motorola Xoom, consider the number of sales that have occurred in comparison to the iPad, and realize that, for most, there was just enough unforgivable quirks about the Xoom that it doesn't justify its price in the face of the competition (whether you agree with public sentiment or not or believe there's any Apple bias, the sales numbers don't lie).

My overall argument is this: You may expect cheap Win8 tablets, and you may get them, but expect a £200/$200 Win8 tablet to be just as crappy as any currently-available, equally-priced tablet. I expect more popular - or, at least, more desirable - Win8 tablets will land in the £350-500/$500-700 range. Some of the perception will be based against the current competition, though I expect the hardware won't be as svelte as Apple's, which will lead to an argument over how useful the software is versus how desirable the hardware is (and to each their own, in that respect). Unless the manufacturers completely mess up the launch hardware, the aforementioned price range should be competitive.

€400 max. For the likes of ASUS.

So long as it's no more expensive than an iPad, I'd consider it..

After all, that's what it's got to beat really.

Nothing, I just want a desktop and laptop. No nonsense touch screen nonsense.

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Originally Posted by GSV Trig

It needs to be the same sort of price as the comparitive iPad tbh, maybe a touch more by the time you add your MS licence to it, certainly more than the cheaper Android tablets..

I reckon they could get away with around the £400-£450 mark personally..

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Yeah totally agree, they need to play the "it's the same value but better" game. I'd pay up to £600 if it was a fully capable laptop replacement. That's very subjective though... I hate to wait :)

cheers
brasc

If its more than an ipad its going to be dead on arrival from a home consumer stand point. I guess many business might be happy paying a premium but not home users. A shiny Ipad that all your friends have/want or a 'Windows' tablet - You know what will win. They really need to be ~£300 but I can't see that being possible unless a Win8 OEM license is cheaper than Android patients payouts? Will MS drop the cost of a License to gain market share or just hope?

If people are willing to pay $300+ for an Android tablet and $500+ for a iPad I would be willing to pay $500+ for a Windows 8 tablet so long as I get IPS, decent video card, processing power and battery life.

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Originally Posted by mi1stormilst

If people are willing to pay $300+ for an Android tablet and $500+ for a iPad I would be willing to pay $500+ for a Windows 8 tablet so long as I get IPS, decent video card, processing power and battery life.

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And apps.

If it's popular people will write/convert software for it. If not, they wont.

Chicken/egg.

You also have to think about how fast its actually going to be, I have a laptop, even with 4gb ram and an ssd it takes too long to get into windows and do basic stuff, a netbook, has battery life but is dog slow, half dead, 2 legged, stuck in quicksand slow, I had one for the exact things I now use my ICS equiped Xoom for and the netbook is just a waste of time.

The Xoom, or any comparable tablet is a simply there as quick as you like, faster in some cases than an ipad given the use of widgets and how you can customise the front screen, no doubt if widgets arent patented apple will be reinventing that wheel with iOS6 or whatever but this isnt an Apple rant (nothing wrong with the hardware or the OS, it works and if your already bought into the "Apple" way then get one, its the company I dislike).

A Windows 8 tablet in its basic form (thinking 32Gb onboard with USB/mSD ports) should be no more than £50/£75 more than a basic iPad3(I say 3 given the timescale were likely to be looking at)

Needs to be pretty much instant on like the Android/iPad

The path from Desktop to Tablet apps needs to be pretty simple for developers to simply recomplie or whatever the technical stuff they do it.

It needs to come out of the blocks all guns blazing as far as business users are concerned, it needs full Office integration as well as all the normal net features you expect, flash, acrobat reader etc, RIM had a decent market share and could of made a killing if they had a decent tablet to take advantage of all those people that had BlackBerrys.

That said, and even with what I said it needs to cost if it comes out with Office, Internet stuff, 9+ hours battery life, Wifi, BT, GPS and some sort of Google Navigation etc that ties in with the GPS/Exchange contact cards and comes in at £500inc I'd get one, I paid the same price give or take for my 3g 32Gb Xoom last year when they landed and given that this would give me all the Windows based things we use at work it'd be a winner when put next to the iPad2's we bought 5/6 of at the end of last year..

Well there are two kinds of windows 8 "Tablets" really.

1) The ARM version that only ever runs metro. This is a direct competitor to the high end android or iOS tablets, and imo should be priced at £400-£500 for the base models. That should sell well, and being a true "modern tablet" it should compete well..if the software is available.

2) An x86 combined tablet/ultrabook (like TheAnimus mentioned) - this would be brilliant imo, best of both worlds. x86 so it can run all legacy software, but with a detachable keyboard where it can run in slate mode (i.e. that ugly metro UI). This of the Asus transformer but actually useful! I'd be willing to pay around the £1k mark for one of these, as long as the specification matched the price (would be looking for unibody style construction, core i5, 4gb ram etc).

I guess we'll see how the OEMs pay this one - if they do release option number 2 it will be the device that stops me buying another mac air in 12 month's time, as there is no serious competition in that marketplace at the moment.

Apple ipad will always be more expensive than the market norm, as with Ipods and Iphones and iMacs.

I think Microsoft will hope to take at least 20% off the price of the equivalent ipad product.

I am hoping Microsoft and Nokia alliance brings out a good tablet at a good price. I reckon entry level products at £300 at first. But with Android tablets getting better and cheaper I think Windows 8 tablets will appear at £200.

I would buy one for £200 as long as it had 3G/4G support amongst other expected features.

Depends how easily I can do certain tasks out of the box.

This is quite a difficult question to answer, because we have no real idea what they are offering. But I can't say I am waiting in anticipation for either the OS, or an MSbased tablet. I recall all their previous efforts, and have a fear of lugging a steamroller around, when I want a parasol

I'd pay £500 for a dockable windows 8 tablet and doubled up as a general use pc, not so interested in the ARM ones but we'll see.

I don't think I would, my Transformer with ICS has enough capability and is reliable enough that the only reason to have a PC is for games.

For ARM & WOA, I'd be looking to pay no more than £300.

For an x86 Windows 8 tablet, £400+ would be fair I think.

Certainly the WOA version has to be cheaper than an iPad - and a fair bit at that!

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Originally Posted by Spud1

1) The ARM version that only ever runs metro. This is a direct competitor to the high end android or iOS tablets, and imo should be priced at £400-£500 for the base models. That should sell well, and being a true "modern tablet" it should compete well..if the software is available.

2) An x86 combined tablet/ultrabook (like TheAnimus mentioned) - this would be brilliant imo, best of both worlds. x86 so it can run all legacy software, but with a detachable keyboard where it can run in slate mode (i.e. that ugly metro UI). This of the Asus transformer but actually useful! I'd be willing to pay around the £1k mark for one of these, as long as the specification matched the price (would be looking for unibody style construction, core i5, 4gb ram etc).

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I suspect that the pricing will be around iPad2/3 level for the ARM based units (so £400+), and the less suitable x86 ones will be £700+. I have no interest in the x86 version because it'd probably be heavier, have much poorer battery life and the cost makes it suitable only for businesses and those for whom a MacBook is an impulse buy. If I've got the kind of money they'll go for then I'll wisely invest it in a proper desktop or laptop.

The ARM based one is much more suitable for me - cheaper for start. That said, I'm really not convinced that Windows8 will be as good in tablet mode as Android or iOS - because the latter were designed for touch, whereas I'm cynical/bigoted enough to think that Windows8 will be a touch layer glued onto a desktop OS.

Oh and Spud1 - I'm typing this on a Transformer - and it is useful! :P That said, I agree with you, the Transformer idea is probably the best tablet configuration imho.

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Originally Posted by crossy

Oh and Spud1 - I'm typing this on a Transformer - and it is useful! :P That said, I agree with you, the Transformer idea is probably the best tablet configuration imho.

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Pfft it's Android, surely that can't be useful ;D Nah in all serious I mean it would make it truly useful in the sense that you can run legacy software on it, and have access to all of the software/tools that make you use a PC. It could be a true desktop replacement.

I always loved Tablet PCs, but they have always been too heavy, bulky and generally just poor..the transformer concept really fixes the problems that they had - we just need an x86 version now to tide us over until we all switch to ARM based kit for our day to day home and office activities ;)

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Originally Posted by Spud1

Pfft it's Android, surely that can't be useful ;D Nah in all serious I mean it would make it truly useful in the sense that you can run legacy software on it, and have access to all of the software/tools that make you use a PC. It could be a true desktop replacement.

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Problem then becomes that you start running up against the limitations in the form factor - limited RAM and disk space being the most obvious. E.g. on the latter, I'd argue 32GB is a "typical" storage size for Xooms, Transformers, Galaxy Tabs - oh, and that other one ( ;) ) - but an Office 2010 has a recommended size of 3GB - so that's 10% of all your disk space taken with one product. I'm also pretty dubious that the x86 line can deliver the kind of meagre power usage that'll be needed - especially if you don't pay much heed to power saving and use it fully.

For those reasons I think people will be initially disappointed with the WinTel tablets. The ARM based one's on the other hand I think could do very well. That said, I'll still personally prefer iOS and Android devices because their OS's were designed for small resource, power sensitive mobile devices.

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Originally Posted by Spud1

I always loved Tablet PCs, but they have always been too heavy, bulky and generally just poor..the transformer concept really fixes the problems that they had - we just need an x86 version now to tide us over until we all switch to ARM based kit for our day to day home and office activities ;)

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What you said above got me thinking, and to be honest if Office was available then I probably could just about trade in my current works laptop for a docked tablet now. I'd need one with decent connectivity (no iPads) because I'd want to use USB keyboard/mouse and a proper monitor (perhaps with the tablet falling back to become a smaller secondary screen - that'd be very cool).

Maybe the ultimate end point would be something like a Windows 8 Mobile powered Asus padFone - certainly the advantages espoused for the current padFone would be far greater if that device was Windows powered and could therefore run an Office version etc as you're suggesting. I can think of a lot of people who'd like the idea of a device that could morph from Desktop -> Netbook -> Tablet -> Phone as they needed. :drool:

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Originally Posted by crossy

Problem then becomes that you start running up against the limitations in the form factor - limited RAM and disk space being the most obvious. E.g. on the latter, I'd argue 32GB is a "typical" storage size for Xooms, Transformers, Galaxy Tabs - oh, and that other one ( ;) ) - but an Office 2010 has a recommended size of 3GB - so that's 10% of all your disk space taken with one product. I'm also pretty dubious that the x86 line can deliver the kind of meagre power usage that'll be needed - especially if you don't pay much heed to power saving and use it fully.

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True if you are thinking about a £400 tablet - but if you take my view that they should cost nearer £1k, you suddenly have a lot more money to invest in the components.

Effectively it would become an ultrabook with a detachable tablet - look at the sheer amount of power that Apple can cram into a Mac Air for example - if you can replicate that from a decent PC manufacturer (no elcheapo Acer rubbish) then you are on to a winner.

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Originally Posted by crossy

Problem then becomes that you start running up against the limitations in the form factor - limited RAM and disk space being the most obvious. E.g. on the latter, I'd argue 32GB is a "typical" storage size for Xooms, Transformers, Galaxy Tabs - oh, and that other one ( ;) ) - but an Office 2010 has a recommended size of 3GB - so that's 10% of all your disk space taken with one product.

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Sometimes you say things that make you sound pretty stupid, office 2010 on an x86 platform has a recommended size of 3Gb, so, which part of you thinks that the ARM/Win8 version will be the same?

Kingsoft office is less than 8mb, google docs 4mb, you seem to think that the x86 version of office will need 3Gb... need I go on?

I guess it depends on how good it is and how much I really need it.:d

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Originally Posted by [GSV]Trig

Sometimes you say things that make you sound pretty stupid, office 2010 on an x86 platform has a recommended size of 3Gb, so, which part of you thinks that the ARM/Win8 version will be the same?

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Erm, what was it in what I'd said that made you think that I was talking about a currently mythical ARM version of Office? Spud1's comment was that he was looking to run "legacy" software on the Win8 Transformer - and the most obvious part for most folks will be Office (until there's a dedicated tablet version of course). I also said (in the next line) "For those reasons I think people will be initially disappointed with the WinTel tablets. The ARM based one's on the other hand I think could do very well." - hence that para you quoted was talking about x86 gear.

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Originally Posted by [GSV]Trig

Kingsoft office is less than 8mb, google docs 4mb, you seem to think that the x86 version of office will need 3Gb... need I go on?

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Don't think it's particularly valid to start spooling off alternate versions - at the risk of being accused of "stupidity" again ;) I'd suggest that most businesses will want the "proper" Microsoft Office. Not sure about the Kingsoft product, but Google Docs is "feature limited" even compared to Abiword/Gnumeric and especially LibreOffice.

By the way I don't "think that the x86 version of Office will need 3GB" - Microsoft does! See http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/pr...#_Toc250543106 512MB of RAM and 3GB of disk space are stated requirements for the Standard and Pro versions of Office 2010. So if you still don't agree, go argue with them! :p

I agree where you're coming from - yes, there undoubtedly will be ARM versions of Office in the fullness of time, and yes those probably will be a bit lighter of footprint than the current desktop Office. It'll be interesting to see what these look like (and how much they'll cost!).

Nice to know that even you - [GSV]Trig - can have an "off" day, since that post of yours was definitely way below your usual high quality standard. :embarrassed: No insult intended of course.

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Originally Posted by bobharvey

This is quite a difficult question to answer, because we have no real idea what they are offering. ....

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That. ^^

It depends on the spec, and what I expect to do with it.

In all likelihood, about £200 max, because if it's much more than that, it's more power than I need and I'd rather buy a laptop. So I'm not holding my breath in anticipation.