Sameer Singh, an analyst with Finvista Advisors, an India-based mergers and acquisitions consulting group, pegged the price of the Windows RT-powered Surface based on his preliminary -- and sight-unseen -- estimate of the tablets BOM, or "bill of materials."

Although -- and the companion Windows 8-equipped Surface Pro tablet -- in June, the company has yet slap price tags on either.

"Microsoft has been very tight-lipped about the price of its Microsoft Surface range of tablets," said Singh on his , where he posts analyses not directly related to his day job. "With a launch set for later this month, speculation has intensified, with some sources stating a price less than $399 for the RT version. Let's get to a more educated estimate of the BOM cost and pricing for the Surface RT and Pro."

Singh assembled a BOM, a list of the expected components and their likely costs to Microsoft, then added a 25% to 30% markup to arrive at his $399 to $499 price range for the Surface RT.

That BOM came in at $299 for a 32GB Surface RT, with the $67 display module its most-expensive part. Many of Singh's estimates were derived from similar components in known tablets, such as Apple's 9.7-in. iPad. Adding in manufacturing costs of $10 per unit, his final BOM for the Surface RT was $309.