Bargain alert - get the Dell Venue 8 Pro for $99 at Microsoft Stores

Microsoft's “12 days of deals” campaign kicks off today with the company's online and retail stores selling the Dell Venue 8 Pro tablet at a heavy discount - up to $200 off its original price, which is $299. The tablet has an 8-inch HD-display, a quad-core Intel Atom CPU, 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. It offers the full, RT-less Windows 8.1 experience.

Interested? Here's the kicker: all of this can be had for a measly $99. There's a certain catch, however. Only 20 tablets will be sold for $99 in each Microsoft retail shop, and only a hundred will be sold through the company's online store, so you better hurry right now if you want one. The rest of the tablets will sell for $199 until supplies last, which is still a great opportunity to score a compelling device.

The Dell Venue 8 Pro supports the Dell Active Stylus for note-taking and includes a copy of Office Home & Student 2013. Coupled with a keyboard accessory and a decent 8-10 hours of battery life, you can accomplish a lot with this device. Running the full build of Windows 8.1 Pro (again, not RT) provides support for all the desktop applications that you are used to, although anything more demanding than Photoshop will probably take your patience to its limit.

The offer is available to citizens of the US, Canada and Puerto Rico. If you miss out on the Dell Venue 8 Pro today, keep your fingers crossed for more sweet discounts in the next 11 days.