The 10 Worst Tech Products of 2010

Barence writes "PC Pro has a count down of the ten worst tech gadgets of the year. Included in its hall of shame are: iPad Made Simple, 'a book containing 704 pages of advice on how to use a device that's universally acknowledged as being ridiculously easy to use'; the Dell Inspiron Duo, 'a tablet that leaves you longing to return to a keyboard and a touchpad'; and the £99 Next Tablet, the highlight of which was the 'eight-page Quick Start Guide.'"

Comments

i hereby nominate

[smash]

the Dell E6xxx series laptops. In my 16 years in the computing industry, i have never seen such a high failure/random wierd issue rate - before the machines even leave the bench (takes 25 minutes to network build with SOE) in many cases.

cheers Dell, for convincing me to move to HP Elitebooks.

Re:i hereby nominate

[Anonymous Coward]

Reliability aside, the E6xxx series is a huge step up from the previous D6xx series, which easily had the worst keyboard and screen of any laptop I've had the misfortune of having inflicted upon me.

Re:i hereby nominate

[stox]

I second your nomination!

Re:i hereby nominate

[Anonymous Coward]

Even the E6410? Oh no, I was just about to get one of these :|

Re:i hereby nominate

[acoustix]

I actually loved my D620 and D630 Latitudes. They were very solid and I loved the keyboard - especially with the 9-cell battery that acts as a palm rest. Plus they had a serial port - which I use quite a bit for initial router and switch configurations.

My new E6510, while loaded to the gills, has a keyboard that's more difficult for me to use. Although I love the screen. I also had issues with some of the Dell provided drivers. Specifically the video driver for my nVidia NVS 3100M which would cause one of my cores to run at 100% under Win XP. Using the manufacturer's driver fixed that issue.

Re:i hereby nominate

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I'm not sure how you could be so mean...

Expecting a company to make what is damn near an Intel reference design work properly after only 27 BIOS updates(and counting, it was 24 only weeks ago) is cruel and unrealistic. Some people just aren't satisfied with anything(or, like our network manager, satisfied with anything related to his E6400, which he deep-sixed for his prior laptop, despite the significant spec bump...)

Re:i hereby nominate

[revscat]

Holy crap, I am so glad I am not alone here. I had an E6500 and that is far and away the worst laptop I have ever used. Cheap materials, the keyboard sucks, the display is dim even on full brightness. Also the trackpad is freaking TINY, the buttons are shit, and the area on the trackpad for scrolling is far too small to be anywhere near useful. It's heavy and awkward to carry: the docking connector in the back adds another inch to the dimensions of the thing, and makes it so it won't fit in most backpacks.

I had it for a contract I was on for most of this year, and it was the first Dell I've used in probably three years. I was hoping their quality had improved, but it most assuredly has not.

Re:i hereby nominate

[smash]

If you must have a Dell E series, get the E4310. We've only had 1 of the 6 we have of these die in the first 12 months. The E6400, E6410, E6500 and E6510 i reckon we've had anywhere between a 15 and 30% failure rate in the first 12 months. DOA rate (as in, failed before even deployed) of around 10 percent. We ordered about 150 machines last year.

Re:i hereby nominate

[BassMan449]

They have to be better than the Dell D6xx series. We have had the laptops for 1.5 years and so far have a failure rate of about 90%. We had about 20 of them and only 1 is still in use. We have another that is technically functional but has something failing and is to slow to use.

Re:i hereby nominate

[smash]

Lolz... 27 now? I gave up count and binned mine (E6500) around A20. The E6510 i replaced it with briefly wasn't a lot more reliable either. Compared to the elitebooks they just feel so damn flimsy as well. The HPs are a solid machine and I'm sure having the entire chassis of the machine flex on the E series when you even pick it up to move it can't help the reliability of the internals...

Re:i hereby nominate

[ArhcAngel]

If an AC endorsing a product doesn't give you pause then you are a brave soul indeed.

Re:i hereby nominate

[smash]

Your sample size of 1 has totally convinced me. I'll go see if i can find a remaining working E6400 in my stash of about 10 back at the office.

Re:i hereby nominate

[trum4n]

My Latitude D600, i received 2nd hand. One of the best portable computers i have ever used in my life, second only to the Sony VAIO C1XS. Number 3 is my old Dell Inspiron 3500. I hate Dell, but make those two exceptions. New machines just suck. Acer is your only hope these days, IMHO.

Re:i hereby nominate

[Stenchwarrior]

We bought several E6510's for my firm and they were spotty out of the box, but I attribute that to the load of Windows that came installed. I wiped one, installed a fresh copy and Ghosted for the rest. Haven't had a single problem since.

Re:i hereby nominate

[mcgrew]

I nominate "3D" TV.

Re:i hereby nominate

[smash]

Dude. I was giving out secondhand D520s and D530s recently to end users who were going to be out of range of phone+dell tech next day repair because they have proven to be far more reliable, even after 2-3 years of use. I even have D510s still going, running Win7 just fine.

If you think the D series is bad, please don't pre-judge the E series. They're FAR worse. We were a dell shop since 2003 until this year when we ditched them, primarily because of the E series.

Re:i hereby nominate

[JonStewartMill]

Interesting. I have an E6500 and don't really have any complaints about it. I suppose it could be because I absolutely loathed the D820 it replaced, and the D610 that the D820 replaced was even worse. Low expectations prevent dissatisfaction.

Now that you mention it though, I did notice that the video was noticeably brighter on an external display. There's also a weird 'tearing' effect whenever I try to watch a video with lots of motion in it. Unfortunately, it's a work PC; I can't very well take it back to the depot and tell them "this laptop is shit because I can't watch movies on it."

Re:i hereby nominate

[smash]

All ours were rebuilt with an E series based Win7 SOE build (pretty simple SOE - Win7 + Dell drivers + office 2007). Troublesome machines were re-imaged if necessary, but generally it wasn't random software unreliability. We had one machine go through 3 motherboards, failed displays, chronic overheating problems (google throttlegate), etc. The E6500s got better just before the E6510 came out as there was a motherboard rev that seemed to cure a lot of the issues. E6510 has been better but still have had a disturbing number of DOAs out of the box.

Re:i hereby nominate

[smash]

True, but we got 8540p elitebooks of higher spec than the E6510s we were ordering for $150 cheaper. They feel solid, and have thus far been 100% reliable. Its a no brainer.

Re:i hereby nominate

[Stenchwarrior]

Now that you mention it, we did have one machine come out of sleep mode whilst in someone's backpack. It burned up the screen and left a 1cm-squared white spot in the middle of the LCD. The tech came out to replace it and insisted that it was due to crush damage because of the burn being the same size of a keyboard button. We had to pay Dell for the new screen because our IT manager felt it was in the company's best interest not to get the accidental coverage. A decision that I'm sure he's regretting (but won't admit).

Re:i hereby nominate

[mark72005]

Well, according to the posts here you'll probably be safe, you have about a 70% chance of getting one that works.

Re:i hereby nominate

[wiggles]

Ditto with my E6500. No problems, except for the crap that gets caught in the little grill things on either side of the keyboard...

Re:i hereby nominate

[GlennC]

Not that I'm doubting you, but I have an E6400 that I was given, and it's been working pretty well for me.

Of course, if you have 10 broken ones, it sounds like there was either a bad production run and you got unlucky, or a good run which left me the lucky one.

Either way, I probably wouldn't get one of these for myself.

Re:i hereby nominate

[CompMD]

I have a decked out D630 running Fedora for work, and it was one of the last to go out before we switched to E6xxx machines. The D630 is arguably the most well-rounded and reliable laptop I've ever had. The E6xxx laptops though we have had tons of problems with. Very few D630s actually went out, we had mostly D620s. People with older and newer machines here stare jealously at my D630, but they know the only way to get it is from my cold, dead hands.

Agreed, the E6xxx series is horrible.

Re:i hereby nominate

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes! That piece of shit nearly got me fired.

Re:i hereby nominate

[1080bogus]

I have to agree with the ridiculous amount of Bios revisions they have had. The D620/630 series had only 10 I believe. Problem with the D series was that we had so many bad boards and LCDs. The E6400 line was a slight improvement.

I don't believe the 6400/6410 series were/are flimsy. We ran over an ATG E6400 with a F-150 four times, turned it on and it still booted Windows. Obviously the screen was all cracked. It is still running to this day (about a year later) with all the original components except the screen and hard drive. Hard drive was a little warped so we swapped it out. Even though they may feel flimsy, they can take a beating.

The E6410 line has been decent for us so far. I'm so glad they got rid of the glossy back. We tried out the Elitebooks but working on them was sort of a pain (lots of wires). The HP's had only about 6 or 7 more screws than the Dells did. We also didn't go with HP because of the history of failures in the past and their support on servers is a pain.

Re:i hereby nominate

[km_2_go]

1 out of 6 dieing is a 17% failure rate, which falls within what you estimate the rate was for the E6XX series. That doesn't engender much confidence in the reliability of the E4310.

Re:i hereby nominate

[TClevenger]

Interesting. I have an E6500 and don't really have any complaints about it. I suppose it could be because I absolutely loathed the D820 it replaced, and the D610 that the D820 replaced was even worse. Low expectations prevent dissatisfaction.

It goes further back than that. When I worked for a certain large three-letter outsourcing company, the leasing company actually RECALLED our C640s before the lease was up and replaced them with D610s because the failure rate on the C640s was enormously high.

Re:i hereby nominate

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, 3D TV's are the highest quality tv's on the market. If you go looking to buy a new tv, I would highly suggest the 3D ones. Granted the 3D tech itself is horrible, the screens are amazing.

Re:i hereby nominate

[ThunderThor53]

Granted 6 is a small sample, but 1 out of 6 is 16.67%, within the range you quoted for the other models.

Re:i hereby nominate

[CharlieMurphy]

Agree, the D600s are an awesome machine. They look a bit plasticy on the outside, but the screen back and internal frame is solid magnesium. They also have some nice touches, like an internal rechargeable battery that lets you sleep the machine, swap the main battery, then resume from sleep and keep on working. Great if you don't have access to AC power, you can swap out the main battery in about 10 seconds and keep on working. They also overclock well (1.6ghz to 2.13ghz) if you are able to solder on a tiny surface mount resistor, the speed jump makes them quite snappy.

Re:i hereby nominate

[Anonymous Coward]

Your sample size of 1 has totally convinced me. I'll go see if i can find a remaining working E6400 in my stash of about 10 back at the office.

Should you find one - and you find some *cough* fool *cough* who wants it... I've got a couple of dozen virgin batteries for them. I can vouch for the high failure rates - and also point out that those that didn't have problems upon first use (fail during the imaging stage) seemed to work fine. Trial and error taught us if they had any problems during imaging they would always be a problem - this eventually led to the "image -> deploy" or "fail image -> bounce -> return -> rinse -> repeat" policy. I suspect widely different assembly and QC conditions which is supported by the serial numbers (manufacturer had to know, normally very large purchases are sequentially numbered, 6 to a box in carry cases, boxes sequentially numbered, laptops not)- the bad ones were really bad when you looked at the soldering and assembly. The huge amount of wasted time they caused (set a rollout back by 8 months) meant Asus and Toshiba were chosen for the next rollout.

Second candidate:- Samsung SP200x hdds. You bastards - high failure rate, no return until rooted policy. *cough* Ipex *cough* boxes.

Sorry - said gov contractor is still client, hence AC, bloody politics)

Re:i hereby nominate

[anotherncbeachbum]

I have an army of D531/D810/D820/D830 at work. They've all been solid for the most part. The D810s are starting to age and are being retired. The only issue with the 531s is overheating, a good 25% of mine have had the fans replaced due to failure. They're in good locations, sitting on desks with no clutter but they still fail. The others haven't had that problem. Don't get me started on the 300+ NX9010 I inherited. Talking about steaming piles....

Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[jedidiah]

I'm not inclined to cut Apple any slack and even I would not have put the Mini on that list.

Overall, this list seems pretty lame and mostly filled with stuff that doesn't really belong there.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed, the Mini would be on my list of one of the 10 best products of 2010.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[jedidiah]

...I wouldn't go that far.

It's a price escalated hash of last years model (quite literally).

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[drcheap]

I'm not inclined to cut Apple any slack and even I would not have put the Mini on that list.

Overall, this list seems pretty lame and mostly filled with stuff that doesn't really belong there.

Yeah, I'm usually first in line for an Apple product bashing, but a high price alone doesn't justify a slot on this top 10 list. If it did, it would be Apple's top 10 most overpriced products.

At least the BeBook reader was overpriced and failed epically on features & useability.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[nweaver]

Not quite:

HDMI out standard makes TV integration much easier (not all TVs have an audio in jack along with a DVI/HDMI input), and Mac Minis are great under TVs.

The video is vastly VASTLY improved. And you can now actually take the thing apart without going crazy! The reason why Apple has stuck with the Core 2 is that

a) Its a really good processor
b) They could get a GOOD all-in-one chipset/video solution. No such solution exists for the i5/i7 line.

And thus the improvements are easily worth the extra $100 price bump.

My desktop at work is a 3+ year old Mac Mini. It will probably be replaced shortly by another Mac Mini...

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Sonny Yatsen]

Most of the stuff on the list seems to be the ultra-cheap low budget stuff, and it seems like a bit of a cheap shot to include them. Obviously a 99 pound tablet isn't going to be that great compared to, say, the iPad. What did they expect?

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I wouldn't say that the Mini is " Worst Tech Product of 2010"(particularly as the list seems to flit between being "Worst tech products from companies you've heard of" and "Oh, hey, a bottom-of-the-barrel-no-brand-android-tablet, wow does it suck!").

Spec-wise, the Mini is a complete screwjob, as Minis have been for ages now; but it occupies a niche practically of its own: all the rough PC equivalents are either atom based and a quarter of the cost or something-vaguely-modern-from-intel based and twice the size.

Unless cute 'n tiny is a feature, you shouldn't touch the thing; but that has always been the deal with minis, except for the earliest ones, which were genuinely substantially cheaper than just getting a low end macbook.

If you want to keep the list to "10 worst from companies who should know better", then you might have cause to put the mini in. Once you drag in "random dregs of the chinese android cloneshops", though, I could dig up dozens of worse products in 15 minutes on ebay.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Patch86]

TFA agrees with you, and points out that they're being a little unfair. But what they really wanted to do was bitch and moan about £650 for something specced the same as an Acer Aspire Revo; and worse, ripping you off on "optional upgrades" by charging "triple the price difference".

All of which, if true, is pretty shitty. They could probably have found better "worst products of 2010" if they'd wanted to, but their criticisms of the Mac Mini seem valid enough.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[commodore64_love]

I would. "Delve inside, though, and the Mac Mini disappoints. A Core 2 processor released in 2008, stingy 320GB hard disk and 2GB of RAM. What killed it for us, though, was the price. The base model was expensive at £650, but if you want to upgrade to a larger hard disk or faster processor Apple was charging double or sometimes triple the "real" price difference. Great design, but what a rip-off."

I bought the same thing, albeit a Win7 PC, for $200. What's that in pounds? 130? No wonder PCpro call the Mini overpriced...... uh oh here comes the apple brigade. (-1 mod)

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Nadaka]

When the mac mini was less than $600, it would have been something I could see myself buying just to get some experience on a mac. Now? No, it is way over priced.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Stormwatch]

If only it were priced more sensibly. Even taking in account the "Apple tax", $699 is way too much for those specs.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[smash]

Spec wise the mini isn't impressive. But lack of noise, lack of heat, and OS X makes it a pretty nifty little box. I've got a 2007 spec mini and it has been the machine to convert me.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[jedidiah]

You need to stop mindlessly regurgitating other people's propaganda.

The Mac Mini as an HTPC is old news. Been there. Did that. Moved on already.

The older minis were fine for TV integration. If you push this idea that the new Mini is "much easier" then you have to equally trash Apple in general for constantly changing it's video ports and using the most obscure things they can find. THAT makes things "hard".

I have 3 Mini and each one needs a separate video dongle.

The rest is incremental upgrades including the ION vs ION2. Certainly not worth being on anyone's "10 best list".

"best" lists should be for the really remarkable stuff and the Mini just isn't it anymore.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[jandrese]

The mini has always been a victim to the "Road Apple" disease, where Apple is terrified of undercutting one of the other business units, so they intentionally cripple a piece of hardware somehow or just plain overprice it (sometimes both!). While it's true that the hardware in the currenty Mini is rather nice, the proper price point for it ($500, or $600 at the most) would undercut their hilariously overpriced 2.4 Ghz C2D with 2GB of memory for $1000 in 2011 white iBook too much.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[jedidiah]

Apple products being overpriced is hardly news or noteworthy.

If they are going to whine about this sort of thing then they should target the Mac Pro. It's a much more expensive proposition for basic expandability features that you can get in a $300 PC. It's the perfect example of "in for a penny,in for a pound".

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[jo_ham]

Obscure things?

They used a standard 15 pin video port on the early ones, accessed via the standard DVI port (adapter included), then switched to a mini-DVI and mini-Displayport side by side, then the current version swapped to HDMI and mini-Displayport side by side.

Hardly "obscure" by video connection standards.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[jo_ham]

Was your Win 7 PC the size of a couple of CDs stacked on top of each other?

Didn't think so.

It's not expensive because of the components it has inside it - they are pretty standard laptop hardware; it's expensive because they have been shoehorned into a very tiny space, even by laptop standards.

It's expensive for sure (perhaps even too expensive - the newest model was quite a jump compared to the earlier ones), but you must be able to see that price comparisons with a whitebox Win 7 PC are just nonsensical, and bordering on wilfully ignorant trolling.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[jo_ham]

It's not specced the same as a Revo though, is it?

While it does the same job in the same footprint it is a more powerful machine. Whether it is worth the extra money for the extra power and the ability to natively boot into OS X is another matter entirely. The two machines can't really stand toe to toe though.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Anonymous Coward]

The price for the specs is terrible. The price for slightly better specs is offensive. Want to upgrade from 2GB to 4GB of RAM? $100. Upgrade the 320GB HD to a $500? $100. Want a freaking keyboard and mouse? $100. Unless you want wireless, then it's a $150.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[mark72005]

It wasn't just that it was underpowered, it's that it was so underpowered that it was unfit for its intended use. Loading a news website in 55 seconds while on wifi is not reasonable.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[rvw]

TFA agrees with you, and points out that they're being a little unfair. But what they really wanted to do was bitch and moan about £650 for something specced the same as an Acer Aspire Revo; and worse, ripping you off on "optional upgrades" by charging "triple the price difference".

All of which, if true, is pretty shitty. They could probably have found better "worst products of 2010" if they'd wanted to, but their criticisms of the Mac Mini seem valid enough.

When I bought my macbook, the default harddisk was only 160GB. Upgrading to 250GB would cost €100, while a separate new 320GB disk was €105 back then (in a different shop of course). In effect they say: you buy a new harddisk, we keep the old one (oh no it's not "old", it's brand new!), and we charge you for replacing it. It's a complete rip off.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

I am the biggest mac fanboy you will ever find.

But their reasoning was solid. The Mini is too damn expensive for it's specs. Either give us a Core i3/i5, or price back at 499.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[jedidiah]

Yes. They are obscure.

That's why you need all those stupid video dongles and why you fanboys crow about how the new Mini finally has something more standard.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[jedidiah]

Just put a disc in the drive or try to push that CPU.

You will break the silence.

Minis are silent only so long as you treat them with kid gloves.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[jedidiah]

I suspect the only people that would notice the performance differences in a side by side Revo versus Mini comparison would be the "geeks".

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I suppose that the mini can count itself lucky that it isn't a single-socket mini-tower with internal expansion; but at the price point you hit by not using Xeons. Those have such a bad case of "Road Apple" that they don't even survive infancy...

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[jedidiah]

The size aspect of the Mini is a wasted superficial detail for most people. The marginal value for being a little bit smaller is rather dubious.

This is true even if you are comparing a Mini to a much more powerful tower PC of the same price. Nevermind the fact that PCs come in all shapes and sizes and you aren't just restricted to monster towers. There are much smaller machines that use standard desktop components and don't have to make any compromises. Even in the AV space, there's plenty of room to work with and a lot of lost potential if you only fixate on size.

The Mini could have stood to be larger. Nevermind smaller.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[jasonditz]

If we're just talking about things being overpriced they could have given the spot to those bladeless fans from Dyson. £650 is too expensive, but the US price ($650-$700) is actually a pretty good deal, and the new aluminum unibody system is easier to self-upgrade than the old "stick a pizza slicer in the back until it pops" ones were.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[david_thornley]

Video dongles? You mean the adapters that never screw in securely, so my screen turns red when the cat steps on it?

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[JonJ]

"All those"? Since the first ones used DVI, there's no dongle. The later ones used Mini-DVI and Mini-Displayport, if you were smart and got a Mini-Displayport adapter, you can still use that same adapter on the new one. 'All those dongles' indeed. Maybe two. You can attack Apple on a lot of different things, but here you're just trying too hard to create a problem that's not even there.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[jo_ham]

There are four different ports over the lifetime of the device, one of which is shared across two generations.

Those are:

* DVI (not obscure by any stretch of the chalk)
* mini-DVI (slightly obscure, but cheap to convert to full size DVI with an adapter)
*mini-displayport (not obscure really - all current Macs ship with this port, as well as some laptops). This port is shared across the most recent generations of Minis, so if you bought the dongle once, you don;t need to replace it if you replace the mini (or move to any other modern Mac).
* HDMI (oh yes, so obscure my mind is melting).

You are just trying to invent problems and controversy where none exists, purely to bait "fanboys" (shouldn't that be 'fanbois').

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Low Ranked Craig]

I bought one to replace my wife's, guess what? shitty Dell laptop that kept bluescreening even after repeated clean installs of windows. I plugged the mini in back in September installed some software and turned it on. In 3 months I've rebooted it one time, and that's because I had to because of a weird microsoft office install problem. Expensive? yes. Reliable as hell and trouble free. yes. Worth the extra couple hundred bucks. Also, it runs very cool even with the internal power supply. We're going to replace it with an iMac at come point and I'm going to swap out the HD with a SSD and plug it into the TV. In my personal experience the only hardware as or more reliable than the Macs I've had are the IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad and comparable desktop machines. Reliable is not a word I'd use to describe Dells overall. I have had numerous dells over the years, and I currently have 4 in my possession. The 2 laptops are highly unreliable, but the 2 older desktops seem to be solid. I just purchased a poweredge server that I had to RMA because it had some weird problem where the network card would disconnect from the network randomly. It did this under both Windows 2008 R2 and RedHat...

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Delusion_]

I've played with the Apple store Mac configuration tool any number of times, and the upgrade prices are preposterous. They are utterly divorced from reality, and it makes them look very bad - if you're charging five times the cost differential between hard drive A and hard drive B, you get the sneaking suspicion—probably accurate—that their initial prices for peripherals are similarly rapacious.

Take the $700 Mac mini. Set aside that it is overpriced, for the moment, since some people will pay more for the fact that it is designed well, and that they want to use MacOS.

Processor
Included: 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Upgrade: 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo [Add $150.00]

Newegg: Difficult to give a precise comparison, but consider that the price difference between the 2.4GHz (P8600) and 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo (P9600) is $120. This is retail pricing, and not what an OEM like Apple would be paying.

-----

RAM:
Included: 2GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x1GB
Upgrade: 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB [Add $100.00]
Upgrade: 8GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x4GB [Add $500.00]

Newegg:
2x 1GB DDR3 1066MHz SDRAM: Starting at $27.98
2x 2GB DDR3 1066MHz SDRAM: Starting at $49.98 [Add $22]
2x 4GB DDR3 1066MHz SDRAM: Starting at $139.98 [Add $112]

-----

Hard drive:
Included: 320GB Serial ATA Drive
Upgrade: 500GB Serial ATA Drive [Add $100.00]

Newegg:
HITACHI Travelstar 7K500 HTE725032A9A364 320GB 7200 RPM 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive $59.99 (this is the exact drive in the default setup, which I feel is the fairest way to go as I don't want to compare it to a drive whose vertical clearance might be slightly different)
HITACHI Travelstar 5K500.B HTS545050B9A300 (0A57915) 500GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive $59.99 [Add $0.00]

I'm told this faster drive also works:
Seagate Momentus 7200.4 ST9500420AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive $64.99 [Add $5.00]

As well as this larger, faster drive:
Seagate Momentus ST9750420AS 750GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive $109.99 [Add $50]

-----

I don't mean to be "that guy", because I appreciate why some people prefer Apple, and they make some hardware that, if prices were less insane, I would be interested in, but their prices on upgrades is punitive to say the least.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[jo_ham]

Oh I agree entirely - the recent decision to put the PSU inside the case was something of a strange one. The lack of an external brick is nice, but given that it lives behind the TV or under the desk for its entire life it wasn't really a pressing concern and it then gives you more room inside the Mini itself for better hardware or a cheaper manufacturing.

The point I was addressing there, though is that a $200 Win 7 PC can't really be anything but a big, compromised tower/mini-tower - just made from the cheapest possible parts. The OEM price for the mobile 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo in the Mini is £52 on its own (take off about 18% for VAT for US price) which doesn't leave a lot left over from your $200 budget for other components).

The desktop-version Core 2 Duo at 2.0Ghz is £32, so less, but not by much (and slower).

I have looked at the Revo as a potential HTPC and I am happy with the size - if the Mini was that size, it would be cheaper to build, no doubt.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[commodore64_love]

>>>Was your Win 7 PC the size of a couple of CDs stacked on top of each other?

No.
Do I care if it is the size of a couple records stacked on top of each other?
Didn't think so.
My priority was and is saving money, so I don't need to work so damn much overtime.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Junta]

I will say that the Mac Pro is a workstation (dual Xeon sockets don't come cheap from anyone) and not a 'consumer desktop' and all dual socket workstations are way expensive regardless of vendor (only a niche market really 'needs' them). Frankly I wonder if those and the 'server' branding of those machines will go the way of the Xserve sooner rather than later.

They simply have nothing in the expandable desktop market. They simply are not interested in serviceable products. I wouldn't be surprised if in the next year they drop support for anything not installed via an app store even in their desktops. They are that sort of company, and most people who would be interested in that flexibility justifiably avoid anything with Apple's name on it like the plague.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[eeyoredragon]

It is true. I just bought myself one of these simply because I like OS X. I'm using it as an extra machine. (I just have my laptop atm as a general computer.) It's also plugged into my entertainment center, so I'm using Plex and am liking it so far. Other than the entertainment center functionality, I'll use it for business to run some small databases on to test my code changes locally. Things like that.

Anyway, all that to say, I wanted the most RAM I could get in it just as a general rule. Apple charges $500 to put 8GB of RAM in the mini. You can do the same for $100 from newegg. People can bicker on whether OS X is worth the extra hardware cost, but they're reaming people on upgrade costs. You can't really argue about that sadly. Considering how incredibly easy it is to swap out RAM, it makes it even more bizarre. Every Mac I buy leaves me with unused RAM modules. It's annoying

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Kjella]

Well, it pretty much is true. Apple doesn't offer a cheap Mac, never have and probably never will. Particularly their cheapest models - the Mac Mini being the very cheapest - have very crappy hardware value. The reason you buy this is simple, it's the only way to get a genuine Mac that runs OS X and Mac software, unless you're in the very small technical minority who'd be comfortable with a hackintosh. Just to give you an idea, at my favorite price comparison site they now list 262 laptop models. The cheapest Mac - and I mean the cheapest, non-upgraded laptop Apple sells according to the Apple store would rank 155th. The lower half Apple just doesn't want to compete in. Same with the Mac Mini, there are tons of cheap Windows mini-pcs that Apple doesn't compete with at all. If you want to go Mac, the entry price is the Mac Mini. Personally I think it's part of Apple's way of upselling, if you've already decided you want a Mac it's pretty easy to sell you up to a mid range Mac because the low end is really poor bang for the buck and a little more gets you a lot more hardware - of course pushing you up into an even higher price range. As for the optional upgrades, they charge more than IBM did in its day and they were pretty damn pricey.

I'm not running Apple but if I was I'd seriously consider taking a rematch with Microsoft on the mainstream market. Where today the cheapest laptop I can find is 2195,- NOK and Apple's lowest is 8490,- NOK, at least offer a 4-5000 NOK version. Same with the Mini, the cheapest nettop I can find is 2105,- NOK, make say a 4000 NOK version instead of the 5990,- NOK Mac Mini to get people hooked. Make a normal tower with a stylish design for all the people that don't fit the Mini/iMac/Pro niches. Move to take a 15% desktop share instead of 5% making up for the lower margins. Don't go for corporations - they'll always be penny pinchers but go for the home users. Apple has done some great moves to get Apple products into many people's homes, but they've not really leveraged it to increase their Mac sales. The Macs are still staying safely within the niches they escaped to during the 1990s, they've peeked out and regained a little but Apple still doesn't dare bet on them as a volume product, only a high margin niche product. It's a safe strategy - it's much harder to raise prices back up if the numbers don't work out - but it lacks ambition. Then again, they seem to have plenty ambition in other areas...

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Altus]

If you cant find 10 products from the last year that belong on the "worst" list more than the mac mini then you aren't looking very hard.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Dogtanian]

Obviously a 99 pound tablet isn't going to be that great compared to, say, the iPad.

Cue lots of Americans thinking "I'll say... the iPad is nowhere near that heavy!" :-)

BTW, for those outside the UK (and those here who didn't realise the connection), "Next" in this case has nothing to do with NeXT, Steve Jobs' old company. (*) In fact, it's the name of the clothing chain who rebranded (I assume) the product under its own name! (No, I'm not mistaken- the logo on the back is the same, and you can even see it here at Next's website.)

Sounds strange, but as well as their main business of selling clothes- which are usually quite decent and mid-range- they also carry a small range of accessories and gadgets, which are generally quite cheap- and cheap-looking. I can only assume that the "Next tablet" is another addition to their range of electronic tat. Then again, as the parent says, it's only £99, what can you expect- it *is* very cheap- but as the other reply says, it's still unusably slow...

(*) Though I wonder if there are any trademark issues with using the "Next" name on a device like this.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[NatasRevol]

The newegg prices just aren't comparable though.

1. Labor. Have you ever taken apart a Mini? If you don't know what you're doing, you'll never get it back together right. Have you ever paid someone to take apart a Mini & install RAM or HDfor you? See if that's the price difference.
2. Some upgrades aren't reasonable ie CPUs that are soldered on.

Having said that, Apple's prices are high and out of proportion to their size/volume. But then again, it's not the teenager down the street who doesn't touch the powersupply & short your motherboard/damage your optical drive/etc...

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you ride to work on a stolen bike too then?

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[s73v3r]

Since when are DVI and HDMI "obscure"?

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[jo_ham]

So, you commute to work in a horse and carriage. No wait, you need to buy food for the horse, unless you feed it by having it eat the grass on the way.

You ride to work on a bike then?

And size is something that costs money (if you want to reduce it, in electronic terms).

People aren't buying tower-sized machines to use as HTPCs. Your comparison with a machine that isn't being used for that purpose is meaningless.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Anonymous Coward]

But Steve Jobs didn't jerk off all over the NewEgg products, so they can't be as good.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[LordSnooty]

I think it's pretty disgusting actually, as a lot of tech novices (mainly women) will trust the Next brand in terms of the clothes and home furnishing tat that they sell; by putting their name to this monstrosity they are essentially conning people. Sure 99GBP is too cheap to take seriously but novices will not view it that way - they'll think it's cheaper than the market leader and it has the Next brand, so it must be a good deal.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Dogtanian]

Hmm, yeah. I'd forgotten that they also do home furnishings- albeit in separate stores AFAICT- nowadays. Which still doesn't have a lot to do with computer-based technology, so yeah....!

I don't know- it depends how they're selling it. If it's in the clothes shops on the stand beside their wannabe-but-obviously-too-cheap-boys-toys and low-priced after shaves, I suspect that would reduce its chances of being taken seriously.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[commodore64_love]

Your questions don't even make sense. You are comparing a 10mph bike to a 70mph car, whereas I am comparing a computer (mini) to a computer (desktop) with equal specs and capability, except for size. A better comparison for You to make would be a $15,000 Honda Civic versus a $35,000 Acura TL.

I would choose the former because both do the same thing (move my body from home to work), but the latter would force me to work an extra 850 hours (two years of +10 hours overtime) to pay it off. I simply prefer to avoid having to do that.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Delusion_]

Neither of your points are valid. Since Apple is doing the configuration outlays that Apple is offering, whether a third party would have to take it apart and put it together right isn't relevant.

The cost for Apple to upgrade a given component should be equal or less than the cost difference between the base and upgraded product if the consumer were to buy it at retail, as the OEM is getting better prices. Yes, there's a need to build in a profit for upgrades, but a $500 upgrade price for a component upgrade whose street price difference is $112? That's offensive.

Unless of course you're suggesting that Apple is making all the mac minis exactly alike, and then disassembling the ones that customers get upgraded options on.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Delusion_]

That's a service I can provide to you, if it would add value for you. Let's talk.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[initdeep]

The Dell ZinoHD 410 is less expensive, nearly as small, and vastly superior in almost every way.

even at the $499 price point. Let alone offering one for $299.

and it's not atom based or something vaguely modern from intel at nearly twice the size.

it also makes an EXCELLENT HTPC in every way the mini does not.

 

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[jo_ham]

And now, extending your analogy, you are removing aesthetics and appeal from the product - something that also costs money.

A Mini on your desk, or in your HTPC setup looks nicer than some whitebox PC with a cheap tower case and noisy fans, although one is doubtless cheaper than the other.

Taking it even further, why don't you drive a kit car to work? It's cheaper than a Honda Civic. Oh right, the cost of assembling that $200 windows PC wasn't included in the price? How much is your time worth?

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[julesh]

I suspect the only people that would notice the performance differences in a side by side Revo versus Mini comparison would be the "geeks".

Really? I'd have thought the 50% faster CPU, 100% faster GPU, and 100% faster memory would make the difference obvious to anyone who did anything more demanding than play a standard definition video. And that isn't just geeks; I find using any flash-heavy web site is demanding enough to seriously show the age of my PC, and that isn't much lower spec than the Revo, at least for single threaded performance (it's a single core machine, but that core should actually be faster than each of the Revo's).

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do I care if it is the size of a couple records stacked on top of each other?

Didn't think so.

And that's fine if you feel that way. But the problem is you are acting as if yours is the only opinion that matters, and anyone who buys Apple products, regardless of the reason, is stupid.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[frosty_tsm]

Well, it pretty much is true. Apple doesn't offer a cheap Mac, never have and probably never will. Particularly their cheapest models - the Mac Mini being the very cheapest - have very crappy hardware value. The reason you buy this is simple, it's the only way to get a genuine Mac that runs OS X and Mac software, unless you're in the very small technical minority who'd be comfortable with a hackintosh.

I think there is also a group that likes the smaller form factor. Last I checked, even Shuttles weren't as small as the Mac Mini. I have space for a Mini in my entertainment center, but not a Shuttle and definitely not a tower.

I'm not running Apple but if I was I'd seriously consider taking a rematch with Microsoft on the mainstream market.

Why should they? Sure, MS has better market penetration. However, Apple is valued at just under $300 billion where MS is valued at $240 billion. At the end of the day, that's what matters to the investors. It's like telling Porsche "You should build cars that sell for $20k because GM and Ford are selling cars for less." Porsche is successful because they sell low volumes at a premium just as Apple does.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking at most of your posts, it is obvious you are a complete fanboy which makes your opinion worthless.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. I just checked the local apple webstore: 729 € for the cheapest Mini version -- that's close to a thousand US$. That has tax included but it's still so out this world that I won't consider it for my coming media box upgrade.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Anonymous Coward]

there's plenty of other clowns like that around here...

bigtrike, mikeFM, node 3, Wovel, Tharsman, Whisper Jeff, interval1066, Wisebabo & Basil brush are all apple fanboys of the highest order.

they contribute nothing to discussions whatsoever apart from to defend their corporation of choice.

if they could realize for just one second how tedious and sad they appear then i'm sure they would desist immediately. not much chance of that.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not Steve Jobs. He's a god.

(/end sarcasm)

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[commodore64_love]

Once again you're not making any sense. I didn't "assemble" my Windows7 PC. And there's no real difference between a Honda and an Acura except they applied a different badge in the factory. In most cases they even share the same base chassis & body. Only the trimming is different.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Delusion_]

It'll cost you some DNA testing to be sure.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Anonymous Coward]

With its price and specs, surely you mean the 10 best products of 2008?

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but the article is mentioning the Mac Mini from 2010, not the entire Mac Mini line. A lot of people here have been "I bought my Mac Mini years ago and it was fine then" which is fine and all, but this list is only talking about the 2010 products.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you saying Apple doesn't have labor costs?

Or that buying from newegg wouldn't involve any labor to install?

Either way, you're an idiot.

Re:Time to put PC Pro on a list like this...

[Patch86]

1. Labor. Have you ever taken apart a Mini? If you don't know what you're doing, you'll never get it back together right. Have you ever paid someone to take apart a Mini & install RAM or HDfor you? See if that's the price difference.

They're assembling it from scratch one way or the other. It shouldn't cost them a single bean in labour to install a 500 GB hard drive instead of a 250 GB one; they both go in the same way.

The only cost difference to them is in the cost of the hardware from their suppliers.

You can't even play the "Apple quality costs premium" card. You're already paying the quality premium for the expensive basic model; there's no reason why using a different HDD should require a significant extra premium to maintain the high quality.

10 worst slashdot articles of 2010

[anonymousNR]

aah forget it.

Re:10 worst slashdot articles of 2010

[Monkeedude1212]

Too many to choose from?

Re:10 worst slashdot articles of 2010

[anonymousNR]

maybe, but importantly listing them will only trigger 10 worst comments on slashdot.

Re:10 worst slashdot articles of 2010

[jbezorg]

Waiting for the links to slide shows to start appearing.

Re:10 worst slashdot articles of 2010

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be harder to select 10 good articles of 2010

Re:10 worst slashdot articles of 2010

[GrumblyStuff]

It doesn't help when one shows up three or four times.

If only I had mod points...

[Penguinisto]

No, seriously, you couldn't be more right. The Dell E6700 I had to limp along with when I first began working at my present position was a right pain in the ass. It was a driving force (along with the endless RAM troubles we saw in our PE 2950 servers) that had us going to HP here where I work, both at the user and server level (we're using HP DL 360's for servers now).

I'm typing this missive on an HP EliteBook 8440p (which runs Ubuntu 10.10 very nicely, I must say :) ).

Re:If only I had mod points...

[smash]

We've switched to 8540p and 2540p elitebooks. I had an 8540p (nice machine) but wanted something more portable (as a network admin i'm often carrying it around to plug into switches/routers/etc and don't do a any heavy graphics stuff on it). Battery life on the 2540p is great, too.

Oh, and the only dead machine we've had in 6 months and 20 machines so far has been a hard drive failure. Could have happened to anything...

Much happier :)

Re:If only I had mod points...

[Anonymous Coward]

We've been happy with our 8440 and 8540 elitebooks. I don't think we've had any problems with them.

Re:If only I had mod points...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully the 8x40 line has better batteries than the 8x30 line. We ordered 15 of them over the course of 9 months, and have so far had to replace 6 batteries. They run along fine, and then all of a sudden they just turn off in the middle of use. After you get them plugged into power and turned on again, there is a bios warning (handy actually, thanks HP), and Windows constantly complains about a failed battery. Completely out of the blue, just random spontaneous failures.

I nominate the Platystation Move

[Anonymous Coward]

Good job ripping off Nintendo. Who the hell came up the glowing ping-pong ball idea?

I would nominate Kinect, but at least there are other uses for it.

Re:I nominate the Platystation Move

[Stevecrox]

I agree the Move is a rip off of the Wii controller, but it is a big improvement on it.

I picked up a move controller to play party games. After completing Resident Evil 5 (control schemes for that game suck horribly btw) a friend invited me to come over and play Goldeneye. I find the controls were sluggish, inaccurate and because of how they worked it made 4 player goldeneye very difficult (people sitting at angles had major problems).

I thought the Wii controllers were fine but the Move has really raised the bar. I want to hate the connect but the few goes I've had on it had been pretty awesome.

Re:I nominate the Platystation Move

[Altus]

Ive been very disappointed with Goldeneye, but I'm not sure its the Wii's fault. The Link crossbow training game controls worked pretty well, I cant figure out why aiming in Goldeneye is so much more difficult.

Re:I nominate the Platystation Move

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe development time and the fact that Zelda was made to help sell/push the Wii where as Goldeneye is just to cash in on the Wii.

Re:I nominate the Platystation Move

[IrquiM]

PS Move works! Regarding Kinect - good job ripping of Eyetoy! ;-) Sony discovered many, many years ago that you need a controller with buttons to play serious games.

Give them some credit though

[alvinrod]

It's a lame list designed to be click-bait, so if they put something disagreeable on it it'll get linked to be people crying foul, but at least it's not spread across ten different pages.

The list was lamer than the products

[Dr_Ken]

A lame article really. The products may not be your cup of tea but they ain't all half bad either. Except for the "iPad made simple" one. That choice was more funny than lame.

Re:The list was lamer than the products

[Belial6]

The funny part is how everyone just accepts the Apple PR. I'm not saying that an iPad is rocket science, but there are configuration setting in the thing that many people just wouldn't know what they mean. In fact, there are just as many setting to configure to use an iPad as there are to use a new Windows PC. And speaking of a PC, you have to have one and use it to get full use of the iPad. So, if a Windows/OSX mand simple book makes any sense at all, so does an iPad made simple book.

Re:The list was lamer than the products

[Gadget_Guy]

People overestimate how easy the iPad is to use. My first introduction to the iAnything was watching other people struggling to use their new devices. Without watching the screen, I could tell it was not the intuitive interface that everybody claimed.

When I finally got an iPhone I discovered the problem for myself. The interface is littered with hidden features that have no visual indication that they exist, let alone how to use them. Then there is the problem of the inconsistent user interface.

The great example that I always use is to ask how you delete things in iOS. It seems that every app has its own way to do it. Some of them rely on the user just having to know that they have to strike through an item or click and holding on an icon until a little red X appears. The only way to find out how to do it is to try out all the possibilities. I still can't say for sure that you can't delete a song from the iPod app, because maybe there is some method that I haven't tried. Either way it is a rubbish interface.

So I think that there is definitely a use for an iPad how-to book.

Re:The list was lamer than the products

[onefriedrice]

In fact, there are just as many setting to configure to use an iPad as there are to use a new Windows PC.

I don't have an iPad, but I find this statement in particular to be quite absurd. Having recently set up a new Windows 7 Lenovo laptop for my father, I can only assume you've forgotten how many things there are that need to be configured to get a Windows PC ready for daily use, the least of which include: Uninstall all the bloatware. Install anti-virus software. Set up a non-admin user account with password. Find and install all the required software, clicking through all the multi-page installers and UAC warnings (continues to be a big PITA since Windows still doesn't have a package manager). Switch the default browser to something secure, and configure said browser. Change the desktop background to something that isn't hideous. Set the screensaver to not activate after every 60 seconds of idle. Yes, I could go on.

Now, I've never set up an iPad (or used one for more than 3 consecutive minutes), but I'm fairly confident that it would take several hours less time than it took me to set up my old man's new computer. If you thought about it a little more, I'm sure you'd agree. So don't be silly.

Re:The list was lamer than the products

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet you're probably ok setting up a network printer in WinXP by going through the printer wizard and clicking Local, then clicking new port, then clicking TCP/IP, then knowing the IP address of the printer, typing that in, then knowing the model & mfgr of the printer, selecting the model from a LONG list of printers. Because that's an intuitive interface.

But the iPad, that's hard.

Re:The list was lamer than the products

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL a rubbish interface that revolutionized an industry and that literally everyone in the mobile space immediately began copying. I'm sure you could do better with both of your eyes plucked out, though.

Re:The list was lamer than the products

[Belial6]

Well, if your going to hold the PC to "I configured it to my specific taste.", and you hold the iPad to "I just use it however it comes." standards, there is a difference. If you hold them to the same standards, there isn't a significant difference. I set up a PC just two days ago. It consisted of:

1) Turning it on.
2) Enter Username/Password
3) Use computer.

Whereas, you left the entire part of setting up a PC to actually be able to set up an iPad.

Again, setting up a PC is a subset of the steps needed to set up an iPad. You are being silly in claiming that setting up a PC is harder than setting up a PC AND the added steps to get an iPad working on top of that.

Re:The list was lamer than the products

[RocketRabbit]

This is a little bit off.

For most people, all they do is turn the damn iPad on, tyoe in their wifi password, and they are off and away. If they are a relative power user, they will wish to use its built in email and calendaring apps. Setting up your account is pretty easy for the main free mail providers - you just type in your login and password, and it knows which servers to use. Was that imap.gmail.com or what? Who cares! It handles the details for you. Caldav calendars are similarly easy, as is Exchange integration.

Compare setting all that up on a Windows machine. It is a bit more of a pain in the ass if you know what you're doing, and if you are a newbie it is either really hard or impossible.

My 80 year old aunt hates computers but loves her iPad.

Re:The list was lamer than the products

[MichaelSmith]

I think the Android UI is better because it has a physical Menu button. Usually functions like delete are in there.

Re:The list was lamer than the products

[TClevenger]

For most people, all they do is turn the damn iPad on, tyoe in their wifi password, and they are off and away.

Don't forget buying, installing and configuring a computer, then installing iTunes so you can actually plug in, activate and use the iPad.

Re:The list was lamer than the products

[Gadget_Guy]

But nobody was calling Windows XP ridiculously easy like they were with iOS. There is still a need for 3rd party books on that platform, especially because they keep changing the user interface of the printer setup with each version of Windows.

All I ask is that you take off the rose coloured glasses when looking at Apple's user interface.

Re:The list was lamer than the products

[Gadget_Guy]

LOL a rubbish interface that revolutionized an industry and that literally everyone in the mobile space immediately began copying.

I do wonder what you think that everyone else copied from Apple. From what I have seen of Windows Phone 7, the only thing that it shares is the red notification numbers on icons. That and the locked down nature of the phone.

I'm sure you could do better with both of your eyes plucked out, though

Well I would think of the standard things that most apps need to do and write that into my user interface guidelines. It is not rocket science. Just pick any one of the methids used by iOS and stick with it. But I don't think that I will try it with my eyes plucked out.

Re:The list was lamer than the products

[RocketRabbit]

It is not necessary to own a computer, and hasn't been for a long time. This flaw was brought to Apple's attention and remedied.

Re:The list was lamer than the products

[BasilBrush]

You say:

I'm not saying that an iPad is rocket science, but there are configuration setting in the thing that many people just wouldn't know what they mean. In fact, there are just as many setting to configure to use an iPad as there are to use a new Windows PC.

Then you say:

I set up a PC just two days ago. It consisted of:
1) Turning it on.
2) Enter Username/Password
3) Use computer.

Make up your mind.

And WTF are you talking about that a new iPad involves setting up a PC as well? In nearly all cases people already have their PC set up when they buy an iPad.

It's clear you're getting a little bit desperate to try and make a case for something you know not to be true.

Re:The list was lamer than the products

[BasilBrush]

And what proportion of iPad purchasers would you estimate don't already have a PC or Mac?

Re:The list was lamer than the products

[TClevenger]

It is not necessary to own a computer, and hasn't been for a long time. This flaw was brought to Apple's attention and remedied.

Somebody needs to tell their iPad team that, then. The current iPad manual (updated 10/29/2010 for IOS 4.2) still says, "Before you can use iPad, you must use iTunes to set it up."

Re:The list was lamer than the products

[TClevenger]

And what proportion of iPad purchasers would you estimate don't already have a PC or Mac?

The point of the OP is that the iPad is easier to set up and start using than a computer. If it requires a computer and iTunes, then how is it easier to set up and use again? And BTW, a lot of people (older people, especially) would be happy to have one as a bookreader or casual gaming machine, and don't own a computer.

Re:The list was lamer than the products

[BasilBrush]

The point of the OP is that the iPad is easier to set up and start using than a computer. If it requires a computer and iTunes, then how is it easier to set up and use again?

So by your logic, setting up a USB printer is more complicated than setting up a computer. Even though plug and play typically means you don't have to do anything more than plugging the printer in.

Clearly your argument is nonsense. But then you knew that already.

And BTW, a lot of people (older people, especially) would be happy to have one as a bookreader or casual gaming machine, and don't own a computer.

And yet you didn't respond to the request to estimate how many iPad purchasers don't already have a computer. OK I'll offer you multi-choice.

A) 0.01%
B) 0.001%
C) 0.0001%

Re:The list was lamer than the products

[TClevenger]

So by your logic, setting up a USB printer is more complicated than setting up a computer. Even though plug and play typically means you don't have to do anything more than plugging the printer in. Clearly your argument is nonsense. But then you knew that already.

I'll try to use small words so you'll understand. The original poster I replied to claimed that an iPad is a better computer because it is easier to set up and use than a desktop. He then gave a faulty set of setup instructions: "turn the damn iPad on, tyoe [sic] in their wifi password, and they are off and away." That is completely and patently false. You have to plug it into a working computer, install iTunes, and activate it through iTunes. If you don't ALSO buy a computer, it's a shiny paperweight. And yes, if somebody is telling people that they should buy a USB printer instead of a computer because the printer is easier to use, then that person is going to be very disappointed when they get home and realize that it wasn't an either/or question.

And yet you didn't respond to the request to estimate how many iPad purchasers don't already have a computer. OK I'll offer you multi-choice.

The number is tiny. And you know why? Because you have to have a computer to make an iPad start working. In what universe is something "easier to use than a computer" if you have to know how to use a computer before you can make it work?

Re:The list was lamer than the products

[BasilBrush]

I'll try to use small words so you'll understand. The original poster I replied to claimed that an iPad is a better computer because it is easier to set up and use than a desktop.

And he's right.

He then gave a faulty set of setup instructions: "turn the damn iPad on, tyoe [sic] in their wifi password, and they are off and away." That is completely and patently false. You have to plug it into a working computer, install iTunes, and activate it through iTunes.

Well you have to plug it into a computer with iTunes. Which is any Mac, any PC belonging to someone who already has an iPhone or iPod, and any PC which had iTunes factory installed, and any PC for which the user has already installed iTunes. Again, in most cases one of these will be true of an iPad purchaser.

If you don't ALSO buy a computer, it's a shiny paperweight. And yes, if somebody is telling people that they should buy a USB printer instead of a computer because the printer is easier to use, then that person is going to be very disappointed when they get home and realize that it wasn't an either/or question.

Except no one here but you is proposing iPad as a computer replacement. And neither is Apple. You are confusing two different concepts.
1) The one everyone else is discussing - whether the iPad is easier to set up than a PC. Answer: Yes it is.
2) Whether the iPad is a computer replacement. Answer: No it isn't.

It's POSSIBLE to use an iPad without a PC - by getting it activated in store, or by getting someone else with a PC to activate it for you. But no one is recommending that. You could use it for web and email and apps, but you'd have no sensible way to get media on there and no way of backing it up.

Re:The list was lamer than the products

[Belial6]

The fact that there are setting in both a PC and an iPad that many people CAN configure, but do not HAVE to configure is not a difficult concept. The previous poster described setting up an iPad by using the bare minimum settings with no customization to get up and running. He then described the PC setup to include a bunch of customization. Pointing out that the iPad ALSO has the ability to do customization, and that the PC does not require it is not contradictory, and thus should not be a "WTF" moment for anyone that honestly looks at the situation.

There is no desperation. There is just a fair comparison.

Claiming that most people already have their PC set up when they buy an iPad is simply wrong. It can only be rationalized via abuse of the language.

Yes, most people that have there PC set up for use that is NOT iPad related. Most people DO NOT have there PC set up for use with an iPad, which is more in depth than the original minimum setup of the PC.

Just from reading the summary

[SleazyRidr]

So we have 3 tablets listed in the summary. I haven't looked at the full article, but are we to conclude that tablets just suck?

Re:Just from reading the summary

[macshit]

So we have 3 tablets listed in the summary. I haven't looked at the full article, but are we to conclude that tablets just suck?

I suppose they probably have approximately the same suckage rate as non-tablets, but the extreme amount of hype they received makes them tempting targets to bring down a notch or two.

(I was in a cafe today, and there was a guy next to me with both a laptop and an ipad -- and he spent 80% of his time typing (quite awkwardly) on the ipad. It was very hard not to smack him...)

Every few years we remember how much tablets suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, they do suck.

Every few years since laptops were introduced in the 1980s we've seen the tablet hype build up, some models are released, anyone who buys them finds out that they're somewhere between useless and shitty, and then the hype dies down for a few years until it's resurrected again by a new batch of fools.

BlackBerry Torch?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I'm surprised the BlackBerry Torch didn't make it onto a list like this. It should have been their latest and greatest, but their first large touchscreen device offered a resolution at least a generation behind the competition from Apple, HTC, and friends and poor touch responsiveness as well.

Also, when I asked the Orange store about it and they told me the price, my immediate reaction was that I would be getting it with a 24-month plan, not just off the shelf. They told me the price they were quoting was with the 24-month lock-in. I actually laughed out loud.

Top 10 lists are obnoxious

[BenFenner]

A couple more of these articles today and I could put together a list of the Top 10 Worst Slashdot Articles of 2010.

Re:Top 10 lists are obnoxious

[ocdscouter]

Defeat obnoxiousness with Greater obnoxiousness?

Not the Best List

[Pherlin]

The Duo is a Niche product, and while sure not to be anyone's cup of tea there are a number of people who enjoy the netbook-tablet concept.

Unfortunately, what the netbook-tablet isn't good at yet is what most people expect out of it. People want something that is "An iPad but a computer." Well an iPad is an iPad for a reason, at least for now. We've had lots of touchscreen computers for years and they're all niche devices.

What makes the Duo (And it's lenovo & Gigabyte sisters, and arguably the ASUS half-sisters [I say half due to the resistive touchscreens]) so appealing to a small set of people is the fact it IS a notebook, but if you want to do light browsing or curl up somewhere for a reading/youtube session you have a slightly improved level of portability.

Anyone that expects Dell or Lenovo to in 6 months make an inside-Windows interface even CLOSE to the iPad in terms of usability may be an idiot. It would be GREAT, don't get me wrong, but these mini-tablets are all going to be 'mee-too' devices with a half-assed interface for a while. They -do- still have some dang good uses however.

(Note I left out the HP Slate, which takes everything bad about the iPad and mixes it with everything bad about the Netbook-tablet class. Where the hell is -that- on this list?)

Re:Not the Best List

[ColdWetDog]

Yeah. But. When, according to the TFA, one of the included applications complains that the current resolution is unsupported, you have problems.

Yes, the iPad got a lot of love from Apple. It's all shiny. But come on - it looks like Dell doesn't even test things once before they drop kick it out the door. Kinda like those no-name Chinese Android junk makers....

Re:Not the Best List

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I think that Dell's problem is that they have fuck all software expertise(I dare anyone to spend a few days with "Dell Controlpoint" and disagree with me here...)

With the exception of some notable fuckups(the E6XXXs as mentioned by various people above), they are pretty good at coming up with hardware that doesn't totally suck at very aggressive price points. However, the moment you want to produce something that isn't a bog-standard PC, laptop, or exactly-what-MS-had-in-mind-for-the-tablet-PC, you need some custom software.

And there is the point at which Dell promptly falls flat. They licenced some shovelware to make their PC more tablety; but didn't manage to either pay the vendor, or do it themselves, to noop out the resolution warnings for the device that it was going to be running on.

As long as you are prepared to run only third party software, suitable to any old PC a dell is a perfectly adequate way of doing it. Dell itself, though, can't be trusted to get the simplest software stuff right...

Re:Not the Best List

[ColdWetDog]

As long as you are prepared to run only third party software, suitable to any old PC a dell is a perfectly adequate way of doing it. Dell itself, though, can't be trusted to get the simplest software stuff right...

This is certainly true - look how many posters just strip the Dell 'inspired' software image off and put bog standard Windows on. Further, this seems to be the same modius operandi that Acer, HP, Toshiba etc. use.

What I've never understood is that these are all enormous companies with lots of money. I cannot believe they can't come of with a "Ministry of Special Software" (not the short-bus kind of special) that hires a dozen good programmers, a manager and a secretary and puts the local pizzeria on speed dial and have a go at it. Is it really that hard?

Re:Not the Best List

[ChunderDownunder]

i suspect we'll see a general shift towards capacitive touchscreen netbooks within a year. The phone and iPad markets will lower the cost of production to the point where it makes sense.
Expecting Windows to provide the touchscreen experience is unnecessary. There's now Android. If Intel were smart, they'd release an Atom that had the necessary virtualisation extensions. OEMs could configure Android (or Meego, as favoured by Intel) and Windows to run in a Xen hypervisor.
Thus providing the Android experience in ipad-killer mode but switching seamlessly to Win7 in netbook mode. Having one device that's both a tablet and allows one to do 'real' work i.e. Office is a selling point above ARM devices.

Re:Not the Best List

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I'm perfectly willing to grant that designing truly good software is hard; but I share your bafflement over why basically all PC OEMs that aren't Apple seem utterly incapable of developing(or buying) even adequate software.

Even with stuff like drivers, where the hardware firm does 99% of the work, and the OEM just has to package(and possibly add their PCI IDs) there is an entirely cottage industry of enthusiasts hacking the vendor's default driver packages to make them work with OEM laptops, because the provided drivers are buggy or deeply obsolete. With things like TPMs and fingerprint readers, they usually seem to purchase 3rd party software; but are too cheap to get that software debranded and given something resembling a coherent interface. You can easily end up looking at 3 or 4 third party companies disparate and heavily branded interfaces just to get the thing initialized.

I really find it puzzling. Even with money, the support of their hardware component vendors, and a desire not to be reduced to competing purely on price with otherwise identical purveyors of wintel boxes, none of them seem to have managed to grow a pet software production team that is even value-neutral, much less 'value-added' relative to a base windows install and stock hardware drivers.

Heck, even good old team linux, which lacks the luxury of picking the components, writing the ACPI implementation, or having much of a budget, generally manages a much more pleasant out-of-box experience than does the vendor, with MS writing the OS, their hardware vendors writing the drivers, and the luxury of picking and choosing components and BIOS features. I just don't understand.

Isn't this a free market?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a private company. This is capitalism. Let's keep that straight (no pun intended).

It is not censorship. What would truly be censorship would be the govt or any other entity forcing amazon to carry thing the don't want to. In fact, they should be able to stop carrying things with any basis (religious, political, etc), or even a whim (they don't like the author's shirt).

What happens then? Competition. This isn't that hard folks...

Re:Isn't this a free market?

[oodaloop]

Let's keep that straight (no pun intended).

I don't get it.

Re:Isn't this a free market?

[Aluvus]

The GP probably meant to comment on the story about Amazon "censoring" certain gay fiction.

Re:Isn't this a free market?

[ThatMegathronDude]

You're ranting in the wrong article.

Re:Isn't this a free market?

[Anonymous Coward]

He meant to reply to the amazon article and the pun was referring to sexual orientation.

Takes one to know one. Pun intended.

Re:Isn't this a free market?

[ocdscouter]

Reminds me of the innumerable bash.org quotes that all end with "whoops, wrong window!"

I nominate...

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Every goddamned laptop vendor who ships godawful synaptics touchpads.

Yes, synaptics makes good touchpads, they also make shitty ones. Like the one on my T410, which supposedly has multitouch but never wants to recognize multitouch gestures.

Re:I nominate...

[laptop006]

My T410 switched to the multitouch gestures for one X revision a few months back, then X changed back and I haven't been able to it since.

The only real bit of the T410 touchpad I had is the stupid little bumps on it.

Re:I nominate...

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

how well did it work? I'm thinking now it's less of a hardware issue and more of a driver issue, or maybe Windows 7 doesn't like multitouch as well as OSX does.

Just from reading your title

[Anonymous Coward]

You mentioned the summary. I haven't read your post, but are we to conclude that you didn't read the article?

Re:Just from reading your title

[SleazyRidr]

Yes, reading the article would take away valuable time that could be devoted to trying to sound smart on the internet.

Re:Just from reading your title

[ocdscouter]

But of course! Articles are not posted on Slashdot to be read, but rather to give people keywords (Via the header) with which to insult other people.

Windows XP drivers basically broken

[swb]

I have an E6500 and several customers have E65xx models.

I've had mine for 18 months and it's been flawless with Windows 7 x64 as have the others running Windows 7 x86.

Two people are running XP on them and have had all manor of problems and what I've tracked down is that Dell's "official" Windows 7 wifi and network drivers are broken -- the devices don't work well with these drivers, cause odd problems unrelated to the drivers (ie, domain logins away from the domain basically hang forever).

I replaced the drivers with Intel-supplied drivers from Intel's web site and they work perfectly. My guess is Dell just didn't care about XP support.

Re:Windows XP drivers basically broken

[weicco]

My E6500 is awful. The thing is, I use solely laptops and always the touchpad. I don't like external keyboard or mouse a bit. Now E6500 has this "little" problem that its touchpad freezes every now and then. But sometimes it gets overly sensitive and seems to have a life of its own. IIRC I read from Dell forums that this is a common problem, something to do with the touchpad itself and not a driver problem since some people have experienced this even on Linux while I use Windows 7. The laptop works quite fine when I'm doing something which doesn't need my involvement, like building a project, but that is a very rare situation.

So I'm rather dissapointed since every other product form Dell has worked 100% for me. For example I loved Inspiron 9400. I'd gladly change E6500 to any other Dell laptop but it's not actully my laptop but my employer's so I have to stick with it at least two and half year.

Re:Windows XP drivers basically broken

[swb]

My touchpad blows, too. It's supposed to be semi-multitouch and have some kind of click and sensitivity options, but it just seems to be inconsistent. I use a bluetooth mouse anytime I use my laptop more than about 5 minutes, so the inconsistent touchpad is less of an annoyance.

I dislike the "nipple" in the center of the keyboard, too, but fortunately that can be disabled completely.

Re:Windows XP drivers basically broken

[smash]

Our SOE is win7 x64. The hardware problems on the E series aren't helped :)

Are you kidding me ..... where is the MS KIN ??

[Anonymous Coward]

That list is just a list of products the author didn't like. Some are definitely stinkers but others are thriving in real life.

The the author completely ignores the worst product of this century (so far) .... the MS KIN. The second biggest epic failure in MS history (the top spot still belongs to MS Bob).

What? The kin didn't make it?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's bogosity, the kin was weak. I bouight 3.

A more accurate list perhaps?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see this being useful in future years.

Re:Don't forget...

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, 9" is not really micro; it's more of a mini!

Re:Dell D6xx series

[DocSavage64109]

I'll also nominate the Dell D6xx series as being rather robust laptops. I work at a non-profit and we received a number of these second hand -- and a surprising number of them work quite well -- which is rather unusual for donations.

So sad to see Norton Utilities here

[snookums]

Doesn't anyone else remember when a boot floppy with Norton Utilities and XTreeGold was the ultimate PC repair tool?

It's sad to see the name associated with a set of snake-oil "optimizers".

Re:So sad to see Norton Utilities here

[N0Man74]

Seeing the name XTreeGold makes my heart go pitter patter.

Yes, yes... Many times did I use a boot floppy with XTreeGold, and the UED text editor.

Re:So sad to see Norton Utilities here

[kamikaze_late2party]

Mod Parent up. Two programs that without I would have never become the techie I am today. So many memories of the Hex editor in Xtree while I was cracking old games or editing save's. I have to thank Norton utils 5.0 for helping me with being the only person in the whole school who could recover data off floppy disks that had been in someone's lunchbox. and using "Discrete" to encrypt a partition (back under dos 3.3) so that the teacher couldn't find my copies of wolfenstein and duke nukem.

No no no.. the iPad itself!

[RenHoek]

I say the iPad itself stands as king on Mount Crapmore for 2010. So far, all the people who bought one of those tablets can _not_ tell me what they are using it for. I can think of very few people who'd actually have a legitimate use for it. Others would be better off with a Blackberry or a cheap netbook.

I've witnessed a conversation that illustrates my anger. I do sysadmin work and one of the systems is an immersive 3D Cave system to examine medical images. When two ladies heard an iPad was going to be purchased for the Cave so you can take notes, they exclaimed "How modern!". Right.. A visual system that runs on 6 servers, a number of beamers and camera's costing up to half a million euros isn't modern until we add a fucking iPad! You know what even works better then an iPad to take notes with? A pen and goddamn clipboard!

So because the whole world has been brainwashed that it's oh so useful, this is the most horribly useless product of 2010.

If you disagree, (and I expect many will), please, PLEASE tell me what you actually use it for. And if you say something that can be solved better by a cheaper product, (like ebook reading, for which a kindle is better and cheaper), I'm going to hit you on the head with a wiffle bat until you're free of your Apple worship affliction. I wouldn't accept an iPad if they offered it to me for free.

Re:No no no.. the iPad itself!

[RapmasterT]

Anti-fanboy-ism is a game I can definitely get in on. But frankly you sound like an idiot.

I can think of very few people who'd actually have a legitimate use for it.

Since when do you get to decide what's "legitimate" and what isn't? If some people have a use for it that you don't, is that less legitimate than if you have a use for it that they don't?

The only Apple product I own is an iPad and I use it every day. So often that I need a second one because my girlfriend is constantly bogarting it. It's hands down the most useful format for couch computing of anything out there. and if you suggest using a laptop while sitting on a couch or walking around, then I suggest you beat yourself with your own wiffle bat.

So I use it for Web browsing mostly, some games, and I have a pretty good RDP client on it for remote controlling my media PC when the remote interface goes wonky, or if I don't want to stop what it's doing on the main screen. It's also a damned useful Sonos remote, and the movie collection app that I have my DVD's cataloged in is MUCH more useful in a portable iPad than on a PC. Then there's things like watching Netflix streaming movies in bed while girlfriend sleeps, and yes...even the iPad kindle app is good. Not as good as the hardware kindle for use in bright sunlight...but it excels in the DARK, where the kindle is useless.

Any of those strike you as "legitimate"? Because I'll let you define that word for yourself, for me however, I find those things "useful".

I wouldn't accept an iPad if they offered it to me for free.

and that's the part that makes you sound like an idiot.

Re:No no no.. the iPad itself!

[Palmsie]

THANK YOU GOOD SIR.

I wholeheartedly agree. The iPad is one of the most ridiculously overpriced pieces of garbage out there. You're paying 450 dollars for what? An app store and a browser on a touchscreen. Sweet mother of baby jesus. Buy a laptop or a netbook. You get so much more for what you pay for. I have to hand it to Apple though, if they can brainwash their lemming customers to buy this useless piece of plastic, they can do anything, especially when you have full OS tablets out.

And that is what worries me. Users don't care and aren't interested in the backend of computers. They never were. That is why the app store idea is so popular. Google with their Chrominium OS and Apple's appstore idea are driving the next gen computer user-experience. No one cares what goes where, how things are installed, or how the backend is functioning. All they care about is that they can press a button and download Angry Birds or Bejeweled then press another button and play. Who cares where it went as long as I can find it. This is exactly the same kind of nonsense that spawned from iTunes users where they think their music is magically "inside" iTunes rather than being parsed as a library from a location on the hd. Common users don't care about understanding these core components of the computer experience. They want simple, dumbed down, minimalistic experiences, which provide lean options but also minimal options to fuck up their system.

Re:No no no.. the iPad itself!

[RenHoek]

So why not a netbook? You can play games that require a bit more powerful CPU, also you can actually play more games then you can on IOS. If you're really hooked on IOS games, isn't an iPhone cheaper?

So the Kindle doesn't have a backlight, other ereaders do and are still a hell of a lot cheaper then an iPad, and last longer. Also you do have clip-on lights for the Kindle.

Also, if you're going to watch movies, you have to convert them for the iPad right? (Unless you buy an app I believe). Why _not_ a netbook? You can play any and all formats under both Windows, Linux and I'm pretty sure you could make a Hackintosh and install Snow Leopard on it (or whatever name they use now).

And me not wanting a free one, why would I? I got enough crap taking up shelf space already. Is it really so hard to imagine passing on something free if you don't want it?

Re:No no no.. the iPad itself!

[RenHoek]

I'm not against dumbed down devices per se. In fact I'm in favor of any device that fulfills the needs of the user best.

It's just that other options that are much more practical, useful, better and cheaper are overlooked because of 'shiny'.

That, and people repeating that the iPad is the best thing since sliced bread over and over without actually doing some research if what they are saying is even true or not.

Re:No no no.. the iPad itself!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's funny because a CAVE is one of the other most useless tech product i can think of. Especially for medical images. Are you sure you aren't posting this from 1997?

Re:No no no.. the iPad itself!

[Anonymous Coward]

I know two people that use them in the kitchen... for reading recipes and facebooking while cooking. God knows you can just wipe the flour off the thing.

Re:No no no.. the iPad itself!

[ieatcookies]

I read slashdot on the shitter with it. Endofstory.

Re:No no no.. the iPad itself!

[ieatcookies]

I wont argue over the value of an iPad since you've clearly got your mind made up. But, many companies have marketing power, to say that iPad lovers are all brainwashed is just silly. Apple didn't just throw another desktop on a tablet form factor, they created a new product. That's innovation and it's why theyre a fantastic company to have around in our era.

Re:No no no.. the iPad itself!

[gullevek]

Netbooks are slow as shit and are at the end just a PC again, with all the problems a PC has. and iPad is not an PC, so I wouldn't compare an iPad to it.

Re:No no no.. the iPad itself!

[RapmasterT]

So why not a netbook?

I have a netbook, it's fantastically useful for traveling. Trying to use a "laptop" format device sitting on a couch, walking around, or lying in bed is a joke...which anyone who has tried it already knows. As to the iphone, if you can't see the advantage of a 10" screen over a 3.5" one, then you're not really interested in a conversation about "legitimate uses".

Also, if you're going to watch movies, you have to convert them for the iPad right?

You're not paying attention, I said "streaming" netflix movies. But yes, if I wanted to put media onto it to watch, I'd have to convert it...just like I would with a netbook. They don't have DVD drives you know.

But anyway, here we are. You asked for "legitimate reasons", declined to respond to why you get to decide if peoples reasons are legitimate or not, then suggested using a netbook for all the things I use the iPad for, even though a netbook is less practical in every use I listed. That's not even getting into limitations like battery life, not being instant on, smaller screen, weighs more, etc.

So look, if you're as broke as you sound, and have to shoehorn every possible use case into a single device, then go ahead and use a netbook. But for the rest of us who can afford to buy devices that are more specific use, the ipad fits a rather large niche and does so nicely until something better comes along.

Re:No no no.. the iPad itself!

[RapmasterT]

THANK YOU GOOD SIR.

I wholeheartedly agree. The iPad is one of the most ridiculously overpriced pieces of garbage out there. You're paying 450 dollars for what? An app store and a browser on a touchscreen. Sweet mother of baby jesus. Buy a laptop or a netbook. You get so much more for what you pay for.

Is it Apple you hate (can't argue with that), or is it the slate device form factor? The form factor clearly has a LOT of advantages for mobile computing over a device you have to set on a desk to use. If there were other viable alternatives in the device market, I'm sure people would love an alternative to Apple's closed platform ipad...but so far there isn't. This continued drum beating about "just buy a netbook" is head in the sand nonsense. First of all, a well appointed netbook costs about the same as an ipad, and is far less practical for everything I use the ipad for. Mostly because I also have a netbook, so I use each for what it's best for...that wasnt' rocket science to figure out.

Re:No no no.. the iPad itself!

[Anonymous Coward]

caveat: I don't have an iPad

I thought about getting my wife an iPad. It would be perfect for what she uses the computer for:
light browsing, mostly of picture laden celebrity gossip / fashion websites)
YouTube
Facebook
Webmail
A few simple time-filler games
Watching video

She would rather sit on the sofa or out on the deck and do this (and does with an iPod Touch, which is also good for this but the small screen is a pain), rather than in my study (and I would rather she did too, as I need the computer for work and it's annoying to argue that TMZ will be full of the SAME EXACT SHIT EVERY DAY and that maybe looking at it when I am at work rather than when I am at home trying to study would be better).

An iPad would actually suit her use much more than a laptop, and I think there is a niche for people suych as her. But I do agree that the vast majority of iPad buyers are after something shiny and wasted money that would have been better spent on a laptop.

Re:No no no.. the iPad itself!

[Palmsie]

To answer your initial question, a bit of both. I think Apple has some great products like the ipod and iphone, but their computers are garbage and so is the ipad. Why? Mostly because they're overpriced. The cheapest version of the iPad is 450, that's bare bones. If that price was cut in half, it would be worth what it costs. But people are willing to spend double because it's Apple, not because its useful or novel or anything. Tablets have been around for quite a while but what I especially hate about Apple's mindset is that they're lowering the average-user-bar to about nothing, and that is frustrating to watch (especially when Apple users think they know about their backend when they're just regurgitating what the Apple store bros tell them; e.g. no viruses, doesn't slow down, unhackable, etc. Apple literally is AOL 2.0. It made users ignore all the backend and look where that fad went.

Re:No no no.. the iPad itself!

[Fear the Clam]

I say the iPad itself stands as king on Mount Crapmore for 2010. So far, all the people who bought one of those tablets can _not_ tell me what they are using it for. I can think of very few people who'd actually have a legitimate use for it. Others would be better off with a Blackberry or a cheap netbook.

I use it to read the web, do email, see my calendar, watch movies, and keep track of medical stuff. Yup, I could do all of that stuff with a Blackberry, but I want a larger screen. I could do all of that stuff with a cheap netbook, but I want the longer battery life of the iPad and again, the larger screen.

Yes, I could have identical functionality for less money, but I'm a gown-up with disposable income and can afford to buy what I like. In fact, the price difference between my iPad and a cheap netbook is what, a few hundred bucks? Over a three-year lifespan that's about ten bucks a month. Seriously? That makes you angry? Maybe you should stop worrying about how other people spend their money.

Re:No no no.. the iPad itself!

[rdnetto]

I wouldn't accept an iPad if they offered it to me for free.

I agree completely. An iPad came my way as a raffle prize, I simply passed it off to my sister (who sadly seems enamoured with Apple products).

ANNOYANCE 1:
I tried to read an eBook on it, since it's form factor is suited to that reasonably well. Except there's no way to zoom the text without having to pan across the entire page (that's acceptable for a PDF viewer maybe, but definitely not a browser, esp on a tablet). The inability to zoom was also problematic when trying to click on links, which was exacerbated by the inability to use a (conventional) stylus. (Apple should have included a built-in stylus, or made sure that all programs* had decent zoom support).
* This is a fair criticism since they retain such fine control over the App Store. Even if not, they could at least ensure the default apps did.

ANNOYANCE 2:
OK, maybe I'll just use RDP with my desktop. Except there's no way to right click, and the native keyboard is worse than the one included in Windows.

ANNOYANCE 3:
The impression I got from the App Store was that I was being nickled and dimed for everything. Almost every app (even something as simple as a SSH client) required payment. And those that don't are filled with ads. Even if you don't want to pay for anything, Apple still demands your credit card number.

tldr; I'll take a Linux ARM netbook anyday.

Re:No no no.. the iPad itself!

[tingeber]

As a control pad for music software it's incredibly useful. I can change settings, record enable etc on my main rig directly from the recording room, or anywhere in the studio/concert hall. That's also the only one I can think of that's unique to the iPad. Use in hospitals, maybe? On construction sites? I dunno.

Re:No no no.. the iPad itself!

[RapmasterT]

If that price was cut in half, it would be worth what it costs. But people are willing to spend double because it's Apple, not because its useful or novel or anything.

That's where you are 100% wrong. the iPad is both useful and novel and commands a price premium because there is no competition as of yet. I'm sure a SIGNIFICANT percentage of people who own an iPad would gladly pay half as much for a more useful device if such a thing existed.

Tablets have been around for quite a while but

This is the part that tells me you have no idea what you're talking about. Who is it who has been making an iPad type device prior to now? Tablet? You mean the laptops with screens you can turn around backwards? That goddamn joke of usability, that's your viable alternative?

what I especially hate about Apple's mindset is that they're lowering the average-user-bar to about nothing, and that is frustrating to watch (especially when Apple users think they know about their backend when they're just regurgitating what the Apple store bros tell them; e.g. no viruses, doesn't slow down, unhackable, etc. Apple literally is AOL 2.0. It made users ignore all the backend and look where that fad went.

All good reasons to hate Apple. But pretty shitty reasons to hate a product that works, works well for what it's intended for, and has no alternatives in the market at the moment. If it's too expensive for you, then I'm sorry, I get that. But don't look down your nose at people who can afford it and are finding it a useful niche product just because you don't have one.

I nominate "Religion".

[Anonymous Coward]

To this day, all it does is cause trouble, strife and death, and all the supposed benefits still have not appeared. Getting through to tech support is impossible, the various forkings make it impossible to choose the right distro, the manuals are outdated, and even the users cant agree on how it should work.

eMachines and Viewsonic

[Anonymous Coward]

I got lucky this year. Only two crappy product.

eMachines
Be sure to upgrade your eMachine power supply, before you get the shredding black screen of death from the PSU failure. If you updated your video card, I give you about 6 months before a failure. the good news is you have about a 90% chance your motherboard won't be fried. Dear eMachines, Beef up that power supply!

Viewsonic
Be sure to replace your cheap bulging leaky capacitors in your viewsonic monitors if you value getting your project done within the deadline. Who knows when they finally go out, while I am not sure, the power button being caved in is a good sign there's not much time left. Dear Viewsonic, Bad Power Buttons, and Caps. I won't get into model numbers, because they all seem to suffer.

Not HP

[Anonymous Coward]

I've encountered very many OBFs and "refurbished" parts that were obviously rubber stamped & re-shipped.

Absolutely.

[Anonymous Coward]

He is an idiot for not accepting a useless piece of hardware, which is censored by a third party, for which people are paying over the odds in their hysterical belief that they can do anything more efficiently in a device whose most silient characteristic is its price (for bunnies sakes, keyboard for this thing are selling like hotcakes, so you have .... a laptop).

I would definively accept such a thing for free, in order to sell it as soon as I can to any of the gullible people that haven't realized they can do better things with their money.

Re:Absolutely.

[Anonymous Coward]

He is an idiot for not accepting a useless piece of hardware,

Odd...for something you think is "useless", I use mine every day.

I would definively accept such a thing for free, in order to sell it as soon as I can to any of the gullible people that haven't realized they can do better things with their money.

Now THAT sounds like the attitude of a thinking man. I don't care how useless something is, if it sells for $500 on ebay, I'll take all you're going to give me.

OH STFU!

[Anonymous Coward]

you mean like a TV or a microwave oven or a radio or a vacuum cleaner or err...

I could go on.

Most people want it to work and not give a toss about where it is stored and quite right too. Why should I give a flying toss where my mp3 is stored how does that make the experience better?

Jesus! When are you going to get the fact that 'My Mother' (TM) doesn't want a fucking netbook or a PC or any of that crap. A simple tablet that she can poke a finger at to browse the web or get her hotmail is EXACTLY what she wants. Christ alive...I don't give a toss where the electricity comes from or how it is generated when I turn my kettle on or start my vacuum cleaner, I just want it to do the thing that I was told it was going to do when I bought it and that's all.

Re:OH STFU!

[mbourgon]

Please mod parent (anon coward) up. End users shouldn't need to know the back end crap. If you want to roll your own kernel on your TV, go right ahead - but god forbid your neighbor should just watch TV?

My iPad use

[BenEnglishAtHome]

I agree that the iPad is overpriced. I bought one, anyway, and found that it does the following, the sum of which makes it worth the money for me.

  - YouTube vids until I get sleepy, then I put it on the shelf next to my alarm clock. Much more convenient than sitting up in bed watching TV, for a variety of reasons.
  - My disabled, mostly bedridden sister uses it for games and email.
  - Minimally useful in specific situation for taking notes at work.
  - Browsing at public wifi spots. I use it as my morning paper, more or less, on the weekends when I go somewhere for breakfast.
  - Easy, quick checks of my webmail accounts, traffic web site, and weather forecast before I leave for work each morning. Much simpler and faster than starting up my main machine each morning when I'm pressed for time.
  - Play a level of Doom while I'm waiting for whatever machine I'm working on to reboot. I used to feel that half my work life was spent waiting for machines to reboot. Given the standard image and network authentications required at my employer, a properly running machine boots to a useful desktop in 8 (never less than 7) minutes. That's not long enough for me to get up, go back to my desk, get something done, and return. It used to be wasted time. Now, it's still wasted time but it seems to go much faster.

Ten Worse?

[ps2os2]

I do not think so. The instructions that came with the IPAD was maybe 3" x 4" piece of paper and probably in 5 point type.
Simply put I could not read them. I had no clue what to do with the damn thing.
I had to have a friend come over to hook the thing up and to connect it to my wireless system.
Of course I have found the IPAD a PITA to use especially for typing. The key pad is worthless (to me). I had to go out and buy a keypad.
I have used it so little there are several layers of dust on the damn thing.
It is alo too heavy to read anything on my fingers tire after 15 minutes and I have to put it down for 30 minutes.
Sorry Apple it just does not cut the mustard for me.