Best Buy

Microsoft's Surface Pro has made its first appearance on a retailer's site other than Microsoft's.

That would be big box retailer Best Buy, which is already boasting that the new Microsoft tablet will go on sale at midnight February 8 at a store in Union Square in New York City.

Best Buy lists the two available models, 64GB and 128GB, priced at $899 and $999, respectively. Neither product comes with the $129 Type Cover, which is a 5.75 mm-thick mechanical keyboard.

Microsoft is also offering a $119 Touch Cover pressure-response keyboard.

The tablet comes with 4GB of memory and an Intel "Ivy Bridge" processor. Combine those two features with the 128GB solid-state drive, and you have an ultrabook in tablet's clothing.

Which means better performance in Windows 8 desktop mode than the existing Surface RT tablet, though battery life will suffer because of the more power-hungry processor.

And storage has become a delicate issue for Microsoft. While the 128GB version of Surface Pro has 83GB of free storage out of the box, the 64GB version has only 23GB of free disk space, Microsoft said a few days back.

Finally, note that some Microsoft stores are displaying the tablet starting today. For example, a Microsoft Store in Los Angeles has the Surface Pro in-store today, CNET confirmed.

Best Buy

[Via WinBeta ]