Windows tablets

[Deleted member 13524]

I really can't wait till the 32nm bobcats hit later this year

Last we heard, 32nm SOI will be for Bulldozer-based APUs (Trinity), while future Bobcats will use 28nm.

A thing to note is that ARM SoC's today are capable of 1080p high-profile playback flawlessly at under 1W.

I don't really believe that, but if an ARM SoC does it, so does an Atom Z500 with a Broadcom Crystal HD. Throw in dedicated hardware and the numbers change completely, but we already knew that.
No ARM CPU to date is able to do real-time 1080p decoding through software alone, AFAIK

 

[eastmen]

Last we heard, 32nm SOI will be for Bulldozer-based APUs (Trinity), while future Bobcats will use 28nm.

have you heard when they are supposed to hit . I would have thought amd would take advantage of the demand for bobcat and get them out the door on 32nm .

I hope the 28nm are hitting before the end of the year. 1ghz c-50 just isn't enough for me at the moment

 

[Florin]

With something like the Iconia, I can plug in gamepads, a keyboard (included) and mouse, connect a 5.1 headset, connect through HDMI to a TV/projector for up to 1080p, Then I can charge up Steam and play spectacular AAA games that I bought for dirt-cheap, the way they were meant to be played (pun unintended), with much better visuals than any Android\iOS game to date.
I can do it all in one device.

With keyboard+mouse, the same way as any PC. Without keyboard+mouse, the same way as the half-assed office editions there are for ipads, or with a capacitive stylus input.
Either way, I can do both. I'm not limited to dumbed-down versions of anything. How can you not value that?!

still waiting idsn6 . I'm talking about real photo shop not the magic tricks they are doing there and real video editing not vga quality which i've been doing for the last decade or longer on my pcs.


The ipad would die when i import 1080p video from my hf11

Well I think that pretty much sums it up, doesn't it? What you guys are looking for are basically PCs that happen to be in a tablet form factor. I don't believe that is what tablets are about though, and I really hope Windows on tablets will try to be more inspired and ambitious than that. After PocketPC and Windows Mobile, surely Microsoft must've picked up on the fact that simply cutting and pasting the PC user experience to another class of devices is a recipe for being eaten alive by more purposeful competitors. I remain hopeful,despite devices like the Iconia being a strong indicator that they're going to make the same mistake again.

 

[Exophase]

I don't really believe that, but if an ARM SoC does it, so does an Atom Z500 with a Broadcom Crystal HD. Throw in dedicated hardware and the numbers change completely, but we already knew that.

I wonder. Adding a Broadcom BCM70012 increases power consumption by 1-2W, and I'm sure that Z500 doesn't use 0W when running video.

No ARM CPU to date is able to do real-time 1080p decoding through software alone, AFAIK

I doubt Atom or even Ontario can through software alone either, so what difference does it make?

 

[metafor]

still waiting idsn6 . I'm talking about real photo shop not the magic tricks they are doing there and real video editing not vga quality which i've been doing for the last decade or longer on my pcs.


The ipad would die when i import 1080p video from my hf11


metafor where is the 1080p ? Look at the black berry 1080p kocks off almost 3 hours from its battery life. I'd love to see the numbers on the ipad with its huge battery.... oh wait anand says the ipad can't do 1080p

The playbook contains a 19.6Wh battery. So at 6.15 hours, that's a system power draw of 3.19W including display, regulator, storage, and memory.

Still way less than 11 or 9W, wouldn't you say?

 

[metafor]

Last we heard, 32nm SOI will be for Bulldozer-based APUs (Trinity), while future Bobcats will use 28nm.



I don't really believe that, but if an ARM SoC does it, so does an Atom Z500 with a Broadcom Crystal HD. Throw in dedicated hardware and the numbers change completely, but we already knew that.
No ARM CPU to date is able to do real-time 1080p decoding through software alone, AFAIK

I don't believe even desktop CPU's do 1080p decoding through software alones these days. Although whether it's capable of it is a different matter.

 

[Lazy8s]

Only Intel and Apple weren't too prideful nor misguided to use VXD of the major semi companies, so their chips are capable of the most efficient video decoding by far.

 

[DavidC]

I don't believe even desktop CPU's do 1080p decoding through software alones these days. Although whether it's capable of it is a different matter.

Back when there was no 1080p acceleration offered in their graphics, Core 2 systems with GMA 950 and X3000 ran it with 30% utilization. It's not decoding that kills the CPUs, its encoding.

I doubt Atom or even Ontario can through software alone either, so what difference does it make?

They can barely do 720p. If you are ok with 80-90% utilization. Not a problem with desktop dual core CPUs clocked higher than 2GHz.

 

[eastmen]

Well I think that pretty much sums it up, doesn't it? What you guys are looking for are basically PCs that happen to be in a tablet form factor. I don't believe that is what tablets are about though, and I really hope Windows on tablets will try to be more inspired and ambitious than that. After PocketPC and Windows Mobile, surely Microsoft must've picked up on the fact that simply cutting and pasting the PC user experience to another class of devices is a recipe for being eaten alive by more purposeful competitors. I remain hopeful,despite devices like the Iconia being a strong indicator that they're going to make the same mistake again.

I don't know , seems apple and google have pretty muched aped the desktop grid of icons and andriod seems to basicly be a more messed up verison of windows milbe

Look what the ipad and andriod tablets do is great , but i want something that can be a consumption and creation device and these tablets just don't do it.


I would like a tablet to replace my laptop in the majority tasks esp if i simply add a cheap keyboard and mouse.

I don't need a 30 hr battery life , even 10 hours is pushing it for me. I think i'd be good with 5-6 hours while watching video.

I mean look at it this way , i got to florida and i bring my laptop with me and thats fine , its battery kinda sucks and gets 2-3 hrs but its a dual core neo at 1.6ghz with a 3200 or 4330 when i need power for games. If i could replace that with a windows tablet that uses a c-350 (hopefully later this year) and lasts 5-6 hours i'd be extremely happy.

so I'm in florida right and lets say i have an ipad 2 , andriod tablet , windows tablet on me. I just got done at the park filming my nephew and my niece meeting mickey and my niece having the princess experiance (they do her hair and dress her like ap rincess and then she has tea with all the famous disney princesses) . Now i come home from the park and the kids are asleep and i'm watching tv. I want to be able to edit the footage on sony vegas on my tablet and then upload it to my pc at home since my pc at home has about 8TB of storage space and my tablet will have 15-64gigs. I also don't want to carry a hundred sd cards on me for filming.

Now what are my options ? The ipad 2 wont even play the video unless i buy an attachment and even then it wont play it in 1080p. I don't know if it will even play the avc video i took even if it can read the sd card.

Andriod ? Even if it can play it back can i log into my home pc and transfer it ? can i edit out parts i don't need (camera recording on accident or moving around to get a better shot while filming) so uploading is faster ?

With a windows 7 tablet i can remote into my pc at home , set up the project in vegas to render it all into a nice bluray image so that when i get home from vacation i can simply burn them and hand them off to the family.

Now i only need 3 or 4 16 gig sd cards for filming and i don't need to bring a laptop or anything else with me



Like i said i can see where an andriod or ipad would be nice for some people. We are getting my mother and sister the a500 iconia tablet . My mom is really bad with computers and we put alot of time into teaching her how to get mail on her epic and using that. So its good for her since she doesn't understand a pc. Its good for my sister cause its easy to use for my 2 year old nephew he knows to push the picture of hercules or of buzz to watch what he wants and with the nook app he can easily read the books.


But for me a ipad or andriod tablet wont work. So i wish people would stop coming into this thread and talking about those things. Its really not needed

 

[Florin]

I can understand how that might be annoying eastman but comparisons to other tablets in a topic like this follow quite naturally. As someone who doesn't have a modern tablet yet (but owned 2 of a previous generation for years) I'm looking at all the options out there, and wondering whether these first gen Win7 tablets are serious or if this ecosystem is waiting for a Windows Phone 7 like reboot.

 

[AlphaWolf]

I suspect you'll be able to upgrade to win8 with one of these, any 'reboot' is going to be software.

 

[eastmen]

I can understand how that might be annoying eastman but comparisons to other tablets in a topic like this follow quite naturally. As someone who doesn't have a modern tablet yet (but owned 2 of a previous generation for years) I'm looking at all the options out there, and wondering whether these first gen Win7 tablets are serious or if this ecosystem is waiting for a Windows Phone 7 like reboot.

As the wise beyond his years alphawolf says , you should be able to run windows 8 on any of these tablets . From what I understand windows 8 will come in two forms x86 32/64bit (32bit only special order) and an arm verison. However the arm verison is just a recompile and tweaked verison of the win 8 base. So all the changes they are making for tablets like metro ui will run on x86 cpus.


The c-50 may not be the fastest cpu out there but since win 8 is largely based on win 7 it should run it very well .


I've said before that i really want to wait till the fall and hopefully there will be a 32/28nm verison of the bobcat cores out by then with an increase in clock speeds and a reduction in power usage. However i think you will be fine with a c-50 running windows 8

Also windows 8 should enter the free beta this fall i beleive from stuff that leak out of dell .

anyway mabye we should use the tablet war thread to compare and contrast andriod/ios / windows / blackberry stuff and leave these threads dedicated to the actual devices themselves

 

[Ike Turner]

I suspect you'll be able to upgrade to win8 with one of these, any 'reboot' is going to be software.

Yeah. The new Asus Win7 EP1 tablet will most probably run Win8 without any problem at all and it essentially already has all the hardware features required (sucks that it doesn't have a GPS or GSM/3G radio though..)

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Well I think that pretty much sums it up, doesn't it? What you guys are looking for are basically PCs that happen to be in a tablet form factor. I don't believe that is what tablets are about though, and I really hope Windows on tablets will try to be more inspired and ambitious than that.

No, and here's the source of the problem. It's just another of those shenanigans where everybody seems to think that Steve Jobs invented everything, from mp3 players to smartphones to Tablets, etc. Whereas he (or Apple) didn't invent any of those.

The term "Tablet PC" was invented by Microsoft and presented over 10 years ago for the first time, as WinXP machines with laptop CPUs, with many of them being convertibles.

We want Tablets. You want the dumbed-down version of the original concept, which is just an oversized smartphone without phone capabilities and limited functionality.
You want that, if that's everything you need? That's cool, for you, just get one of those.
But let's not further spoil this thread with more ARM tablet vs. x86 tablet discussions. Just create another topic for it if you really feel like you need to discuss it.

have you heard when they are supposed to hit . I would have thought amd would take advantage of the demand for bobcat and get them out the door on 32nm .

I hope the 28nm are hitting before the end of the year. 1ghz c-50 just isn't enough for me at the moment

Unfortunately, Bobcat-based APUs using lower nodes (and with major architectural changes like using souped-up NI GPUs) are only scheduled for 1H 2012.
But as the desktop versions of Llano will be offering different speeds throughout the year, it's a good guess that we'll see higher-clocked Ontarios (C-60, C-70 @ 1.4GHz?) and Zacates (E-400 @ 2GHz?) while maintaining the current TDP.


AMD doesn't have to worry about their APUs so soon. They're confortably holding the best performance/power+price ratio in the market for low-cost UMPCs.

 

[Xmas]

We want Tablets. You want the dumbed-down version of the original concept, which is just an oversized smartphone without phone capabilities and limited functionality.

Neither Microsoft nor Apple invented the concept of a tablet computer, it's been around for much longer.

I think many people want a "productive" tablet, but pointing out huge flaws in Microsoft's approach doesn't mean being happy with what iOS or Android offer, either. I don't think we're currently anywhere close to what a "productive tablet" will be like in 3 to 5 years (I certainly hope that we aren't), and Microsoft is just as far away from it as the others are.

 

[Simon F]

A thing to note is that ARM SoC's today are capable of 1080p high-profile playback flawlessly at under 1W.

But that, presumably, is using some form of dedicated video hardware that is nearly always included in the SOC.

 

[Florin]

No, and here's the source of the problem. It's just another of those shenanigans where everybody seems to think that Steve Jobs invented everything, from mp3 players to smartphones to Tablets, etc. Whereas he (or Apple) didn't invent any of those.

Hehe well to be honest that seems more like a chip on your shoulder rather than an actual problem. You're not seriously trying to argue that it wasn't Apple who basically ignited the current tablet craze singlehandedly practically overnight though, are you?

The term "Tablet PC" was invented by Microsoft and presented over 10 years ago for the first time, as WinXP machines with laptop CPUs, with many of them being convertibles.

We want Tablets. You want the dumbed-down version of the original concept, which is just an oversized smartphone without phone capabilities and limited functionality.

Thanks for the history lesson, but I have used Tablet PCs and pen computing is not touch computing. However, they do have in common that they were in no way invented by Microsoft. Pen computing goes back a lot earlier than 2000, when Microsoft decided to PC it and declare it the next big thing. Its utter failure in the marketplace outside of a few niche applications is a matter of public record, and the emergence of the current crop of prototypical 'me too' Windows touch devices is hardly a vindication of any grand Microsoft vision, as much as you're attempting to position it as such.

You want that, if that's everything you need? That's cool, for you, just get one of those.
But let's not further spoil this thread with more ARM tablet vs. x86 tablet discussions. Just create another topic for it if you really feel like you need to discuss it.

Hey, I've been talking about the Iconia and Windows tablets in general. If there's any thread spoiling going on, to me it's this curious barrier that you and eastmen seem to be trying to erect, as if Windows tablets exist in a vacuum and shouldn't be subjected to the same criteria that go for other mobile devices. As a technical user I'm rather interested in portable PC devices, but that hardly means I'll just have to put up with a choice between dogfood like the Acer or 'oversized smartphones'.

 

[eastmen]

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=59744

just use this thread if you want to talk arm vs x86 or windows vs andriod . It clearly states its for tablet wars

Unfortunately, Bobcat-based APUs using lower nodes (and with major architectural changes like using souped-up NI GPUs) are only scheduled for 1H 2012.
But as the desktop versions of Llano will be offering different speeds throughout the year, it's a good guess that we'll see higher-clocked Ontarios (C-60, C-70 @ 1.4GHz?) and Zacates (E-400 @ 2GHz?) while maintaining the current TDP.


AMD doesn't have to worry about their APUs so soon. They're confortably holding the best performance/power+price ratio in the market for low-cost UMPCs.

you think we are going to see 8W llano chips this year ? the leaked list only shows a low of 65w for llano

 

[Grall]

It's just another of those shenanigans where everybody seems to think that Steve Jobs invented everything, from mp3 players to smartphones to Tablets, etc. Whereas he (or Apple) didn't invent any of those.

Doesn't matter if people believe he invented it or not (and personally I don't think all that many really do think that), the thing is, Jobs made the tablet popular. Or rather, Apple, but you know what I mean.

Like they did with smartphones, after launching the iPhone. Now, you sound like the kind of person who would be ready to dispute that lol, but you'd be flailing at windmills. It's fact.

We want Tablets. You want the dumbed-down version of the original concept

"Dumbed down" is a biased and perjorative term. A desktop OS running on a tablet doesn't work. It becomes too quirky and fiddly to be useable, and nobody (except a few weird people) end up liking it. All windows tablets released so far have been dismal or spectacular failures, every single one of them, even those that seemed to have everything going for them in terms of style and execution (like Oqo for example.)

The reason the "dumbed down" iPad has become so successful is because people are able to use it. Most regular peeps can barely send an email and surf the web on a standard PC, let alone on a tablet where buttons and other window gadgets become so tiny they can barely be hit accurately with the tip of a stylus, and much less a finger. Meanwhile, iOS and its apps are designed from the ground up for useability with a touch interface, it's everything a regular desktop OS isn't.

So don't be a hater... Just agree that not every tool is ideal in every circumstance. It's the same in computing as in real life.

 

[RudeCurve]

What's basically happening now with Windows based tablets is that they're trying to copy what Apple is doing but cannot do it as well because they're using a desktop OS and GUI that was never designed for touch usage. They now have the hardware with low power consumption CPUs not based on laptop CPUs and longer lasting batteries but at the end of the day the OS and GUI is still the old stylus based one available 10 years ago. I'm pretty sure Windows 8 is going to include optimizations for touch usage so unlike Apple who has one OS for phones/tablets and one for desktop, MS will have one OS for phones and one OS for desktop/tablets.

With that said I think it's too early to say which strategy will work better in the long run. As hardware gets more powerful Apple's iOS will be able to take advantage of that and be able to do more "desktop" workloads on tablets and phones. With MS's strategy you are able to run desktop apps on a tablet but not on your phones.