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AMT doesn't need VTd turned on to access the network, so keeping VTd off for that reason does absolutely nothing. AMT has its own dedicated side band access to the network hardware. AMT only works with Intel networking gear (NIC/Wi-Fi) so the AMT firmware has all the drivers for the NIC built in. Actually, VTd HELPS mitigate AMT concerns because with it turned on AMT is unable to execute arbitrary DMA reads/writes to system RAM, VTd limits AMT's DMA to only the ranges of RAM that the OS allows.

By the way... there is a much better way to "stop Intel AMT"... just don't buy a system that is "VPro" branded. If the system doesn't have VPro then AMT isn't even present... it gets permanently fused off at the Intel factory. Intel has a special sticker for VPro, so labeling of systems is very clear: https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/intel-vpro-faq

They already have.

Gesus christ. Do you use this OS? Do you use it regularly? Is it the "Professional" version?

I can set the "Active Hours". The active hours are configured so that within any 24 hour block there will always be a period of time outside the active hours. Microsoft uses this period of time to apply forced updates, some (not all) of which will reboot the system, REGARDLESS OF WHAT IT IS DOING.

How do you not understand this?

Here are some related articles on the topic. Most interest is from users wanting to stop Windows restarting unexpectedly.

https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/stop-windows-automatic-reboots

https://www.maketecheasier.com/stop-windows10-forced-updates/ [Note that Group Policy Editor was later disabled in the "Professional" version]

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-prevent-windows-10-rebooting-after-installing-updates

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/disable-forced-restarts-windows-update/

If you can be bothered to read them, notice that most of these "solutions" involve disabling updates, or, applying registry hacks that may work for the current version, but could be disabled in the next release.

I don't know about you, but I refuse to fight with my OS. I have much better things to do with my time.

[Cue the "Like Post On Slashdot" rebuttal. He he, this is rec time :)]

That's not the only useless specification - this laptop can probably also discharge its battery in less time than it takes to recharge it given that its reported battery life for just web-browsing is under 4 hours.

Easy solution: Uninstall the Windows Store completely (along with anything else you want gone listed in this link):

https://www.laptopmag.com/arti...

Store: Get-AppxPackage *windowsstore* | Remove-AppxPackage

Apparently, there are claims that there are a number of Chromebooks that will run Android apps - I found this article: https://www.laptopmag.com/arti... that lists the Chromebooks Android works on and how to enable it.

I have a number of Chromebooks (including some listed) and I haven't been able to get Google Play working. I'm expecting things to be better by the end of the year.

YMMV

As anecdotal evidence, I have a Galaxy Tab S 10.5 (released 2014) that I've used extensively for 2.5 years. it substitutes as my TV (Plex, DirecTV Now) when I'm away from my TV, so stays on for long periods of time. I'd estimate 4-8 hours a day (I often leave it on in the background while I'm working on the computer).

I recently bought an Amazon Fire HD 10, and was immediately disappointed by the image quality. It looks like crap compared to the OLED screen, especially when displaying dark scenes. I was going to exchange it for a different tablet, when I learned that the Fire HD 10 has one of the better screens available on LCD tablets, and the best one on an Amazon device.

And no I'm not talking about color saturation. By 2014 Samsung had included a movie mode which targeted sRGB, and I generally leave the tablet in that mode all the time. So no super-saturated colors. It's all about the blacks and contrast. LCDs just can't come anywhere near OLED. I'm now waiting for the Tab S4 to be released so I can have a newer non-4:3 tablet with an OLED screen.

It is people like you that spread lies that have made apple a company people hate.

Another inversion of truth, Apple Hater - Apple is actually still widely admired.

Since we know you lied about that, we know that everything else you said is backwards as well - so not only am I telling the truth (as I have shown with actual links instead of tantrumish invective), furthermore if your post is so inverted, it seems that rather than my posts hurting Apple, they must be helping Apple since they reveal the truth that people like you seek to twist and hide.

So your post ends up being a validation of my good works, I know if you dislike what I am doing I am truly on a path to help others. Thanks!

I'll let you have the last post since you Apple Haters always did have a bigger tank of bile than you could use up in a lifetime, and I've made enough of a point for all the sane people to know who and what you truly are.

Actually, scratch that. It looks like you can get a slim laptop with huge battery life (and probably performance too) these days. Dude... I've been living under a rock. Last time I googled for "long battery life laptop" they defined "long" as 4-6 hours.

The whole nvidia thing is a moot point; you don't even need to get that far to see the ads. Here's a collection of ads that have been found on Windows 10:

Ad to install Microsoft's shopping extension:
https://www.cnet.com/news/wind...

Ad to buy tomb raider from Windows store:
https://www.howtogeek.com/2432...
(Side note: This is why Microsoft no longer allows you to disable the lock screen on desktop systems. Yes, you can turn the lock screen ads off, but Microsoft wants you to get used to seeing it there meanwhile.)

Ad to browse bing for rewards points:
http://core0.staticworld.net/i...

Ad to install Office:
http://images.techhive.com/ima...

Ads to buy Solitaire:
http://images.techhive.com/ima...
(Side note: Windows 10 now includes lots of freemium and trialware apps in general, like Candy Crush, which is another form of advertising. Also, didn't solitaire used to be totally free?)

Ads in the share tool:
https://betanews.com/wp-conten...
(In that screenshot, most of these apps aren't installed, thus these are ads to install these apps.)

Ads in the ink workspace:
http://cdn.windowsreport.com/w...

Ad telling you to stop using firefox:
https://i.stack.imgur.com/l6JL...

Ad telling you to stop using chrome:
http://www.laptopmag.com/image...

Another ad telling you to switch to edge for bing rewards:
https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-c...

Ad telling you to subscribe to onedrive:
http://images.techhive.com/ima...

Ad to buy apps on the start menu:
https://davescomputertips.com/...

So TFA is correct, windows 10 IS an ad platform.

In any case, the all-in jump to USB-C is really forward looking.

You and I actually live in the present.

It's undoubtedly a hassle now

Yes. It is. And by the time the future you are forward looking to actually arrives we'll be buying new laptops. So this laptop is just a hassle.

, but part of the reason for that is because there aren't enough USB-C compatible computers to warrant USB-C devices, and there aren't enough USB-C devices that companies have been including a lot of USB-C ports

Yes, the chicken and the egg problem. However you don't conduct your social experiments on the pro users. Its fine that the macbook only has USBC. It's fine if the next macbook air only has USBC. But pro users are in the market for devices that work WITHOUT hassles, not 'maybe without hassles in 5 years after they've given it to their kids'.

Apple has forced the hand of accessories makers.

Not really. All they've done is force me to buy a pile of adapters. (if I bought one) and I already have the adapter for ethernet... which i'd have to replace.

It's a short term pain for a long term gain--exactly the same way it was when they moved to USB-A in the first place.

This is nothing like when they switched from ADB to USB. ADB was a shitty proprietary bus and other than a few barcode scanners the only thing that really used it was apple keyboards and mice -- and your new USB only iMac CAME with a keyboard and mouse. (yeah it was a shitty puck mouse... but at least it came with it)

This time around, I've got piles of accumulated technology that uses USBA. From my kids lego mind storms to my harmony remote to my mechanical keyboard to the flash drive I use with my car stereo, to my gaming headset, to the usb to serial adapter i use to connec to to the console port on cisco routers. Everything I have would need an adapter with the macbook pro... every usb device I own, and even my existing thunderbolt stuff.

And 3 years from now... most of this stuff... I'm STILL going to be using a lot of it. It'll take a decade for this stuff to wear and get replaced, even i started only buying USBC stuff today going forward... I'd still have a decent amount of USBA stuff in use for the entire life of this laptop.

And I'm NOT going to run out and buy USBC stuff today, because

a) USB accessories are a bleeding edge mess.

http://www.laptopmag.com/artic...

It'll get better with time. But it takes TIME. Let the consumer early adopter play on the bleeding edge, the pros want mature reliable stuff that connects WITHOUT HASSLE to the equipment they rely on.

b) I have other devices. I'm not going to buy a USBC flash drive, because all my other computers, and all the computers at work, and all the computers my relatives have are USBA. There are some combo devices... but they are over-priced and inelegant devices with ports sticking out of both ends. I'm not going to run out and buy a USBC keyboard either... same reason... my other laptops and devices are all USBA. Maybe 5 years from now when most of hte computers I interact with have USBC THEN I'll get a USBC keyboard... but today? Doesn't make sense. All apple has done is make using a macbook pro a needless hassle.

And 5 years from now... whose to say USBC utopia ever even happens? Maybe it does. Or maybe we'll need a new connector to handle dual-link thunderbolt 6 holographic displays... or we'll get our energy densities and charging tech up and people will want to dock their phone into their electric bicycle and power it from the phone. And we'll need a new connector that can move a lot more energy through it. One standard to rule them all... right until the next one comes out.

But wait there's "one more thing" Apple... by using USBC as a charging port, and as a display port... now I

Nope, sorry, but bullshit. those wonderful Linux netbooks? Yeah they saw 400% hbigher returns than the ones with Windows so the second MSFT gave companies a decent price on XP and later Win 7? They quit selling the ones with the OS that was costing them money, simple as that.

As for why netbooks died out? The companies decided they wanted more profit so they made them bigger, added more bells and whistles, and priced themselves out of the market, simple as that. When netbooks were $179-$299? I couldn't keep 'em in stock but by the end they were selling AMD duals for $450 and the Atoms for $349...who is gonna pay that when they could get a full size laptop with better performance for $279?

Why Linux fans can't seem to grasp such a simple concept is frankly beyond me but the reason Linux doesn't go anywhere whether its installed by default or not (see Linux netbooks, the Walmart Linux desktops and laptops, the Dell Ubuntu laptops) is called the network effect with Windows literally being listed as an example of the network effect in action. Its really VERY simple, people buy computers to run specific programs not for the OS that is on it and those programs? They are written for Windows. Hell most users don't even know which version of windows they have, if they even know they have windows, all they know is they install their program and it works and if it doesn't? the PC is BROKEN and worthless, period.

So if you want people to actually use your OS? Then you have to get all those proprietary vendors to support your OS although with the hatred of all things proprietary in Linux land I don't see that happening, hence why MSFT has put out 3 stinkers in a row and Linux hasn't gained squat. As long as their programs run? People would gladly take Windows over your OS, MSFT could put the Eye Of Sauron as the desktop wallpaper and they would not care, all they will care about is their programs work on windows, they don't on yours...end of story.

And I totally botched the URL by using BBcode-style links. ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2014 Review

That IS lame!

Apple's won't be ANYTHING like that piece of garbage. What's the point of a piece of Lexan with screen-printed symbols. All they are doing is using a "Deadfront" black to hide the non-illuminated, pre-defined symbols. Pffft!

Apple is talking about doing the whole shebang as a capacitive touch OLED display/touchpad. They will be able to put ANYTHING on that display, and use it as keys, sliders, and Full-Color status indicators. (I assume it will be a color display).

FInally a place for all those things living in Mac Users' Menu Bar, and a death to all the bizarre iconography on the F-Keys!

And I totally botched the URL by using BBcode-style links.

ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2014 Review

Quicken, Quickbooks, Photoshop, Corel Draw, AutoCAD, hell the software that came with your grandma's camera, they all DO NOT WORK and when they find it doesn't run? They WILL bring it back.

If you want actual citations I'm happy to provide them, after all we ALREADY HAD a big Linux push....remember netbooks? You know why netbooks went windows? Because Linux netbooks suffered 400% higher returns than the same units running Windows, even though they were stuck on XP while the Linux ones had the latest versions. How many Linux units have YOU tried selling? I can tell you that I strip or throw away machines rather than put Linux on them because the same thing always occurs, 1.-They buy Linux because its cheaper,2.- Find some program they really want to run isn't supported, 3.- They return it.

So I'm sorry to burst your "its the insiders man!" bubble but I'll highlight this so you can't miss it, People don't buy OSes, they buy programs and then choose an OS that will run those programs, and all those programs? they don't run on Linux.

If by "decade" you mean last year, then yes. "Ports are spread among both sides and the back, while the device's E-series docking port, fans and removable battery lie on the bottom."

What is interesting?

That actually sounds pretty dam good. A lot of companies, eg Apple, could learn a lot about customer service from Amazon.

Apple is usually a top rated company in customer support, Amazon isn't - so while they should learn, it's probably not from amazon.

It would be interesting to see what Amazon customer support would say here, because I have no doubt Amazon customer support isn't trying to actually solve the problem. Either this is automated, or they want a call to make him buy something else.

Except this is retarded either way. Linux on netbooks? It has been done and saw a 400% higher return rate than Windows on the same device, why? Simple people don't give a shit about the OS but they DO care about THEIR PROGRAMS. Their programs don't run? You might as well give them an Emu and tell them to do their computing on that for all the good it'll do 'em.

As for ARM on laptops? Pick your test, you'll see that the BEST chips that ARM has to offer in 2015 cannot compete with the first gen C2D chips from 2007 in performance, they just can't. The simple fact that ARM fans don't want to accept is ARM doesn't scale and once you start ramping up the cycles or adding cores to up the performance? Well there went your power budget, you'd be better off with the new Intel Atom chips that frankly curbstomp the living shit out of the latest greatest ARM chips. Like it or not, despite all these companies just throwing money at it, ARM simply doesn't scale performance wise worth a shit, it just don't. It is simply easier for Intel and AMD to lower the power on their APUs than it is for ARM to scale up their IPC because the performance gap is just so great.

So sorry Linus but you are wrong, as the only thing ARM has to offer is cheap and as we saw with first the netbook craze and then the tablet craze that people will put up with cheap = lousy performance for only a VERY limited time and then they chunk the things, hell I've had so many trying to practically give me cheap ARM tablets, nobody wants the things, the same will be true of Linux ARM netbooks/laptops. Folks will take 'em home, try to run their Windows programs (because again they don't know WTF an OS is) and when it don't work? The store is gonna have a fricking mound of the things in the return pile. No store is gonna put up with that for long so they'll dump 'em and never buy another and that will be the end of that. Sorry Linus, no sale.

Windows 10 had more users as a fricking BETA than Linux has had in 22 years so...yeah I'd say the users have decided long ago that Linux is a "do not want". Remember that for most of its life Linux has been $0 while its cheapest competition was $100 a pop and you couldn't give it away so what does that say about YOU, when you can't even get anybody to take your product for free?

While I think Windows 10 is the equivalent of the spyware that comes with a "free"program on Sourceforge the simple fact of the matter is Linux is broken. its been broken for the past 22 years, it'll probably be broken 22 years from now. this is why the hairyfeet challenge, which asks Linux to do such "hard" tasks as "update yourself without dying", has lasted for 8 years without a single consumer distro passing, its because Linux is broken and its driver model is frankly worse than Windows 98s VXD driver model.

Does Linux look nice OOTB? Sure it does, but once the user finds that none of their programs run and the OS breaks on update what you see is people return it in droves because if an OS can't run the programs you want, or requires you to learn pages of CLI (on another PC, you DO have a spare, right?) just to deal with the broken WiFi and shitted on GPU drivers when you update it? Then it might as well be a paperweight.

since the "standard Samsung apps" are horrible or non-existent. The G5 doesn't have a "standard document app", nor does it have a "standard" cloud app. It's all carrier-specific. Google drive doesn't count it's still an app you have to install usually. Here's a list of g5 pre-loaded software. They all have Polaris Office pre-loaded, other than this there is no cross-handset standard apps. What I really wish Samsung would do is remove Knox and it's anti-root stuff. Putting extra steps in my rooting is annoying lol.

Simplicity needs to be the new goal in a FOSS OS project like Linux. 20 years ago it was all about getting an alternative to systems that cost north of 100 000$ up and running to be able to do the stuff we all wanted to do but couldn't afford to.

Today leading FOSS solutions and extremely powerful hardware is available in abundance, as are network and cyperpunk-working-coding-and-collaboration resources. It is now that we need to push for simplicity and perhaps even an own hardware standard.

To be honest, putting emphasis on FOSS hardware might even provide the right incentive for exactly that simplicity. Apple won all the Unixers over a decade ago, because it offered exactly that. Zero-fuss out-of-the-box FOSS-*nix functionality. It started losing them ever since the golden cage starting to close and lock. This is a gap the FOSS community needs to fill.

It is, in my opinion, high time for FOSS hardware to move into the limelight. We need to start crowdfunding our own NixBook Airs, flashy pro desktops and servers. ... The librem 15 is a step in the right direction - we need more of that.

The much-maligned UI is actually just the Windows 7 UI with a full-screen Start menu, which I find interrupts my workflow to exactly the same extent that the Windows 7 Start menu does, meaning minimally.

The fact that it's forced full-screen rather than snapped is the problem. At least with the Windows 7 Start menu, I could see a bit of what I was working on in the corner of my screen, which provided some subconscious continuity. In fact, if I had a program snapped to the right side (Windows+Right), I could see all of it while the Start menu was open. But with Windows 8's Start screen, everything is covered up. The full-screen context switch imposes a cognitive burden similar to going through a doorway and forgetting what you came in for. That's why the first thing onto every Windows 8.1 PC that I use regularly is Classic Shell, which reproduces the functionality of Windows 7's Start menu.

Bullshit

There are at least 7 Android phones that beat out the iPhone 6 Plus for battery life.

Sure thing, bro! On a BlackBerry! In 2008!

You'll also note they mentioned T-Mobile explicitly in the presentation in regard to this. Apparently "Apple makes it usable" with T-Mobile doing all the work.

Basically just a teaser, bu this is what i found:

http://blog.laptopmag.com/micr...

It is made to be a tool for education, not yet another HTPC.
The new layout makes it a bit cleaner for those that want to use the GPIO to get started with electronics.

For computers that fit neatly behind the TV there are plenty of android sticks
They cost a few dollars more but as opposed to the Pi you are only going to have one anyway.

and a 6 hour battery life

When you expect ten, that's a real letdown.

We are pretty much getting to this point without the help of super capacitors. With new batteries, solid state drives, and low power (not low speed) chips, it's possible to make a laptop last 20 hours. It's not mainstream, but give it another 2 or 3 years and it won't be uncommon that you'll only have to plug in you laptop at night, just like you do with your phone.

In the smartphone market, the US still comprises a decently large slice of the pie

The US numbers show iOS at 42%, and Android at 51%. The worldwide numbers show iOS at 15.5%, and Android at 78.9%. So, there's your difference. Links stolen from above:

http://www.comscoredatamine.co...
http://www.engadget.com/2014/0...

Those worldwide numbers are from 2013 though, so I expect that iOS would have continued to shrink over the past 4 months, there's no reason it would have gone up.

particularly at the high end of the market where the more valuable users tend to reside.

News flash: there are more high-end smartphones that run Android then there are that run iOS. Welcome to 2012.

Saying that more malware targets Android than does iOS is the same as saying more targets Windows than MacOS. It's a market share issue, again.

A 2.5" drive is a 2.5" drive, be it SSD or conventional/platter-based. I don't guarantee this is the specific revision of your laptop(s), but upgrading doesn't look hard, and you'd have a mountain of storage space and a reasonable upgrade path. Now if you're running something that uses HDA modules like a Macbook Air does, that's a valid point. But I don't think the eeePCs ever did.

Wrong... Here's some benchmarks:

http://blog.laptopmag.com/wpre...
http://www.phonearena.com/revi...

As you can see, the A7 is substantially more powerful, and gets roughly double the FPS of the S4 in most benchmarks.

The $1500.00 price tag set me back as well. I don't love being a first adopter that much! There are five alternatives to Google Glass here if you want to consider something more reasonable.

Say it ain't so. I have had my eyes on a top o' line Lenovo W540 notebook because it specs very well, is Ubuntu Certified, and HP's alternative was rated as 'noisy' in the few reviews available for me to read so far.

That notebook stuck out for those reasons, while I found no other alternatives; mainly because linux support is such a crap-shoot.

http://blog.laptopmag.com/leno...

I have had notebooks before that. They had mice and trackpads. Look at this one from hp, idiot:

http://blog.laptopmag.com/wpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/HP-omnibook-300-pop-out-mouse.jpg

I had those pop-out trackballs, some with the trackball over the keyboard, and even with trackballs right next to the screen. So the "magical palm rest" might be a necessity, but no one did it before.

I had an N95, it was great for its time but became an anachronism the day the iPhone was released. Today you can buy Nokia phones that do more than iPhone for less money. Really, /. Nobody likes Microsoft but it's time to accept that Winphone is a good product, that people like it, and that it is going to seriously challenge Apple and Google.

The statement you're replying to is absolutely overgeneralized, but a quick search found a comparable ASUS laptop (Non Haswell i7) to the new $2600 MacBook Pro. Its a full $1550 cheaper. That's a mortgage payment.

Spec chasers go for whatever the latest and greatest Android/Apple device is and play playground top-trumps with that. Crackberry users just need "good enough" and have been kicking the habit in increasing numbers around the world for some time now for exactly that reason - why pay all that money for good enough when you can get kick-ass with better support prospects for the same price from someone else? From EE (UK 4G network) for same the monthly fee I can get an iPhone 5 for £10 or a Q10 for £30. They're actually trying to charge more for a worse product with the same subscription. The Blackberry only survives because of that tribal fanboi segregation bollocks so many people have fallen for, but without something to crow about, RIM won't survive purely on that for very much longer.

To rub some salt into the wound, Nokia were selling more Lumia phones than RIM were selling phones total - if you factor in Nokia's Asha range, Nokia were bitch-slapping RIM and may actually have been onto a comeback - I wonder how that'll play out for MS? Will we see MS vs Apple vs Google in the top 3 phone charts some time soon?

http://blog.laptopmag.com/nokia-lumia-outsell-blackberry

You mean you actually have this problem

Yes, and I'm not the only one who thinks it's "a cognitive burden".

Samsung NC215s is the world's first solar laptop way back in 2011.

It's on Amazon with real reviews and here's a customer unboxing video

Article mentions the NC215s but claims it didn't have a 10 hour battery life while this review says the NC215s did have a 10 hour battery life... not that it really matters if the laptop can run on sunlight.... unless you're visiting the Arctic I suppose

The real truth of the matter is that you can't fit a terabyte onto something the size of a fingernail. Even if you could, you would never be able to afford it.

Let's hop a time machine back to 2009. Oh look: Terabytes of storage on something smaller than a fingernail being prototyped. In other news, the microSD working group updated their specifications to include 2 TB storage in that form-factor. That same year, someone got the idea to stitch a bunch of microSD cards together to create a 1 TB drive that would fit on a finger. And earlier this year, Kingston released a 1 TB thumb drive, which is, as you might expect, the side of your thumb.

So the 'real truth' of the matter is that this technology is only a few years away. And by the looks of things, it won't just be affordable: It'll be competitively priced with current solutions.

So I will ask the question again: Why are we continuing to invest in a technology that's many times that size and many fractions of that in terms of storage capacity by volume, dimensions, mass, or any other unit of measurement you care to throw out there? The answer is obvious: DRM. Optical media has been the medium of choice for DRM schemes since the first CD was released. That's its only relevance in the marketplace today.

The technology we have today greatly exceeds optical media storage, and there's been no breakthroughs in optics that suggest it can ever match solid state media for information density. It's dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. So what if I can't fit a terabyte on my fingernail right now, that it has to be the size of my thumb instead? That's still a helluva better than this latest optical media format! And it's available now.

Thunderbolt is proprietary (although it isnt *Apples*) as is the 'mini display port' which is the only way to attach an external monitor.

The larger issue in my mind is the lack of standard ports. A notebook that has only one USB port, NO ethernet (the option to add it is with a dongle that will then occupy that single USB port,) and NO standard display port on it is pure fail, without even considering the lack of a replaceable battery.

Mini Displayport is a VESA standard, and a Mini Displayport to HDMI cable costs a grand total of $6.58 if you need one.

It's small and light which is wonderful, but in order to actually USE it one would have to first buy and then carry a second case full of dongles, adapters, USB hubs, and quickchargers, and at that point you might as well just buy a real laptop - the total package will be lighter and less bulky as well as less expensive.

Use it for what? Running a recording studio while on the train? What would you do that would require a bunch of USB peripherals while travelling? How many people need a wired ethernet connection when they're not at their desks?

So long as you're just doing "normal" stuff, you don't need to carry a damn thing except the computer itself. The battery is lasts up to 15 hours in real, actual testing, so you can use it all day. It lasts longer than other laptops even with external batteries.

I just saw this article: http://blog.laptopmag.com/asus-mb168b-portable-monitor Looks like ASUS is coming out with a 2lb 15.6" 1080p monitor for ~$200. Comes with case that converts to stand, and monitor can be driven by a single USB 3.0 connection. Looks like a steal.

Well, since you insist...Acer Aspire 722:

• price: $379, not $230.
• weight: 3lbs, 2x as heavy as the iPad, 4x the weight of the iPad Mini.
• Keyboard: crappy, but don't take my word for it, from the above review... "We've always had mixed feelings about Acer's FineTip keyboards, and this one did not impress. The keys lacked good tactile feedback and springiness, and the keyboard flexed noticeably when we typed. This caused us to make more errors than we usually do. We never got comfortable with the layout,..."
• Display: Crappy. again, from the review... "1366 x 768 resolution display has a glossy finish, though it wasn't too reflective under fluorescent lights. Colors are slightly muted, which is unusual for a glossy screen, and even at 100 percent brightness the panel seems slightly dim. Horizontal viewing angles aren't super wide, but three people sitting together should be able to see the screen without encountering color distortion or darkness. While watching an episode of Murder, She Wrote on Netflix, we found that pushing the display past about 25 degrees (when looking at it head-on) made colors look darker and in shadow, so there isn't a wide vertical range, either."
• Sound: Again, from the review..."The two small speakers under the Aspire One 722's front lip don't produce very loud volume - we had to turn the notebook up to 100 percent to get decent audio when playing some Adam Lambert tracks."
• Camera: 0.3MP (std VGA). From the review..."Colors were more washed out than we like,..."

http://www.laptopmag.com/review/stick-computers/android-mini-pc-rk3066.aspx

rk3066 based android minipc $55, ranked 2 places Higher than Ouya on TFAs 3dmark list.

On the back.

All this an a sainted device from Google

Except people [including myself have been incredibly impressed with having a high resolution; quad-core; small tablet running latest Android....and so are the reviews. Top searches on Google

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/tablets/google-nexus-7-1087040/review 4.5 stars
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/tablets/379261/nexus-7 3x 5 out of 6 and 1x6 out of 6
http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/laptops/1297408/google-nexus-7 5 out of 5 User 5 out of 5 expert
http://reviews.cnet.com/google-nexus-7/ 4 out 5
http://www.wired.co.uk/reviews/tablets/2012-11/google-nexus-7 9 out of 10
http://www.theverge.com/products/nexus-7/5831 8.8 expert 9.1 User
http://www.laptopmag.com/review/tablets/google-nexus-7.aspx 4 out of 5
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2406552,00.asp 4.5 out of 5

I know you love Apple but right now Apple need compelling products, priced competitively not fanatics spreading lies. It simply tarnishes the Apple brand more, and its been damaged enough just lately.

How many apps require your location in order to work?

Sure, if I have an app that will find a restaurant for me, maybe it needs to know at least my general location. I'm hungry, so I ask it where the restaurants are. The app should work. It's last known location for me was in Arkansas, so it gives me a map of Arkansas with hundreds of known good restaurants. I can narrow it down to southwest Arkansas, and it will zoom in some, giving me only a couple hundred restaurants. Or, I can tell it that I'm actually in Murphrysboro, at which point it will zoom, showing me the three to six restaurants in that town, and maybe flag another dozen of the better restaurants within a half hour drive.

My point is, the app should work with or without knowing my location. If it doesn't, then the app is not so much an "application" as it is a data harvesting tool.

Rand McNally Maps could locate restaurants for me a decade ago, with absolutely zero knowledge of where I was located at the time. RM Maps didn't have any mechanism by which it could communicate with RM headquarters, to inform them of my location.

Not only could RM locate restaurants, it could locate schools, churches, (handy for people planning hostage events?) parks, shopping centers, businesses, federal buildings (Timothy McVeigh?) and much much more. (I have little idea if RM Maps would have located bomb making facilities and supplies, or weapons dealers - I never thought to try it!)

Name an app that is actually necessary to day-to-day life, that actually NEEDS TO KNOW where I am, currently. I really can't imagine one.

Now, if I'm a stalker, or a predator, and I'm trying to keep tabs on my prey, then maybe such an app is truly useful. Say that maybe I've set my sights on 3 or 12 of the most beautiful little girls in my area, and I really want to know what they are wearing (if anything) where they are, and who they are with, then it would be very useful to me that the little idiots are blathering all those details to the world.

http://blog.laptopmag.com/look-whos-stalking-10-creepiest-apps-for-phones-facebook-more

You want more links? Be careful what you wish for as i can wallpaper with all the fail that is Windows 8. First we have Acer saying its a fail, we have the press writing articles saying yes its THAT bad, we have usability experts calling it a broken mess and yet another OEM calling it a flop.

So I'm sorry but stick a fork, the fat lady is down the street having a sammich, its done. Win 8 will go next to WinME and MS Bob on the "WTF were they thinking?" lists next year and no matter how many warehouses full MSFT buys they won't be able to give that megabomb away, its over.

Please look it up. Note that both the weight and matching screen resolution are non-negotiable. A laptop that's +1lb heavier or relies on 1024x768 max resolution will not count as a MacBook Air equivalent.

Let's compare the 13.3" MB Air:
1400x900 screen
2.96lbs
7 hours usage

vsThinkpad X1 Carbon:
14" 1600x900 screen
2.99lbs
8 hours usage
So, better or equal in every respect. Not only that, if you don't mind an extra 0.4lbs you can get it with a touch screen.

Errm, let's ignore that you think that heavier is better in a notebook. Your problem is that you blindly believe the battery time Lienovo gives. http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-carbon-touch.aspx

Battery Life

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch UltrabookClick to EnlargeThis is going to sound disappointingly familiar to anyone who has read our reviews of Windows 8 Ultrabooks, but, like the rest, the X1 Carbon offers below-average battery life. In the LAPTOP Battery Test, which involves continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi on 40-percent brightness, the X1 Carbon Touch lasted 5 hours and 52 minutes. That run time is not only 18 minutes shorter than the typical ultraportable (6:10), but nearly 2 hours behind the X1 Carbon powered by Windows 7 without touch (7:45). ... Better scores came from non-touch ultraportables, such as the UX31A (6:28) and the MacBook Air (8:10).

IOW:nope.

Those "old" links are dated Nov 2012. If you have something more recent suggest you offer it, because you don't give any links at all. I can't see a single reference anywhere on the web that GMA 3650 supports anything other than DirectX 9. The links referred to the N2600. You made up the N450 stuff. Even Intel's own web site says it only supports DirectX 9. http://ark.intel.com/products/36331/Intel-Atom-Processor-N270-512K-Cache-1_60-GHz-533-MHz-FSB#infosectiongraphicsspecifications.

Here's a review of a Z2670 tablet which you claim runs DirectX. "One of the limitations of the W510's Intel Graphics Media Accelerator GPU is that it's not DirectX 11 compatible, so our standard 3DMark11 benchmark wouldn't run. You can forget about playing "World of Warcraft," too. Even when effects were set to low, the W510 averaged just 12 fps, and even hung up during our test flights." 'Quite Fast' my ass. http://www.laptopmag.com/acer-iconia-w510.aspx Posted Dec 28.

The spec sheets for Z2760 tablets I googled either says DirectX 9. http://www.tipidpc.com/viewtopic.php?tid=279073 http://www.pinoytechblog.com/archives/acer-iconia-w510-the-windows-8-tablet-netbook-hybrid

Or in the case of Dell doesn't give the version at all.http://www.dell.com/uk/enterprise/p/latitude-10-tablet/fs

No wonder you're posting as AC. Google Moar.