Wintel Tablets Could Cost Up to $900

There are rumors that Microsoft-/Intel-based tablets could be substantially more expensive than Android-/ARM-based versions.

According to information reaching us from Taiwan, Wintel tablets could retail somewhere from $599 to $899 as both Intel and Microsoft allegedly refuse to drop their hardware prices.

$900 for a tablet is a tough one to swallow for consumers and could prevent Microsoft and Intel from competing with Google and ARM effectively. Digitimes suggests that both Microsoft and Intel are caught between a rock and a hard place as they could lower their product prices to gain market share, but they would damage their average product margins and possibly cannibalize some notebook sales with hardware and software that have substantially higher profit margins.

There was no confirmation from Microsoft and Intel that would indicate that their upcoming tablets will, in fact, be as expensive as Digitimes reported. However, it is likely that tablet vendors will find cheaper ARM-based SoCs from Nvidia, Qualcomm and Texas Instrument's much more appealing. In such cases, Microsoft may have still opportunities to pick up partners for Windows 8 on ARM, but Intel could find itself under substantial pressure.