Best Buy, Staples Begin Carrying Microsoft Surface RT Tablet Today

So far, customers looking to get a Microsoft Surface RT tablet have had to buy it directly from Microsoft, but that changes today.

Best Buy and Staples will begin carrying the iPad competitor on Dec. 12. The Surface RT will be available on the Best Buy website at 5pm EST, and in stores on Dec. 16.

Staples will have the Surface RT in stores today.

It is crucial for Microsoft to make the Surface RT more accessible to interested buyers, especially casual shoppers who might just be browsing tech for the holidays.

Until now, shoppers have had to consciously go to the Microsoft website or one of its retail stores, which are few and far between. Now, shoppers can stumble upon the Surface RT while they look for cameras or appliances.

Analysts have had to revise projected sales numbers for the Surface RT, down from between 1 million and 2 million units. They now expect the company to sell between 500,000 and 600,000 of the tablet computers.

The Surface RT has been hindered by tough competition in the tablet market from Apple's iPad and iPad Mini, Samsung's Nexus 7 and Amazon's Kindle Fire HD.

It's also suffered from lackluster reviews, a high price and its stripped-down operating system-a mobile version of the already maligned Windows 8.

In addition, the Surface RT is competing with its more powerful sibling, the Surface Pro, which doesn't come out until January. Many consumers are holding off on a purchase to get the better (and more expensive) machine.

The Surface RT comes with a widescreen 10.6-inch display with a 1366 by 768 pixel resolution, a quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor, 2 GB of RAM, a 32 GB flash memory hard drive and an microSDXC card slot. Its battery should last through eight hours of normal use and it weighs just under a pound and a half.

It retails for $499.

For another $120, a removable touch keyboard provides quicker and easier input, though the Surface RT already supports 5-point multi-touch.