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Microsoft Surface Pro gets permanent price cut to $799

tablet
Wilson Rothman / NBC News
Surface
The new Surface pricing was made permanent.Microsoft

In a bid to spur sales of its Surface tablets, Microsoft recently reduced their prices by a significant amount, but for the Surface Pro, the cut was only temporary — or so it was said. Perhaps pleased by the results, the company has decided to make the new prices permanent.

The sales began in July with a $150 cut for the Surface RT, bringing the tablet's price down to $350. Then, in early August, the Surface Pro and several accessories got serious discounts as well. $100 off the Pro put it at $799 for a 64 GB device — expensive in the tablet market, but the Surface is more capable in many ways than its competition.

The Surface Pro runs the full desktop version of Windows 8, making it more suitable for some for productivity and media work than an iPad or Android tablet. The RT tablet runs the more limited version of the Windows OS, which has no actual "desktop" and has been criticized for not having enough top-shelf apps.

The new prices were only supposed to last through Aug. 29, but Microsoft issued a statement Thursday saying the lower prices would be staying around:

The customer response to recent Surface pricing and keyboard-cover promotions has been exciting to see, and we are proud to begin rollout of Surface Pro, Touch Cover and Surface RT bundles at even more affordable prices starting 29 August.

The cuts could be related to an upcoming refresh of the hardware; Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang confirmed that the chip company is "working really hard" on the next version of the Surface RT, but no timing was indicated. The tablets were announced last June (but didn't go on sale until October), so new hardware would not be surprising.

You can check out the tablets' specs and accessories at the Surface website.

Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for NBC News Digital. His personal website is coldewey.cc.