Best Buy takes axe to touchy Windows 8 PCs - lops $100 off price

Sit down, Surface, you don't count

Best Buy will slash $100 off the price of touchscreen Windows 8 PCs.

From Monday the US retail chain will cut the cost of Sony, Acer, Toshiba, Dell and HP touch-driven laptops plus two models of Samsung's all-in-ones to shift stock.

You can see the full range of discounted gear here. Best Buy’s discount will not apply to Windows 8 tablets nor to Microsoft’s laptop-tablet-ish Surface.

Best Buy lowered its prices after a survey revealed that shoppers who bought touchscreen Windows 8 devices were “significantly happier” than those who bought PCs with a bog-standard display, according to the The Wall Street Journal.

“Touch is a critical component to Windows 8 from a customer satisfaction perspective,” Jason Bonfig, Best Buy’s vice-president for merchant computing, told the WSJ.

In the run up to the Windows 8 release, Microsoft gave PC makers clear advice on the hardware to put into their computers to take advantage of the new operating system's features - such as touchscreens for the new finger-driven user interface. But the manufacturers resisted because they believed adding the extra hardware would make the machines too expensive and unsellable.

Windows 8 then failed to shift in significant volumes over the Christmas shopping period, leaving Best Buy and other shops stocked up with unsold inventory. One senior source at a major PC maker told The Reg consumers snapped up Windows 7 PCs rather than machines running Windows 8. ®