AT&T Will Be First Carrier to Offer Surface 3 with 4G LTE in the US

AT&T Wireless announced today that it will be the first wireless carrier in the United States to offer Microsoft’s Surface 3 tablet with 4G LTE capabilities. The device goes on sale Friday, July 24.

Pricing is … complicated. Which is why we love the carriers so much.

Based on AT&T’s blog post, it looks like your options break down like so:

AT&T Tablet Installment plan. You can buy Surface 3 4G LTE for “$0 down and $30 per month with an AT&T Tablet Installment plan,” the carrier says. This requires a 20-month 0% APR installment agreement and “well-qualified credit,” with the full tax payment due at sale. That service plan is required, by the way, and you have to pay it off if you cancel early.

Surface 3 for $399.99 with any Lumia smartphone purchased on AT&T Next. You “must buy Windows smartphone on AT&T Next (an installment plane) and Surface 3 on a two year agreement, AT&T says, and must activate wireless service on both.

Coming soon: Commercial version of Surface 3. In the coming weeks, AT&T will offer “a commercial version of the Surface 3” to business customers. No pricing is available.

What’s not clear is what configuration(s) they’re offering. I assume they are offering both currently available options, which should be a 2 GB/64 GB unit that should retail for $599 and a 4 GB/128 GB unit for $699. Whatever the price, you don’t get a Type Cover or Surface Pen: both are sold separately.

Frankly, this all looks pretty onerous to me. I’d rather just buy the device outright and pick up data as needed separately.

You can learn more with this spectacular video.