The tablet wars of 2012 has taken unexpected twists and turns from company to company offering what always appears to be a better deal than the predecessor. Apple has certainly maintained their success in remaining in the number one spot in top-of-mind awareness in consumers, but with so many other Android OS tablets in the market like the Amazon Kindle Fire 2 (yet to be released) and the Google Nexus 7, change seems to be happening quick.

As if these other options haven’t already caused a slight scare for Apple, now there is new talk about how Microsoft’s Surface tablet could be selling at a very competitive price when it is released at the end of October along with Windows 8 – October 26 to be exact. What is the price? While it hasn’t been confirmed, though plenty of news sources are more than happy to give the information away, the rumors are going around at $199.

Sound familiar? The magic $199 price is a seemingly ubiquitous with the up-and-coming tablet releases towards the end of the year, including Apple’s iPad Mini, Google Nexus 7 (8GB) and while Amazon had initially had their Kindle Fire 2 price set at $199, they may be cutting that significantly.

But the real focus here is Microsoft’s Surface, which is a device that has already been causing plenty of waves, mostly because of the attribution towards Windows 8. A device running on this new Microsoft creation is believed by many to cause a big stir and cause many consumers to point in that direction. The features that are known about Surface so far are mostly external – cool stand, nice and thin (thanks to it’s VaporMg process) – all of those goods.

As Zach Walton of Web Pro News has insisted, the main advantage that Microsoft has with its Windows 8-based Surface tablet is that is offers users another option other than just Android and iOS products. We all know that Microsoft is not as powerful as they used to be overall, but at least we can appreciate that they are still in the game with powerful offerings, which Windows 8 and the Surface are looking promising to be.

So at the end of the day – or should I say, at the beginning of the holiday season – it is important to keep the expanded options in mind. You are not completely stuck with just one or the other, and while Google and Apple always seem to take the cake with everything in tablets. With Google, it really is every other form of technology, even Google TV, but honestly, nothing like that is going to stop me or many other people from sticking with satellite TV.

It should be noted that the $199 Surface price is merely a rumor that was supposedly leaked by an inside source. Even if it wasn’t completely accurate, I can’t imagine the actual price being much different.