Windows 8 development tablets are selling like hotcakes on eBay, going for as much as $2,700 apiece, even though they were designed for testing purposes only. The tablets are not supposed to go on the market until 2012.

Microsoft distributed limited edition models of the hardware last week to attendees of its Microsoft Build's annual conference in Anaheim, Calif. The company said it was encouraging program developers to start inventing applications suitable for Windows 8.

The tablet is pre-bundled with a number of apps like Internet Explorer 10, a basic RSS client, stocks, weather, social networking apps Tweet@rama and Socialite, among others.

But some of the 5,000 attendees had other plans in mind.

Some of the attendees turned to eBay to cash in on their free prototype hardware. Three bid listings have been posted, with $2,700 the highest so far. The auctions come with a touch pen, Bluetooth keyboard, carrying case and a dock supporting USB, HDMI and Ethernet interface.

The Windows 8 tablets also feature a 1.6GHz Core i5-2467M dual-core processor, a 64GB solid state drive, 4GB of DDR3 RAM and a Samsung Super PLS 1366 x 768 display. Samsung built the hardware for Microsoft.

The tablets given away last week also came with a developer build of Windows 8 and a year of AT&T 3G data service at 2GB per month.