[RudeCurve]

Originally Posted by Andrew Lauritzen

Looks like crappy rubber tip stuff. Proper stylus needs pressure sensitivity and RF interference, not just use the capacitive touch screen.

Don't knock it unless you've used it.

[BadTB25]

Originally Posted by RudeCurve

Don't knock it unless you've used it.

I've used a variety of those faux stylus and can say that they are not precise enough for what I have in mind for a stylus. They are also not really made for accurate and quick note taking. My family and I use it mostly for playing Draw Something because it does add increased precision over your finger alone, but that maybe because your field of view isn't as obstructed.

OT: Looking at the Surface Pro compared to my Nook Color, it is roughly the same depth and approximately twice the weight. I'd like it be a little lighter, but I very happy with the depth. Anything thinner and it may be uncomfortable or fearful of not having a good grip on the tablet.

I'm hoping that MS is allowing some of the features (built in stand/magnetic keyboard) to be used by its partners. Maybe Samsung or Asus can get the weight down a bit, if not, I guess I may go with the MS branded version. I would love to see a 500 GB SSD version for less than $800.

[3dcgi]

Originally Posted by BadTB25

I would love to see a 500 GB SSD version for less than $800.

Dream on. The cheapest 512 GB SSD is half of that cost and most are far more than half.

[BadTB25]

Originally Posted by 3dcgi

Dream on. The cheapest 512 GB SSD is half of that cost and most are far more than half.

I know...don't ruin it for me.

[Mintmaster]

Originally Posted by dlm

The simple, "optimized for touch" approach is great for my particular needs.

But with a tablet... I'll just say that as an avoid OneNote user, a tablet that doesn't work well with a stylus is basically dead to me.

I still prefer everything to be optimized for touch. However, I don't want my input handicapped out of some irrational philosophical stance against the stylus. There are things it simply does better. Take a look at the link I posted above.

I just don't see much use of an iOS/Android tablet. It's barely any more portable than an ultrabook/netbook (i.e. if you can carry one, then you can carry the other), and way less capable; on the flip side, it's way less portable than a smartphone, but barely more capable. It's the worst of both worlds. Even when I'm laying down or stretched out on a couch, I'm more comfortable with a clamshell design opened all the way up and sitting on my lap/thighs or the edge resting on my belly/chest, as my neck isn't bent nearly as much as it would be with a tablet. The iPad3 finally looks slightly enticing due to the display, but that's it. If, however, a tablet can do everything my notebook can while sporting touch and a stylus, then I'll embrace the form factor.

So I want as much light computing on my smartphone as possible, as that truly enables new portability and convenience. Clearly a lot of people agree with me, hence the market push for computation power, higher resolution, and larger screens.

IMO, there's just so little room for an intermediary now.

[elroy]

Mintmaster, totally agree with you. I've yet to buy a tablet because they are essentially a smartphone in a larger form factor. I just can't justify spending the money on something like that when I already have a smartphone. I too think that the tablets' days are numbered, with the advent of Ultrabooks. It seems illogical to buy a tablet when I'll be able to get a Win 8 Ultrabook with touchscreen, that'll be able to do everything a tablet can do and more.

Thanks for the heads up on the Galaxy Note, heard of them before but never really checked them out until now. Hopefully we'll see something like that running Win 8 Phone!

[Mintmaster]

Originally Posted by elroy

Thanks for the heads up on the Galaxy Note, heard of them before but never really checked them out until now. Hopefully we'll see something like that running Win 8 Phone!

This is the video that got me hooked:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvH6vbhOs6Y
Note+WP8 is my dream device, but I can't wait for a device like that to appear so I'm jumping in on the Note. I think the open platform of Android was the best way to implement all the custom features Samsung added for the S-Pen.

Anyway, I think I'm sort of veering off topic. Surface looks like a great product, though I'm not convinced RT has much of a future. I hope MS doesn't get delayed...

[wco81]

There's a world of difference reading or surfing on a tablet vs. a smart phone.

Plus there are multitouch gestures on the iPad which are not available on the iPhone and it makes switching around apps. much better.

[Mintmaster]

Originally Posted by wco81

There's a world of difference reading or surfing on a tablet vs. a smart phone.

Plus there are multitouch gestures on the iPad which are not available on the iPhone and it makes switching around apps. much better.

I don't agree about reading, as both paperbacks and purpose-built e-readers are a lot closer to smartphones in size than an iPad. I disagree about surfing, but even if I'm wrong, x86 tablets will make current tablets obsolete. The last point you made is just a software issue.

Neither of those marginal reasons will keep the alternative OS tablets alive in the long run.

[rpg.314]

Originally Posted by Mintmaster

I don't agree about reading, as both paperbacks and purpose-built e-readers are a lot closer to smartphones in size than an iPad. I disagree about surfing, but even if I'm wrong, x86 tablets will make current tablets obsolete. The last point you made is just a software issue.

If the x86 tablets can deliver proper keyboard and a 10 hour battery life, then yes. My dream device is Transformer tablet+ keyboard dock with real x86 (aka not atom) with proper stylus support.

Neither of those marginal reasons will keep the alternative OS tablets alive in the long run.

If by alternative OS you mean, win RT, then sure. The install base of x86 and it's apps is just too huge. If x86 can deliver 10 hour battery life with thin and light devices (within a year or two at most of winrt's launch), then sure it will die away.

If by alternative OS you mean iOS, IMO there are more apps for iOS than OS X, so it is more likely that OS X will be subsumed by iOS. On that platform, there is not as much of x86 lock in.

Android? Huh, I don't know what will happen to it. It's limited to the cheap phone market. Tablets have been a disaster and OEM's are playing out their legendary ability to screw up. I think MS is the real competitior to iOS in tablet market. Android is pretty much stuck in no man's land. Unless Google is prepared to come out with it's own tablet hw, and not the nexus prototypes, it will be clobbered in tablet/notebook market.

[Mize]

No tablet will make a great e-reader with AMOLED or LCD. Until there is good, vibrant e-paper they will be second-rate e-readers.

[french toast]

Originally Posted by Mize

No tablet will make a great e-reader with AMOLED or LCD. Until there is good, vibrant e-paper they will be second-rate e-readers.

Agreed, staring at a luminous screen for ages is not great for your eyes.

[Silent_Buddha]

Originally Posted by RudeCurve

Don't knock it unless you've used it.

I have used it. And it is terrible.

There isn't a single capacitive touch stylus that comes even remotely close to an active digitizer stylus for meaningful and accurate input.

Hence, I still use my 5 year old heavy as hell convertable tablet over my 1 year old significantly lighter slate device. The first requires the use of an active digitizer pen (Wacom) the second only supports capacitive touch. Touch is great for fluff and media, but is virtually useless for anything serious.

I should have waited a bit more and gotten a slate with capacitive touch and active digitizer, but I was too impatient. And paid for it. Once I did that, I figured I'd just wait to see what Win8 brings to the table before getting another slate device.

But at least I learned a very valuable lesson. Any slate/tablet without an active digitizer stylus is absolutely worthless for anything but light useage, fluff, and media consumption.

Regards,
SB

[french toast]

I'm holding off until surface 2...some high resolution displays, better apps and some haswell action!

[Arwin]

Originally Posted by Silent_Buddha

Any slate/tablet without an active digitizer stylus is absolutely worthless for anything but light useage, fluff, and media consumption.

If you say 'for me' fine, but in general, unless you are a professional artists married to a pen or a business user who cannot part with handwriting, I think this comment is highly exaggerated.

For me personally, the iPad's high-res display is a huge thing (not ready to call it retina yet ), so yeah, extremely unlikely that my next purchase doesn't have it. But we just bought our first tablet this year.

If Surface just allows me to install any of my own apps without a licence or any other restriction, so I can for instance port the helpdesk tool I wrote to it with minimum effort and my colleagues can install it, that kind of thing alone is going to be a big reason for this to become a success.

[Xmas]

Originally Posted by french toast

Agreed, staring at a luminous screen for ages is not great for your eyes.

Light is light, whether it's reflected or emitted by the screen. I think people usually blame a poor on-screen reading experience on the wrong reasons.

[Mize]

Originally Posted by Xmas

Light is light, whether it's reflected or emitted by the screen. I think people usually blame a poor on-screen reading experience on the wrong reasons.

LMFAO. I totally disagree. Backlit displays can be very hard on my eyes. It may have to do with my vision (I have extremely good night vision to the point that I can navigate a harbor on a moonless night better by starlight than by flashlight). I have all my monitors on computers at minium brightness. I wear dialed-in computer glasses when on the computer and bifocals when reading.

My eyes give me huge strain when reading on a computer or ipad for extended periods. On a kindle with e-ink and reflective light I can go 4 times as long with no issue.

Trust me this is something I've spent a lot of time optimizing as I travel internationally and screen time is a key boredom fighter. I had to resort books on CD (MP3) for a while from LCD eyestrain.

[french toast]

Originally Posted by Mize

LMFAO. I totally disagree. Backlit displays can be very hard on my eyes. It may have to do with my vision (I have extremely good night vision to the point that I can navigate a harbor on a moonless night better by starlight than by flashlight). I have all my monitors on computers at minium brightness. I wear dialed-in computer glasses when on the computer and bifocals when reading.

My eyes give me huge strain when reading on a computer or ipad for extended periods. On a kindle with e-ink and reflective light I can go 4 times as long with no issue.

Trust me this is something I've spent a lot of time optimizing as I travel internationally and screen time is a key boredom fighter. I had to resort books on CD (MP3) for a while from LCD eyestrain.

I agree, whilst I'm sure it does not affect everyone, I get headaches if I spend too long reading web pages on a bright screen, if I drop the brightness down I can go much longer.

Elinks have a use beyond never ending batterylife.

[silent_guy]

Originally Posted by Xmas

Light is light, whether it's reflected or emitted by the screen. I think people usually blame a poor on-screen reading experience on the wrong reasons.

There have been many studies about the negative impact of emitted light in the evening on the ability to sleep well. Sleep clinics will always recommend reading a book or kindle instead of reading an iPad/laptop.

[Arwin]

Originally Posted by silent_guy

There have been many studies about the negative impact of emitted light in the evening on the ability to sleep well. Sleep clinics will always recommend reading a book or kindle instead of reading an iPad/laptop.

Correct, the two are definitely not equal. We also have both an iPad 3 and the latest (cheapest, non-touch) Kindle. I think the main reason is indeed the difference between reflected and emitted light.

[wco81]

Meaning what, you can't fall asleep or have a good night of sleep if you read on iPad in bed?

I stare at an LCD monitor all day. Then look at iPhone and iPad at home before eventually going to bed.

I haven't read books on the iPad yet but do read a lot on the web. Maybe I have to look at the e-ink to notice the difference. Though honestly, I think the advantage of a Kindle over iPad would be the form factor, much thinner and lighter.

Of course, it offers a limited surfing experience.

[Mize]

I know the studies he's talking about. They're large enough to be statistically relavent. Basically people who looked at illuminated displays (TVs, computers, tables, etc.) took longer to fall asleep than those who read books, kindles, etc. and it didn't matter if what they were doing on the illuminated display was reading.

[Xmas]

Originally Posted by Mize

LMFAO. I totally disagree. Backlit displays can be very hard on my eyes. It may have to do with my vision (I have extremely good night vision to the point that I can navigate a harbor on a moonless night better by starlight than by flashlight). I have all my monitors on computers at minium brightness. I wear dialed-in computer glasses when on the computer and bifocals when reading.

I'm not saying backlit displays can't be hard on the eyes. I'm saying many people blame them for the wrong reasons. The reason why they're hard on the eyes isn't simply that they have a backlight.

Quite often, however, the backlight and/or reading background are set too bright for the ambient lighting conditions (or conversely, people forget the ambient light). Of course it doesn't help that few monitors have ambient light sensors, that frequently the text background colour is pure white, or that even at minimum brightness many monitors are far too bright (or the ambient light too dark). The minimum backlight brightness of one of my monitors is still so high that I use graphics driver presets to scale down the brightness to 40%, and even that is too much sometimes.
Hold a piece of paper next to some text on your monitor. Does the monitor appear significantly brighter than the paper?

Then there's the screen door effect and colour fringeing due to text antialiasing, both solved by much higher resolutions. There are reflections and glare, unsuitable fonts and text sizes, different viewing distances, and, rarely, flickering from the backlight unit.

But a very high dpi, matte LCD with properly adjusted backlight levels and sufficient ambient light would be just as readable as paper.

[metafor]

It's basically the same effect of shining UV light on plants. The day-to-day bio cycles of a lot of organisms are triggered by the amount of illuminated light that's available. This is also why many people who don't see sunlight a lot have messed up sleep patterns; their body thinks it's always night.

[Andrew Lauritzen]

Originally Posted by RudeCurve

Don't knock it unless you've used it.

I wouldn't, but I have used very similar products - enough to make an educated guess on that one (i.e. the ones I've used aren't even in the right order of magnitude of precision). I'm also fairly aware of the limitations in precision of these multitouch screens due to doing some software experiments with them.