Microsoft has revealed pricing of the Surface Pro tablet ahead of its UK debut on May 23rd.
Redmond confirmed that Brits will be able to get their hands on the 64GB Surface Pro for £719, whilst those eyeing the 128GB model should expect to hand over £799.
The Surface Pro will enter a competitive UK tablet market, which continues to be dominated by Apple's iPad devices.
In comparison, Apple's top-end iPad is priced at £639 and sports its trademark Retina Display, along with 128GB of storage.
Despite outpacing the top iPad by 25 per cent, Microsoft maintains that the Surface Pro is a more complete solution than Apple's slate – a statement reiterated by Canalys analyst Tim Coulling.
"It runs on a Windows 8 operating system so there is access to legacy applications and that is why it's priced higher than the iPad. Microsoft wants customers to pay a premium for a full Windows experience," Coulling told The Channel.
"The vast majority of business people use an iPad and a notebook, so it will probably be cheaper to have one Surface Pro when they upgrade devices. IT managers will look to replace iPad with Pro because the OS is easier to manage and is familiar."
In addition to running the full Windows 8 operating system, over the RT edition used by the Surface RT, the Pro also offers the added benefit of far superior hardware.
The Pro packs a dual-core i5 processor clocked at 1.7GHz, 4GB of DDR3 RAM and 128GB of SSD storage, which along with its use of the full Windows 8 OS, could see the Pro viewed by some as a viable gaming system.

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