Microsoft Surface tablets

[Mintmaster]

That said, I'm still faster with tablet touch keyboards than a pen. Pens are quite slow, but they are comfortable and most importantly (for me), you can write math and draw diagrams with them.

Precisely. That's why I drooled over the Note as soon as I saw it.

Even more importantly, you can jot notes/figures with only occasional glancing at your writing surface. While a physical keyboard works pretty well for notes without looking, I've yet to meet anyone who can type on a touch keyboard without their eye glued to the screen.

This is a big point. A stylus is imperative in getting tablets/smartphones to become a student's best friend and embracing the paperless revolution (this time for real ).

 

[Mintmaster]

+1

Speaking as someone who owns a Wacom Bamboo Create drawing tablet with formal art training (drawing, sketching, painting) as well as technical drawing (drafting, blue prints, CAD/CAM)...I agree with that statement.

I looked at some youtube videos, and it looks like Wacom did some good fine tuning to make it better than most, but it's still inferior:
1. Still not as precise, especially on a smartphone
2. You have a giant knob of a tip blocking the view of whatever is underneath
3. There's no button on it
4. There's no slot to store it in the body

 

[DuckThor Evil]

200 WPM in legible handwriting? Would love to see that as it blows away typing on a hardware keyboard which is traditionally considered far faster than handwriting.

[hint: no offense but I really doubt it]

I think he meant that the 200 WPM is done on a normal hardware keyboard, just that the difference between normal KB and a touchscreen KB is so huge that he prefers handwriting over on screen KB.

200 WPM is still more than I'm willing to believe at this point.

 

[wco81]

That kind of speed is only useful for court reporters or people who transcribe a lot of text, working for publishers.

 

[Laurent06]

your right , they should have justed made up a new connector type and left everything else off and charged an arm and a leg for it

My point is just that with a height of 13.5 mm and the form factor they chose, they had room to put standard connectors (and not doing so would have been stupid).

 

[AzBat]

Oh, so an extra 4.2mm to compensate for the perimeter venting necessary for the hotter Intel CPU makes it thick & bulky? Somehow I don't think most will notice or care when they are running full on Windows desktop apps on a tablet. Personally I don't care for running full Windows desktop apps. So the extra cost isn't worth it to me. I'll go with the cheaper RT model myself. The only thing that Pro will have against it is its weight & battery life. People like myself will find the RT model better in that regard.

Tommy McClain

 

[Andrew Lauritzen]

Oh, so an extra 4.2mm to compensate for the perimeter venting necessary for the hotter Intel CPU makes it thick & bulky?

Agreed; thickness matters so much less than weight. The only reason people fixate on it so much is because the advertisers can make pretty pictures of thin stuff, whereas it's harder to visualize weight

 

[Mintmaster]

Personally I don't care for running full Windows desktop apps. So the extra cost isn't worth it to me. I'll go with the cheaper RT model myself.

The ability to run desktop apps is huge, because now it's a tablet that can fully replace your notebook. You'll not going to get a quality notebook for less than the price difference between the RT and the Pro.

I really think Clovertrail+Win8 will make WinRT completely meaningless. If manufacturers could sell netbooks for $300 in 2011, then it should be a piece of cake to do the same in 2013 with roughly equal hardware in a simpler, smaller, keyboardless chassis. WinRT is really just there for MS to say, "we can build it too". In a year or so, there will be a sub-$200 tablet market, Win8 tablets spanning $300-$1500, and the Apple faithful buying a $500 tablet for god knows why.

 

[eastmen]

is clovertrail going to bring any improvements ? I've used windows 8 on a single core 1.6ghz atom with an ion and a dual core 1.4 and ion and neither were good experiances.

Even brazos e-350 is debatable. I have higher hopes for the replacement to brazos that will go from bobcat cores to jaguar cores and 5x00 series graphics to GCN but i have no idea when its coming , its apparently early to mid 2013 which is to late to really be meaningful

 

[joker454]

I really think Clovertrail+Win8 will make WinRT completely meaningless.

Isn't WinRT more of a low hanging fruit situation? In that they have to support Win8 on arm anyways for windows phones, so may as well make a tablet version as well to increase the audience for those apps and get a lower cost tablet option out there as a bonus. Also maybe it's a way to ensure then can get to $99 tablets in 2 or 3 years with WinRT since it's questionable how cheap x86 tablets can become. Maybe there's the issue of cpu manufacturing fab rights as well, after getting a bit burned on that with the original Xbox maybe they aren't comfortable putting all their eggs in one intel basket.

 

[AzBat]

The ability to run desktop apps is huge, because now it's a tablet that can fully replace your notebook. You'll not going to get a quality notebook for less than the price difference between the RT and the Pro.

Says you. Running Windows desktop apps(for personal use) is way overrated. I've been Windows-less for over 1.5years. The combination of Linux & web apps is suitable for the majority of computer users out there(myself included). Personally I think RT tablets are going to be big sellers if they are priced right. Hopefully they don't screw it up.

Tommy McClain

 

[DavidC]

is clovertrail going to bring any improvements ? I've used windows 8 on a single core 1.6ghz atom with an ion and a dual core 1.4 and ion and neither were good experiances.

Performance isn't a huge improvement. The known Clover Trail SKU is the Z2760 running at 1.8GHz supporting dual core. The big improvement is supposed to be in battery life, in Windows 8 anyway.

 

[elroy]

Says you. Running Windows desktop apps(for personal use) is way overrated. I've been Windows-less for over 1.5years. The combination of Linux & web apps is suitable for the majority of computer users out there(myself included). Personally I think RT tablets are going to be big sellers if they are priced right. Hopefully they don't screw it up.

Tommy McClain

I assume you're probably in the minority though, Tommy. Most people still run Windows, because it's what they know. I think the ability to run the same apps across phones, tablets, PC's, and Xbox is HUGE for the average consumer.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Yep why would I want to use an 'app' when I can use the same program I use on my desktop? If MS does this right, I won't need to bother with any other platforms.

 

[Laurent06]

I assume you're probably in the minority though, Tommy. Most people still run Windows, because it's what they know. I think the ability to run the same apps across phones, tablets, PC's, and Xbox is HUGE for the average consumer.

Most people have no issue using iOS or Android and their apps. One shouldn't underestimate people ability to change and understand.

And what a horrible world we'd be in if because Wintel was the dominant platform people know, everything had to be Wintel

 

[Arwin]

Yep why would I want to use an 'app' when I can use the same program I use on my desktop? If MS does this right, I won't need to bother with any other platforms.

A big advantage of apps currently is that they are optimised for mobile platforms, in terms of handling background processing, save states, user interface and so on. This is an aspect that MS has to get right, and it will also mean that Apps that aren't optimised for Metro will be pointless. But it will still be easier for developers to write software now that works well on Windows 8 PCs and Tablets alike (as well as phones to some extent).

 

[upnorthsox]

So Charlie at SemiAccurate writes a scathing article on Microsoft scapegoating about Surface and suddenly the site is down/having problems. Coincidence? Probably, but still funny.

 

[french toast]

So Charlie at SemiAccurate writes a scathing article on Microsoft scapegoating about Surface and suddenly the site is down/having problems. Coincidence? Probably, but still funny.

Ha ha the empire strikes back

 

[wco81]

People are saying how great it will be that they can run the same programs they have now on their PCs.

What are these programs that are so great? How will they be on a touchscreen device?

Some people have mentioned things like Photoshop or IDEs. OK, it might be convenient to run such applications on the same device as touch-centric apps. but it wouldn't be the best platform for such programs.

 

[AlphaWolf]

A touchscreen device with a keyboard and a stylus. What's the limitation in terms of input?