Black Friday is only two and a half weeks away and it is already time to start prepping for the biggest shopping day of the year. Upcoming deals and sales have already begun to leak and one specific deal from Best Buy has attracted our attention. Best Buy will be selling Microsoft’s Surface (First Generation) 32 GB tablet for only $199.
Microsoft is stilling trying to empty their stock of the original Surface device and deals like this are bound to be popping up everywhere, but we can confirm that Best Buy will be in on it. The device doesn’t include a keyboard of any sort, but $199 is a great price point and lands in the territory of Amazon’s Kindle. If you’ve ever wanted to toy around with a Surface, this price may give you your chance.
The original Surface might be an underpowered device compared to its latest generation brother, but at such a low price – we can’t say it would be a bad decision to grab it. In addition to the Facebook application that was just launched for Windows 8.1, this holiday is promised to be the launch time period for other popular apps such as Flipboard.
For those outside of the United States who are unaware of what Black Friday is, it is the day after Thanksgiving when stores have extreme sales and people go crazy trying to make their purchases. It can even get dangerous, search Bing for “Black Friday Mayhem” and see what I mean.
Make sure to stay tuned to WP Central for the latest news and all of the upcoming Black Friday deals headed your way. If you are out of the United States, don’t worry, you will be resting comfortably in bed while all everyone here is getting up at 5 AM like madmen (and women).
Source: WinBeta
Reader comments
Black Friday Deal: Surface RT 32 GB at Best Buy for $199 (US Only)
Is this an in store only price? Anyone know?
A heck of a deal if you ask me. I've been wanting one of these for awhile and at $199.99, how could you go wrong?
First of all - it's not Surface RT2, 2nd of all - not PRO. So nah!
What about the 64GB version?
I'm up by 5 30 am anyways =)
Wow....$199.00 I have one 64g, with key board I paid $700.00 with insurance warrentee
I'm actually very jealous; and I'm typing this on my Surface 2 that I got today.
Never mind, I read Surface 2 in the title... And btw, I'm lovin' it!!
I hope the Surface 2 gets a nice Black Friday discount/deal!
Btw. We do have black Friday in Canada now....
I'm all over it!
I want to forget about this day. Spent took much last year
With the 8.1 upgrade this makes a very attractive package. If I didn't have one already, I'd buy it in a heartbeat
i just received the 64gb V8P today from dell from my order on the 8th when they had that free upgrade deal. its really compact and has a nice response. i hope someone make a rt model in this size cause i really dont need two full W8P tablets.
America has much about it I feel could be improved, like all countries, there is always room for improvement. However, putting a sale BEFORE Christmas is pure genius! Ours begin Boxing Day......24 hours too late.
Would love to bag one of these.
Always looking for a deal, but I hear (from fans on this very site, some in this very thread) that Tegra 3 is just too slow.
Still have my eye on the Venue 8 Pro or Asus T100.
C'mon Amazon. Do yo' thang!
I hope moving a bunch of these gets a larger user base and developers taking notice. With 8.1 the Surface RT is a fantastic device. I feel like I got a brand new tablet the day 8.1 came out. If I was Best Buy I would put a giant sticker on these that says "Go to the store and upgrade to 8.1" on all the boxes.
Bought this a while back when it popped up on eBay deals for $199 including the keyboard. It was slow and laggy and just not worth it. I tried to like it and keep it but sent it back. Maybe 8.1 would speed things up and so forth, but i still wouldn't bite.
I got the same deal. Surface 2 is the way to go if not for price, but at $199, I am more than happy with my purchase. With the 8.1 update, performance is much improved. I love how everything syncs between devices.
Doesn't matter how cheap it is if I have to set foot in a store with a bunch of psychopaths and stand in a long line. I'd rather pay full price and wait for it to be delivered to my door.
Amen! Specially for Surface 1, not 2, and not PRO pfff
People complain about performance issues with the Surface RT. Can you elaborate? How's it work for Remote Desktop? My brother wants to replace his broken Kindle Fire and ancient kitchen laptop, and I thought this might be a good option for him.
I have two RTs and the first one I bought was bought for exactly that use... it sits in my kitchen, where I use it for IE, Kindle, OneNote, and Remote Desktop. The kickstand makes it take such a small amount of space. I have the touch keyboard and I have Win set to auto-login and to unsuspend when I fold the keyboard down. So I just fold it open and it unsuspends instantly and is ready to use. It's definitely a "consumption device" but the only thing I use my Nexus for these days is playing Pinball Arcade, which I'm guessing will never come to RT, and the only thing I use my full PC for is Photoshop. I really thought the Surface RT was going to suck but I ended up using it so much that I bought a second. At the retail price it's not worth it, at $199 it's nearly a must-have.
There are good pinball games in the Windows Store. Have you tried Pinball FX?
Pinball FX lags horribly for me on the RT. ;( I haven't found any others.
I thought I read that there was some cooking app for Win8 that allowed you to flip pages on a recipe by swiping hand in front of camera. Kinda like kinect. Hands free operation in the kitchen. Do you happen to know the name of it?
That sounds cool, I haven't heard of that app. Most of my recipe books are Kindle, so I use the Kindle app. Turning the page isnt a big deal, just pinky-mash the side of the screen, you don't have to swipe or anything.
OK, turns out its the bullt-in MS "Food and Drink" app that does this. I'll have to check it out.
It's a Microsoft app called bing food or recipes or something similar - it installed with windows 8.1 :)
Thanks. I just tried it on my SP2. Pretty cool! Once you select a recipe, you can turn on "Hands Free" mode. Too bad it only works after you select a recipe..
Still makes me consider the Leap Motion Controller..... But then again, I'm thinking Kinect Hacks will make that unnecessary with the Kinect2. Still, this Bing Food and Recipe's use of the webcam is pretty darn cool.
Bing Food & Drink. It is installed on the Start Screen by default when you upgrade to 8.1.
The Surface RT, now called just Surface, has a tegra3 which is somewhat slow. Surface 2 is twice as fast. But the problem with Windows RT is apps. It isn't a true windows build, by that I mean it doesn't run legacy software built for windows. It can only get apps from the Windows Store, and even then Windows 8 and Windows RT have separate stores.
MS tried to have its cake and eat it too. They wanted to ship a significantly different OS but still call it Windows. That is why Surface RT failed. And why WinRT is almost dead.
No app issues here. My wife uses hers for inputting student grades and reviews, attending conferences, workshops . Its been a hell of a device. She always comments on the weird iPad contraptions people bring and that everyone ends up checking out and liking her Surface. Great device.
I see that all the time too at big meetings. People are bringing in their iPads with giant covers and keyboards that really just look awkward. Then I bust out my Surface RT with the snap-on keyboard cover and kickstand and everyone is like, "Whoa...what's that?"
If price doesn't matter, he should definitely get the Surface 2. But at $199, the Surface 1 could easily meet their needs. Ours has basically replaced our laptop, which still works fine running 8.1. There was nothing we were doing on the laptop that we couldn't do on the Surface. The app argument I think is irrelevant here. It is based on individual needs. There is not a single app on iOS or Android that would make me want to buy either, especially the more expensive iPad. Guess what, you can't install Windows desktop applications on those platforms either. I wish people would stop bringing that up. Yes, we know and many of us are perfectly fine with it.
Exactly! Windows 8 "Metro" apps have come a long way... Soon, we won't even need the desktop or legacy apps anymore.
As long as 98% of smartphones run on ARM processors, RT isn't going to die. It's the other direction, full desktop apps are the dinosaur, and it's their poorly-written code that won't port easily to ARM.
It also supports flash, so online gaming, Hulu, HBO go, etc., will work wonderfully.
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$199 is half the price of the HP Omni 10 running real windows. Yet the HP is still probably a better value.
Win RT = no thanks
For myself I agree but the kids for sure. I can finally get rid of their garbage Android tablets. The Nabi 2 and Kindle Fire HD. I bought a Surface Pro 2 at release and I'll get the wife one so she can get rid of her Galaxy Tab 2. I'm so anti-Android. Can't stand the UI.
Best Buy opens at 6pm on Thanksgiving this year so you'll probably need to wait in line all day for some of these deals.
Eh.
I got this same deal two months ago because of my wife's educator discount... Surface RT and type cover for $269 total.
I'm tempted to get that crappy $40 android tablet to let the kids play with it, and leave my WP alone.
Its a nice deal and Id love to get it, but no... I've only tried getting an in-store BF deal once and never will again. The line was hundreds deep and twice within the 5 mins I was there I was grazed by a car as people went bananas looking for parking. I can only imagine what it was like beyond that.
I read somewhere else that this deal would last that whole weekend. I got my Surface refurbished for that amount. I love it, but I did check out the Surface 2 at Staples. It is noticeably lighter than the RT. Still holding out for an 8" Surface or Lumia tablet.
I've only tried once too, but it was actually really neat. It was few years ago and they had an ASUS Transformer tablet for half price. I went in there around midnight and saw the line. I was going to leave, but changed my mind and stuck it out. I'm glad I did. I had waited for about 20 minutes when I got a ticket for my tablet. The line I was in wrapped around the store and was barely moving. Again, I was ready to give up when the guy behind me said you didn't have to wait in line.
He explained to me how they only give out tickets for the amount of stock they have in the store and that my having a ticket meant there was a specific tablet waiting for me. As long as I was back before 4am (when they closed for prepping for normal hours), I'd get my deal.
So I left with my ticket and took my wife to a few other places she wanted to go to get some deals. We went back to Best Buy a few hours later to see how long the line was. There was barely any line left! I walked in and walked out with my tablet about 20 minutes later.
I don't know if they do it like this anymore, but if they do, I'd be willing to snag a ticket for a far superior tablet (the Surface RT) at a better price than the one I did before.
Well, Fnac over here is selling the 64GB version for 299€. I should have waited a bit longer...=P
:O Goddamn it. Lucky Americans. ;)
Wonder if this will be instore only or online ordering is an option?
Wouldn't be surprised if MS store did something online shortly after BF? That's what I'm hoping for
Black Friday deals like this are usually in store only, but the ad doesn't say unfortunately.
It may still go on for Cyber Monday.
Sick deal! :D
I paid this much at my school for mine brand new 4 months ago :)
Yeah um let that be the regular price and have surface 2 @ $349
Even though the pro 2 has 2 years free of 200GB SkyDrive storage, and 1 year of Skype WiFi? -_-
I would gladly take a $100 discount over those extras. 200GB is impressive but I disdain temporary cloud storage.
I whole heartedly agree
I could not care less about 200GB Skydrive and 1 year of Skype, add absolutely no value for me; lover the price by $100-$200 and then it might provide some value, but skydrive and skype - no thanks.
Why not just make everything free and make you the king of America. LOL
Ok.
Its not asking for it to be free but priced better notice surface sales or just blah and the price is the reason
@RayWP7 LMAO
I just emailed Sam about that this morning.....
Sorry man, I'm sure Sam just didn't get to it yet and is busy working on Windows Phone stuff.
If you every have anything specific to Windows 8 or Xbox, you can shoot it my way and I'll make sure to see it.
michael@wpcentral.com
Cheers and thanks for reading WPC!
-Mike