Microsoft Has Lost its Mind—$450 for a Keyboard, AI Button Included

[ARF]

I mean Apple does shit like this every day, asking a gazillion dollars for basic things and a lot of people don't seem to mind.

I have never bought anything apple..

Those "a lot of" people simply support that system, maybe they find it prestigious and are willing to send donations, for different reasons. It's like supporting the home country production and being fanboys of the said company.

 

[bonehead123]

I hope to expect copilot stickers soon, then I'll sell my current keyboard....

Oh hell no, cause that $.00003 cost would cut into their insane margins...can't have that now, can we ?

But FYI, you CAN buy the stickers separately, for ONLY $99 each, heeheeheee

This reminds me of just the other day when I went to Whole Foods... who pays $13 for a thing of bacon... you can get the same stuff for $5-6 anywhere else... its insane. I hope people don't pay prices of stuff because retailers need to know they can't price things that high...and then we have deflation....

But...

But....

Didn't that bacon have the AI-Generated smokey-sweet flavor, hahahahahaha ?

I went into a WF store last year for the 1st (and last) time.... after about 30 seconds, I was literally ready to barf up my breakfast due to the outrageous prices....that's why most of their stores are located in upscale neighborhoods....and for good reason, the folks who live there are the only ones who could possibly afford to shop there !

 

[Onasi]

I'm not sure about that.

View attachment 348196

…who the hell is Aria? Is this Googles Siri/Cortana/Copilot? I seem to have missed when that became a thing.

 

[qlum]

While I understand they can't just price it at $70 for the set, this price is absolute madness, Especially contrasting to my cheap chinese tablet pc where a stylus + keyboard was closer to €50, I know this is higher quality but still € 150 for the keyboard or € 200 for keyboard + stylus would still be acceptable.

 

[R0H1T]

Still not as bad as the fruity loops selling you a stand(plus wheels?) for a grand or so

 

[Philaphlous]

Oh hell no, cause that $.00003 cost would cut into their insane margins...can't have that now, can we ?

But FYI, you CAN buy the stickers separately, for ONLY $99 each, heeheeheee

But...

But....

Didn't that bacon have the AI-Generated smokey-sweet flavor, hahahahahaha ?

I went into a WF store last year for the 1st (and last) time.... after about 30 seconds, I was literally ready to barf up my breakfast due to the outrageous prices....that's why most of their stores are located in upscale neighborhoods....and for good reason, the folks who live there are the only ones who could possibly afford to shop there !

Yea, I refuse to pay that much. A loaf of highly processed sandwich bread is like $9... just absolutely nuts. WF got wind of inflation and decided to double/triple prices overnight and called it good...

 

[KrazyT]

Microsoft Has Lost its Mind—$450 for a Keyboard, AI Button Included​

Anwser from MS :
"AI made us do it !"

 

[dirtyferret]

I mean Apple does shit like this every day, asking a gazillion dollars for basic things and a lot of people don't seem to mind.

Apple has one? I'm getting two!

 

[evernessince]

$100 was already overpriced for the $5 BOM quality of the surface keyboard. $450 though for a $5 BOM is beyond a joke, it's the kind of price tag you laugh at or give a funny look because it's so ridiculous.

This is outlandish - but in many (large) workplaces, company pays for stuff like laptops and accessories. I wonder if MS is leaning heavily into milking that with the MSRP - and hopefully providing frequent and heavy discounts through retail channels.

I don't think so, many companies already purchase 3rd party surface keyboards because they are 1/2 to 1/3rd the cost of the $100 surface keyboard. Microsoft would really have to be giving kickbacks to the acquisitions head in order for them to justify $450. I think that pricing is more targeted at artists as that's what their marketing material seems to suggest. That said I believe you are far better off just getting Wacom if that's the use case, the leader in the pen tablet market.

 

[GhostRyder]

Well...I find this to be ridiculous.

 

[Space Lynx]

Copilot this Copilot that.

I'm almost joining the Windows 7 holdouts in their loony bin, it's looking rather comfy.

its really easy to disable copilot and the other nonsense though, i just copied over a regedit from one of W1zzard's posts.

 

[LifeOnMars]

First guy I thought of with the thread title...

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

I mean Apple does shit like this every day, asking a gazillion dollars for basic things and a lot of people don't seem to mind.

Even Apple isn’t charging this for their Magic Keyboard. It’s $100 less, is powered by the device and acts like a stand. Even then, I see a lot of Apple users balk at that price. $450 is madness, AI button or not. Even if it comes with a pencil, it’s still too much.

 

[theouto]

Copilot this Copilot that.

I'm almost joining the Windows 7 holdouts in their loony bin, it's looking rather comfy.

Wait until you hear about the new "recall" feature.

It can be disabled, but boy does it look like a vulnerability ready to be exploited!

On the news themselves: Seeing how apple has learnt from their 999 usd blunder of a stand (for the most part), maybe it's time for microsoft to learn. God I hope they actually have to learn.

 

[Noyand]

I don't think so, many companies already purchase 3rd party surface keyboards because they are 1/2 to 1/3rd the cost of the $100 surface keyboard. Microsoft would really have to be giving kickbacks to the acquisitions head in order for them to justify $450. I think that pricing is more targeted at artists as that's what their marketing material seems to suggest. That said I believe you are far better off just getting Wacom if that's the use case, the leader in the pen tablet market.

Wacom might need to seriously commit to an independent tablet that isn't 16/9. I don't have data, on which screen tablet sells more, I can only comment on what I see: big Wacom at home, apple/Samsung tablet on the move is the setup that seems to be the most common (And I've seen tattoo artist only using a tablet). 16:9 on a small screen is an awful aspect ratio for drawing, screen rotation is clunky, and they are fairly thick and heavy for something that you need to carry around along a laptop... The recently released Movink 13 might change things, but I noticed a trend to simplify and streamline setups

 

[Vya Domus]

Even Apple isn’t charging this for their Magic Keyboard.

No but they have plenty of other abhorrent pricing schemes for various other things, like asking hundreds of dollars for a little bit more RAM or storage or the famous thousand dollars wheels thing for their macs or however much they were, etc.

 

[JohH]

Offering more expensive accessories than Apple? That's an achievement.
I bet someone will put that on their resume.

 

[Eternit]

its really easy to disable copilot and the other nonsense though, i just copied over a regedit from one of W1zzard's posts.

I wonder if you can use copilot to disable copilot, or will it answer "I’m sorry Dave I’m afraid I can’t do that"

 

[AGlezB]

This is how distraction works. Everyone talking about the new expensive keyboard instead of the new expensive AI NPU they put in the Surface.

What happened in the cloud is going to come to the edge [...] and the edge is the PC.

Here is the link to the interview: Microsoft CEO on How New Windows AI Copilot+ PCs Beat Apple's Macs | WSJ

Why spend billions in AI chips, datacenters, cooling and electricity when they can make the users pay for everything.
And if you think the results will be private because the processing is local: think again. They'll tell you that to keep a seamless operation between your devices you'll need an MS account and internet access and they'll end with your data anyway but cheaper because they didn't have to pay the hardware/electricity costs.

TBH it's a very smart move from MS. Most likely within 5 years every laptop will include an NPU and because we are how we are PCs will have to follow the trend at some point not much later.

 

[Space Lynx]

chatgpt recently let me started using chatgpt 4o but limits me to certain amount per day for free. then it reverts me back to 3.5

honestly I prefer just using chatgpt official website, not sure why Apple, Google, and Microsoft want to spend billions on their own AI, won't matter to me, i will continue to use official chatgpt website and/or app.

 

[Sabotaged_Enigma]

AI BS

 

[Eternit]

chatgpt recently let me started using chatgpt 4o but limits me to certain amount per day for free. then it reverts me back to 3.5

honestly I prefer just using chatgpt official website, not sure why Apple, Google, and Microsoft want to spend billions on their own AI, won't matter to me, i will continue to use official chatgpt website and/or app.

Because they want to collect, process and use the data by themselves.

 

[Vayra86]

Copilot this Copilot that.

I'm almost joining the Windows 7 holdouts in their loony bin, it's looking rather comfy.

Where they at. I might want this too if things keep escalating as they do

Nah, still got a Lenovo Thinkpad chiclet keyboard here, one functional and another spare new in box (Look them up... if you can get past the shitty FN/Ctrl swap on the left, this is awesome kb... I do everything on it. Tactile, responsive, smaller than a TKL, and nigh indestructible!)

One thing's dead certain, I'm NOT paying a single cent for anything AI and will recommend my vicinity to do the same. Man what a shitshow

 

[Double-Click]

^ We keep them in the basement at Windows 10 Manor (they don't like the sun).

 

[Vayra86]

I mean Apple does shit like this every day, asking a gazillion dollars for basic things and a lot of people don't seem to mind.

Sure but when MS does it, it fails spectacularly, because MS is not cool, will never be cool, and basically rejects cool by design. It also helps that MS has no direction whatsoever in the consumer minds. They went with phones, perhaps you've got some old keyboard or mouse laying around with their brand on it, perhaps you have a half functional Windows on ARM device; but none of it stuck really. They get surpassed left and right throughout history on the hardware front. I still don't quite get why they keep peddling Xboxes but that's going straight into the shitter sooner rather than later; it has never really been making waves if you think of it... it only moved because bags of money were thrown at developers they bought to create some first party stuff. They'll move the brand to software, cloud, and that'll be that.

And good riddance too, MS is great at software, when they do hardware its like the school that starts selling sex toys: out of place. Just don't. It also keeps the market healthy. If MS would dominate on hardware and software they'd have a grasp on us nobody would allow.