Good, they can stop wasting their time trying to polish a turd. There's a pretty significant limit as to what you can do with a touch only interface that's not going to go away, or even be significantly improved without a massive leap in performance.
As for small screens, they have the same resolution as the average desktop. 10" might not be ideal for every task, but it's not really much less than a mobile laptop. I could see a win8 tablet replacing my laptop, an iPad seems very far from that goal.
As for small screens, they have the same resolution as the average desktop. 10" might not be ideal for every task, but it's not really much less than a mobile laptop. I could see a win8 tablet replacing my laptop, an iPad seems very far from that goal.
Um... photoshop and onenote are two huge ones for me. Mobile versions of them are a joke that don't even deserve to have the same names. They work amazingly well with a pen.
And a fair number of games are playable with some mild keyboard+touch as well. A lot of the popcap stuff has simple enough interfaces that the basic windows touch->mouse support works just fine. And Myth2 works pretty well since it was designed for old-school 1-button Macs
Lies; digitizer >> mouse for photoshop.
And lets not forget the main point as Mintmaster has noted... this thing is basically an ultrabook/MBA hardware. I only bring my Samsung tablet on trips these days as it can do everything that my laptop can. I bring along a bluetooth mouse if I need to do "desktop-y" things, but there's little need for two devices. Thus the question of whether or not desktop applications are optimized for touch is fairly irrelevant.
If I was doing a ton of typing on my trips I'd consider an ultrabook form factor instead, but the two are really quite similar.
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This is my vacation gear
Canon HF 11 1080p camcorder , canon t3i dslr (my gfs) , my touchpad with ics and hers along with my laptop a 13.3 inch ultra portable with a dual core amd neo and a hd 3200 + hd4330 .
Normaly at the end of a night at disney we will both use the laptop , she will make some edits on photos and sync them up to facebook or skydrive and I will edit the video and use remote desktop to my home pc once thats done to render the video to an image file for burning when at home.
A surfuce pro or another x86 tablet can remove my 13.3 inch ultra portable and my touchpad leaving us much more room. Not to mention that the surface pro should be much faster than my notebook thus making the tasks go faster. My laptop is over 3lbs and my touch pad is 1.5lbs. So thats 4.5 lbs vs 2lbs . Thats not counting all the acessorys i need for the other two devices vs just the tablet.
I take a full laptop on vacation, to import and edit photos.
Leave the laptop at the hotel, so use it mostly at night or in the morning before going out.
If I was lugging the laptop outside the hotel all the time (which I've done once in awhile, like to take to a cyber cafe if there was no reasonable Internet options at the hotel), I can see the need for a lighter, smaller device.
But in reality, I'm lugging the extra weight only for going to and returning from vacation (and sometimes taking on trains between the outbound and return flights). For that extra weight, more power and far more storage, bigger screen and (virtual) desktop.
Leave the laptop at the hotel, so use it mostly at night or in the morning before going out.
If I was lugging the laptop outside the hotel all the time (which I've done once in awhile, like to take to a cyber cafe if there was no reasonable Internet options at the hotel), I can see the need for a lighter, smaller device.
But in reality, I'm lugging the extra weight only for going to and returning from vacation (and sometimes taking on trains between the outbound and return flights). For that extra weight, more power and far more storage, bigger screen and (virtual) desktop.
you and me are not average users thus our ideas of what ppl use their PC for will be squewed, I remember reading a few years ago, the monitored average PC user spends over 50% of their time on a PC on the internet, this percentage would of only grown in the intervening years what with the rise of webapps,tablets etc
Totally agree. I'm proof of this. Before switching entirely to Linux 1.5 years ago I never once ran anything other than a Microsoft OS on all my PCs since the IBM PCjr.
Once I tried Linux I haven't looked back. Don't assume that people are so entrenched in the MS/Intel platform that they won't ever use anything else. In today's age it's not so certain. iPhones & iPads are totally proof of that.
Tommy McClain
Dang, you guys take laptops on vacation?
Two comments on that...there are better things to do while on vacation than photo editing...and don't post photos to Facebook, etc. while you're gone a it broadcasts an empty house.
Side note: tutee turn off the cell phone and lock it in the hotel safe. Vacations should be about disconnecting (imho).
Two comments on that...there are better things to do while on vacation than photo editing...and don't post photos to Facebook, etc. while you're gone a it broadcasts an empty house.
Side note: tutee turn off the cell phone and lock it in the hotel safe. Vacations should be about disconnecting (imho).
Sometimes its nice for grandma and grandpa to be be able to see the grandkids having fun on vacation.
Also sometimes we can't just disconnect from work
Grandparents = good reason
Can't disconnect = bad manager
The first eight years that I was a company president, I didn't disconnect and my health suffered. Good managers know that key people (including themselves) need competent backups and they know key people are better when they get real down time.
I learned the part about myself the hard way, but have since fixed it and my GERD, high blood pressure and high cholesterol are all either gone or back to optimal. No joking.
Can't disconnect = bad manager
The first eight years that I was a company president, I didn't disconnect and my health suffered. Good managers know that key people (including themselves) need competent backups and they know key people are better when they get real down time.
I learned the part about myself the hard way, but have since fixed it and my GERD, high blood pressure and high cholesterol are all either gone or back to optimal. No joking.
Oh i disconnect 45 minutes before leaving work lol . My better half is a teacher and she has papers to grade and lesson plans to do even while on vacation . Since she is a special ed co teacher she had to do joint lesson plans with 2-3 teachers. She trys to have them done before we leave but the other teachers might make changes and what not.
My job would rather suffer than call me as I get paid a minimum of 5 hours if they bother me for anything even if its a minute fix
My job would rather suffer than call me as I get paid a minimum of 5 hours if they bother me for anything even if its a minute fix
Well I'm manager, owner, ceo, you name it, a company of one
I have to maintain my websites so they keep earning, hence I must have a computer no matter where I go. Surface just made that easier, I'll just bring one tablet now and I'm set, and my niece can play games on it when I'm not using it.http://www.extremetech.com/computin...t-dust-immune-and-almost-ready-for-prime-time
I wonder if ms can use this in the surface. It makes almost no noice and is very efficent they claim 30 times more efficent than fan and heatsink solutions .
(sheng long posted about it in the console tech thread)
I wonder if ms can use this in the surface. It makes almost no noice and is very efficent they claim 30 times more efficent than fan and heatsink solutions .
(sheng long posted about it in the console tech thread)
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Photography is a key part of the reason why I travel. And it's a good idea to make sure you got the photos you want, so you can retake them, though in my last vacation, I couldn't keep up and edit every pic I took every day.
As for Internet, I pay to buy a prepaid local SIM when I can, just to be able to use certain apps. on the iPhone. Travel-related apps, using maps, etc.
As for Internet, I pay to buy a prepaid local SIM when I can, just to be able to use certain apps. on the iPhone. Travel-related apps, using maps, etc.
Has something changed in EDD over the last few years? It seems like sometime in 2008 everything changed, you guys started designing beautiful hardware.
Btw, do you use Windows 7 or 8 at work?
IIRC that might be due to the colour spectrum: blue light triggers a wake up response. If you are reading with an incadescent bulb, which is quite yellow, then it makes sense, but probably not, say, with a more "daylight temperature" bulb.
AFAICS, for PCs/Tablets it would be "trivial" to add an application that automatically adjusts the DAC to tone down the blue channel as evening approaches so that one doesn't miss out on one's beauty sleep
[update] Couldn't find the report I saw but someone has done an app: http://stereopsis.com/flux/ [/update]
Yeah, but people still need an OS to boot into a Web browser. And most people are still using Windows. Remember, probably NONE of us posting here are indicative of the average computer user.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems#Web_clients
What, you don't think the original Xbox is beautiful?Has something changed in EDD over the last few years? It seems like sometime in 2008 everything changed, you guys started designing beautiful hardware.
Btw, do you use Windows 7 or 8 at work?
And I use both 7 and 8. I'm currently moving my main dev box to 8, since I just got a new PC.
The figures on that page are not very useful; IMHO what is needed is an evolution of market share over a several months/years period to see if there is a trend.
BTW I'd be surprised if people cared about the OS they boot if all they need is getting access to a Web browser; it's so trivial on most OS to launch a browser that I can't see how that could make a difference.
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