On October 26th Microsoft will not only release their brand new Windows 8 operating system, but also their first ever tablet, the Microsoft Surface. The Surface will come in two flavors - Windows 8 Pro and Windows RT, the latter made for the ARM processor. At launch it will be available only online and at Microsoft's brick and mortar stores. While the company has showed off the devices and given us quite a bit of detail on them, the one thing they have failed to reveal is a price.

Now, Dummies.com, the makers of the popular how-to guides, such as Office 2010 for Dummies, has announced a contest in which they will be giving away, as a grand prize, a Microsoft Surface tablet, along with one copy each of the Windows 8 For Dummies, and Surface For Dummies books. The contest page mentions that the approximate retail value of this package is "$350.00 USD", which may be revealing.

Since Microsoft announced the Surface tablets last summer there has been speculation all over the web about the price. For a while there was a fairly credible rumor floating around that the tablet would retail for $199, but later CEO Steve Ballmer squashed that gossip by seeming to indicate that the device would sell for closer to $1,000, almost pricing it out of the market.

The Surface has been listed on the Microsoft Store for sometime now, but is not yet available for pre-order. If the sub $350 price tag proves to be true then it would come in below the iPad, but above the two most popular Android competitors, the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD, which both retail for $199. However, the Surface will likely be a much better choice for business users thanks to integration with Exchange and the inclusion of Office.

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