Can anyone find an expected release date for this?

MS is pretty vague on the website?

Ta :)

Some of the MS stores in the US are saying January 26. Price tag is a bit heavy though, $900 in the states or something like that?

Yeah $900 sounds like a pretty good price to me, SSD, an i5 Processor and 1080p resolution screen would set you back close to a grand for a regular laptop.

I had a go of the RT surface at JB's the other day, I couldn't really tell what was different between it and the normal version of Windows 8. The keyboard case thing is really shit though, it'd be impossible to type at any decent pace since the keys seemed to need to have pressure on them for half a second to register the press. It was impressive how thin it was but I'd rather use a proper keyboard if I wasn't using an on-screen one.

Is this Surface with Windows 8 Pro going to be a standard install of windows 8 pro or just a renamed windows 8 RT Pro gimmick?

It's standard install of Windows 8 Pro and will run any x86/x64 apps.

Is it still going to bang out 7 - 8 hours + of battery life with these new stats?

Apparently only 4.5hrs battery life

Apparently only 4.5hrs battery life

fuck

I am looking at the Surface Pro as a desktop replacement at the office, battery life isn't going to bother me too much.