Asus Windows 8 tablet pricing comes in high; Demand likely low
Summary: Asus' Windows 8 tablet pricing will start at $599 and run to $1,299. In other words, tablets will be more than laptops in some cases without any enterprise heft to justify a premium. — Larry Dignan
Context & Ripple Effects
Asus' $599 starting price lands exactly where the supply chain expected: a January 2012 DigiTimes report had already flagged Wintel tablet PCs priced from US$599-899, so the floor is no surprise — what stings is the $1,299 ceiling, which puts some configurations above comparable laptops with no enterprise-grade justification for the premium.
ZDNet's Larry Dignan frames this as a demand problem, not a spec problem, and the reaction was broad enough that eight outlets including Ars Technica, Engadget, VentureBeat and The Verge picked up the pricing story within a day — the number itself became the talking point heading into Windows 8's launch.
First-order effects
- Asus enters the Windows 8 launch window with tablets priced against iPads at the low end and against its own Ultrabooks at the high end, forcing shoppers to justify a tablet over a cheaper clamshell from the same brand.
- Dignan's assessment — confirmed in the coverage — is that weak consumer demand follows directly, meaning Asus' initial sell-through rests on early adopters rather than mainstream buyers.
Second-order effects
- Rival Windows 8 OEMs now face a pricing fork: match Asus' premium and share the demand risk, or undercut and compress margins on hardware already carrying Windows licensing costs.
- At laptop-level prices, Asus' own notebook line risks cannibalizing its tablet line — the bundle problem where two products from one vendor compete for the same budget.
Third-order effects
- If the $599-plus pattern holds across the Windows 8 OEM cohort, the platform launches structurally unable to compete on price with established tablets, pushing vendors toward smaller, cheaper form factors as the escape route from a premium-price dead end.
The trend: Windows 8 hardware is launching at PC prices rather than tablet prices, testing whether the post-PC buyer will pay an Ultrabook premium for a slate.