Purported ASUS holiday roadmap pegs Windows 8 tablets at $599 and above

Windows 8 tablets have had their specs bandied about for months, but their prices have continued to remain off the radar. Now, however, a purported ASUS holiday roadmap sent to ZDNet may give us a glimpse as to how badly bank accounts could be affected this fall. According to the slide, the ASUS Vivo Tab will carry a $799 price tag and its Windows RT counterpart will come in at $599, which matches the previously reported price difference between slates running Redmond's latest OS with Intel and AMD processors. The ASUS Taichi dual-screen notebook / tablet hybrid is said to ring up at a heftier $1,299. As for the firm's Transformer Book, it will supposedly set purchasers back $1,399. If these prices are any indication of what we can expect from other OEMs, Microsoft's Surface might be pricier than hoped.