Windows tablets

[Mintmaster]

I don't think white box would affect the number of shipped Windows tablets, 3M in Q1 down to 2.3M in Q2.

I wasn't implying that white box affect Windows numbers. I was talking about how 7.4% and 4.5% weren't percentages of the same thing.

3.0M vs. 2.3M isn't that bad. iPad shipments fell more: 19.5M down to 14.6M. To be honest, I was surprised that Windows tablets hit 3M in Q1 after being at zero the quarter before.

At this point it's all about Silvermont/Haswell. That's when we'll know if Windows tablets will succeed or not in the long term. After seeing Anand's article on Haswell ULT power consumption, I wouldn't recommend a Windows tablet to anyone until then, and I'm sure many technophiles are waiting for the same thing.

 

[wco81]

What are white box tablets?

Those no-name Chinese brands that go for $99?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The Con's:

• The storage isn't a defacto MLC flash, it's something slower. Super-disk-intensive actions may bog a bit too

• 
  
  It's MLC but using EMMC to interface with the flash drive. EMMC is fine for phone devices where disk activities are small in nature and infrequent. Not so much for Windows where you may have frequent activity or sustained disk transfers (larger and more complex programs to load).
  
  

  At this point it's all about Silvermont/Haswell. That's when we'll know if Windows tablets will succeed or not in the long term. After seeing Anand's article on Haswell ULT power consumption, I wouldn't recommend a Windows tablet to anyone until then, and I'm sure many technophiles are waiting for the same thing.

  
  That's pretty much me. I only got my g/f a Clovertrail tablet because her old netbook was starting to die and she's been wanting a tablet. It's worked out well as she now has a tablet and something that is better than her old netbook when used as a notebook. She likes the idea of one device versus 2 devices. The only bummer is that Spotify still hasn't made a metro app for their service so she has to use the desktop app even when using it as a tablet.
  
  But for myself, I've been waiting for power and power savings to converge into a compelling package. Haswell ULT or one of the SDP variants (6 or 4.5) this fall/winter might just fit that bill.
  
  Regards,
  SB

 

[rpg.314]

Thanks for sharing your experiences Al.

RPG,

I've had the Lenovo Tablet 2 for the last four months as part of our in-house Win8 tablet testing. I also have tested the Samsung ATIV 700, and the Surface Pro and Surface RT. We gave the Samsung back after our 60 day eval; it had serious hardware issues with the keyboard docking connector. I gave the Surface Pro 128GB to another employee; he likes it. We gave back the RT as it needed Outlook (fixed with Win 8.1) and also really needed a stylus for how our business would use it.

I kept the Tablet 2 as my own personal device, and I (mostly) love it. We got the fully equipped model; 64GB storage, stylus, 3G/4G/LTE modem thru AT&T, with the dock and the bluetooth keyboard accessory.

Pro's:

• The battery really will last all day and then some, even when you abuse it.
• The performance is very good for all manner of managerial-level tasks in Office 2013 -- Outlook, One Note, Excel, PowerPoint and Word. It also runs my Cisco IP communicator (soft phone), my Microsoft SCCM and SCSM consoles, drives a second monitor (when docked), plays my music (Pandora or random MP3's / WMA's on my 64Gb UHS-1 MicroSD card)
• The stylus works very well, I use it extensively in One Note and Word "ink mode". It also fits IN the body, versus being magnetically tacked-on like the Surface Pro
• The wireless radio seems to work very well
• It's VERY light and VERY thin, even slightly moreso than the Windows RT device
• That Lenovo slightly rubbery matte texture is a pleasure to hold, so too are the rounded edges
• It charges with a defacto-standard MicroUSB connector. How can you not love that?
• The optional dock is exactly what you would expect -- you sit it in there, it charges, it runs a secondary display, it connects to gig ethernet, it hooks up to whatever USB stuff you've got attached, Why didn't Microsoft get this right, of all things?
• The optional BT keyboard has an excellent typing feel and the battery (it's BT, so it has it's own battery) seems to last forever between charges

The Con's:

• It's an ATOM processor, so it's not uber-warp-speed for tasks that need lots of CPU power
• The storage isn't a defacto MLC flash, it's something slower. Super-disk-intensive actions may bog a bit too
• 2GB of ram can be cramped for similarly "large" tasks
• Basically, if you want this thing to run heavy-duty tasks, then you're using the wrong device
• Every once in a blue moon, it will simply NOT want to wake up. I never have figured out why, it will just sit at a black screen until you hard-power it. It's very rare, but it does happen.
• I wish the keyboard "docked" to the unit rather than being its own separate device.

For the price tag that we paid (I think we got it for $630 thanks to our 501c3 non-profit status and our purchasing agreement with our vendor), it's a friggin steal. I love using it, and it goes with me everywhere. I REALLY want one of these with the newest Silvermont processor, the extra CPU and GPU performance and (hopefully) 4GB of ram should make it a righteous beast.

I mainly have questions about the stylus. Does it have a button on the side for right click? Does the stylus have an eraser? Can I just turn it around and erase stuff? Do I have to tap a button to switch to erase mode with this? What do you do for erasing stuff? I anticipate taking notes (and erasing stuff) with this in a rather quick fashion. Do you think this tablet will work out?

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Asus no longer making Windows RT tablets, now focusing on x86 windows 8 models:

http://allthingsd.com/20130730/asus-pulling-back-on-windows-rt-chairman-says/

Thank goodness.. That RT thing needs to die for Microsoft's sake.

 

[liolio]

What are white box tablets?

Those no-name Chinese brands that go for $99?

I would guess OS-less devices.

 

[Malo]

Thanks for sharing your experiences Al.


I mainly have questions about the stylus. Does it have a button on the side for right click? Does the stylus have an eraser? Can I just turn it around and erase stuff? Do I have to tap a button to switch to erase mode with this? What do you do for erasing stuff? I anticipate taking notes (and erasing stuff) with this in a rather quick fashion. Do you think this tablet will work out?

I'm not sure about the Tablet 2 but my Helix comes with a pen with a side button. Doesn't have an eraser though, I'm scribbling out instead and the effectiveness of that is mostly based on the app (ie. onenote).

Of course the Helix is a lot more powerful (i5 processor) and comes with a 1080p screen plus a bunch of other stuff, but it's also more than twice as expensive lol

 

[Albuquerque]

I mainly have questions about the stylus. Does it have a button on the side for right click? Does the stylus have an eraser? Can I just turn it around and erase stuff? Do I have to tap a button to switch to erase mode with this? What do you do for erasing stuff? I anticipate taking notes (and erasing stuff) with this in a rather quick fashion. Do you think this tablet will work out?

I had a reply all typed out several hours ago, and then somehow I forgot to submit it. *Poof*

Your answers, in order:

• It does have a button on the side for right-click
• It does not have an eraser
• Turning it around doesn't offer an erase option
• The erase "mode" depends on the app and how you're using it -- I'll explain...

Most of the time when I'm taking notes, and I do it quite a bit, I am typically using the on-screen handwriting input panel. There are a multitude of gestures that you can use for correcting spelling and, as you asked, for erasing things that you've mis-written. Now, as for erasing a little doodle that you've done in OneNote? Not so easy, unfortunately. You have to select the eraser pen mode and then kinda scribble it out rather than just simply flip the pen over and erase like you can do with the Surface Pro.

Funny to note -- since it's still a Wacom digitizer,. any of the stylus pens that actually have the integrated erasers work exactly like you'd expect them to. For a while, nobody wanted to take the Surface Pro, so I used the Microsoft stylus on my Lenovo Tablet 2 with fantastic success. I actually do miss it; I've been thinking of just buying a spare MS stylus for use with my Tablet 2.

I really don't understand why Lenovo couldn't build in the eraser; it seems a simple thing to fix. That missing eraser really does deserve to by in my list of con's.

Nevertheless, I still get a great bit of usage out of the device. I've also become quite quick at typing using the on-screen keyboard, which is now typically faster and approximately as-accurate as my handwriting

 

[rpg.314]

I had a reply all typed out several hours ago, and then somehow I forgot to submit it. *Poof*

Your answers, in order:

• It does have a button on the side for right-click
• It does not have an eraser
• Turning it around doesn't offer an erase option
• The erase "mode" depends on the app and how you're using it -- I'll explain...

Thanks for sharing that.

Most of the time when I'm taking notes, and I do it quite a bit, I am typically using the on-screen handwriting input panel. There are a multitude of gestures that you can use for correcting spelling and, as you asked, for erasing things that you've mis-written. Now, as for erasing a little doodle that you've done in OneNote? Not so easy, unfortunately. You have to select the eraser pen mode and then kinda scribble it out rather than just simply flip the pen over and erase like you can do with the Surface Pro.

I expect i'll be using the OneNote/win journal mostly. Will have to see what kind of work flow develops around it, I hope the pen mode switch doesn't slow down my note taking too much.

I guess the fastest way out would be scratch out whatever I had written earlier and move on, like with a real pen.

Funny to note -- since it's still a Wacom digitizer,. any of the stylus pens that actually have the integrated erasers work exactly like you'd expect them to. For a while, nobody wanted to take the Surface Pro, so I used the Microsoft stylus on my Lenovo Tablet 2 with fantastic success. I actually do miss it; I've been thinking of just buying a spare MS stylus for use with my Tablet 2.

Surface pro really seems like the best for handwritten notes. It's a shame Lenovo cheaped out on the eraser.

Using the MS stylus with it seems like the best bet. If only the MS stylus fitted into the body as well....

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Using the MS stylus with it seems like the best bet. If only the MS stylus fitted into the body as well....

You can also get any compatible Wacom pen (for the digitizer used), so your pen options aren't just limited to the one included with the Surface Pro. I used to have a list of compatible pens (both official Wacom ones, and ones made by other manufacturers), but I seem to have lost it.

Regards,
SB

 

[eastmen]

the note 2 pen works on it also

 

[MfA]

That RT thing needs to die for Microsoft's sake.

RT will die ... and then they will try to push Windows Phone on tablets.

They desperately want to be Apple ...

 

[eastmen]

RT will die ... and then they will try to push Windows Phone on tablets.

They desperately want to be Apple ...

Why. Its windows phone that will die. RT is a little slow on a tegra 3 but it should fly on the newer arm chips out there. So it will be able to move down into windows phone spot. Then you just have RT and Windows.


Windows has actually reduce its requirements over the last 6/7 years since vista. The newer atoms seem to be fast while sipping power and then you get haswell and next year broad well and intel's high end will be faster and use less power.

Amd if product ever comes to market will also have compelling chips .


MS's success depends on uniting all platforms and that includes moving rt downward while phone dies away

 

[Malo]

OneNote and the whole office 2013 suite seems to have tacked on touchscreen and pen support. I'm wondering if the office guys got a memo in 2012 about Windows 8 and Surface then realized they should probably do something to make it compatible.

 

[MfA]

MS's success depends on uniting all platforms and that includes moving rt downward while phone dies away

So by putting a different OS on a platform (tablets) which could just as easily run Windows proper they are uniting platforms?

 

[Gubbi]

I think they'll let Windows RT tablets die a silent death and split the PRO line into two versions a light and , erhh, pro one. The light based around a Kabini/Temash or a Silvermont and the PRO around Haswell (and derivatives).

The premise for RT tablets is gone with the advent of x86 SOCs with low power consumption.

That's adding to the managerial clusterfuck RT is. If RT tablets should have had any chance of success they would have needed a large suite of quality apps at launch. That means MS should have deployed the WinRT API years ago in order to ensure app availability. Instead they opted to do everything in the wrong order.

Cheers

 

[MfA]

The premise for RT tablets is gone with the advent of x86 SOCs with low power consumption.

I think the premise was making money hand over fist from ridiculous margins and a software distribution monopoly just like their great example ...

 

[Gubbi]

I think the premise was making money hand over fist from ridiculous margins and a software distribution monopoly just like their great example ...

That's not the premise, that was (is) the goal.

In order to establish a software distribution monopoly, you need software to distribute. Which they didn't (don't) have.

IMO, they should push Win 8 all the way down. Run a Ubuntu distro in Hyper-V or play Baldurs Gate 2? Go right ahead.

Cheers

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I think they'll let Windows RT tablets die a silent death and split the PRO line into two versions a light and , erhh, pro one. The light based around a Kabini/Temash or a Silvermont and the PRO around Haswell (and derivatives).

The premise for RT tablets is gone with the advent of x86 SOCs with low power consumption.

That's adding to the managerial clusterfuck RT is. If RT tablets should have had any chance of success they would have needed a large suite of quality apps at launch. That means MS should have deployed the WinRT API years ago in order to ensure app availability. Instead they opted to do everything in the wrong order.

Cheers

I think RT tablets could have been a compelling product, but their whole premise on it was wrong.

At a 199 USD price point RT tablets would have been a compelling alternative to Android tablets. At that price point people are more willing to have a device that can play media well, browse the web well, etc. Basically do all the tablet basics well. Taking a chance on the device as you wait for the app ecosystem to grow is then less of a barrier (still a barrier but far less of one). But at 500 USD and up? Or even 400 USD and up? At that point you look at the RT tablets and wonder what the point is. It didn't get much more battery life than Covertrail. Didn't result in a device that was much lighter than Clovertrail. And couldn't run desktop apps like Clovertrail. Granted there were no Clovertrail tablets when the RT devices came out. And when they did come out they were overpriced as well. The current Clovertrail prices are much more inline with what they should be.

So, as an alternative to seeding and growing an RT ecosystem before introducing an Arm tablet, they could have potentially accomplished the same thing by eating some of the cost and selling for low margins.

Of course, that's where the various OEMs likely balked. They were probably hoping that Windows RT would bring them higher margins than what they were getting with their Android devices.

I still think Arm based Windows RT could have a place if OEMs and Microsoft were to work together to release devices in the 199 and under range. Then again, with Intel predicting Baytrail based tablets coming in at 150+ USD, perhaps Arm based Windows tablets window of opportunity truly has passed.

Regards,
SB

 

[Mintmaster]

That's adding to the managerial clusterfuck RT is. If RT tablets should have had any chance of success they would have needed a large suite of quality apps at launch. That means MS should have deployed the WinRT API years ago in order to ensure app availability. Instead they opted to do everything in the wrong order.

I'm not convinced that a longer gestation time of WinRT would have made a difference. Would developers really create more apps without any devices to use it on, especially touchscreen ones? The whole OS would've had to be released earlier to make a tangible difference, IMO.

We don't know how much MS paid people to develop windows store apps, or more importantly how much an extra billion dollars would make on that front.

I think low power x86 was always necessary for MS. Even if they came out with Win8/RT before the iPad, would it succeed? I'd look at that and think, "Why the fuck would I buy this over a netbook that can run anything?" I think Apple's faithful and affluent userbase (along with iPhone app leverage) was a unique factor in the rise of the tablet and their app development. Android tablet sales sucked in the early going as well.

WinRT had three simple purposes, IMO:
-threaten Intel to compete in the low end (I think until now, Atom was intentionally half baked to prevent it from taking away sales of higher margin CPUs)
-show the world that they can make a good low power OS as well
-have a contingency plan in case ARM somehow gives Apple/Google an insurmountable hardware edge

Success of the platform would just be gravy. The entrenched Windows x86 platform has always been MS's biggest competitive advantage.