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Dell Kills Streak 7, Bails On Android Tablets
An anonymous reader writes with this news from Network World: "Dell has yanked the Dell Streak 7 tablet computer from its online stores, quietly acknowledging the failure of the Android device to catch on with consumers as the company redirects its tablet focus to combination work/play products. Word of the Streak 7's disappearance follows by a few months the death of the Streak 5, which debuted in summer 2010. The dual-core processor-powered Dell Streak 7 became available in January, marketed as a 4G wireless tablet via T-Mobile's network. Now Dell is directing would-be Streak buyers to Android and Windows Phone smartphones, and pushing a line of Windows Phone tablets for business."
That's about all that needs be said.
They had a good run, but they are a commodity PC maker and that's about all.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It's like a high stakes poker game with a full table. Eventually, players bust out because they bet too much on a losing hand. Dell just doesn't have quite the same mix of top-notch industrial design and capable hardware that the top players have. Neither did HP, and so the weak are weeded out. Windows 8 might convince them to buy back in, but really this is Apple, Samsung, and HTC's game.
They should have sold it in Zune Brown and then you could have been the kewl kid on the block with a new Brown Streak!
Good riddance.
Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
The Streak7 is an awful device. It was laggy and had a painfully low-resolution display (800x480 on a 7".) Trying to continue selling the Streak 5 (woefully obsolete, strange form factor, never found a niche) and the Streak 7 (overall crappy device) at this point would be stupid. Microsoft doesn't have anything to do with it.
Well, this pretty much indicates that, at least when it comes to tablets, you cannot make money off of the hardware alone. iPad is still the exception, because it literally defined the market. However, Apple makes so much money off of the App store that they could undoubtedly sell the hardware at a loss and still profit overall. They just don't need to - at least not at this point.
Amazon's Kindle Fire is the only real competition, the reason being that Amazon is an established content provider, and just like Apple, they have their own closed App marketplace that they also profit off of. How can Dell, HP, Motorola, HTC compete in this scenario, when the only thing they can make money off of is the hardware? Their only chance is to partner with someone who does have the content distribution infrastructure, but it seems that chance has already passed.
Better known as 318230.
Microsoft doesn't have anything to do with it.
Apart from being the inspiration for it!
There is no such thing as a Windows Phone tablet. There will be Windows 8 tablets.
7" Android tablets are not worth more than $100. It's not going to replace your laptop or netbook. It's too small for word processing or doing any serious work, all it's good for is watch videos and playing a few games. When will these companies realize this?
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
While Samsung and a whole bunch of other companies have Android devices flying off the shelves, Dell seems unable to do the same. Curious and curiouser.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
So, will Dell do a fire-sale on existing inventory, or just reload the Windows tablet software and rebrand/remarket the same hardware? The tablet price points are starting to make sense for me. But, I would love to have a device I can play around with for convergence development. Is there something along these lines available? I think there is definitely a market for Phone(SIP, Cellular, PSTN), IM, E-mail, NAS, & remote desktop. I feel like we are doing a lot of incremental things, but ultimately we have these powerful portable devices that can really do a lot. Yet they don't. They run angry birds, and don't actually save you any time or work around your life. Shouldn't a phone/table be smart enough to to run your home phone system while you are home, maybe GPS based follow-me. Shouldn't a phone that knows you have a meeting scheduled or class and sends your calls to voice-mail with the option to SMS or IM. Hell a tablet with a wireless headset that runs as a phone, or with a phone. We are wasting a resource that could do useful work too. I mean think of the distributed computing you can do with these tablets, smart phones, etc. There are problems to be solved, and none of these "solutions" actually solves them.
You got that backwards; Dell is shit and all the other companies having Android devices flying off the shelves confirms it.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
The Dell what? Dell's selling a tablet? Honestly Dells marketing department totally dropped the ball on this one. I've been looking around for cheaper android tablets and this NEVER made my radar screen.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/5/2612610/dell-were-not-backing-away-from-android
Tablet makers still don't get it. Price is king. I want a 7 inch tablet with hdmi out, a camera, wifi, gps, gyroscope, accelerometer, & magnetometer for less than $100. If they can put in a slide out(or back of screen...) keyboard and a front facing camera, those are worth an additional $50 to me.
I have all of the above minus the hdmi out on my Droid 2 Global. I'm not going to sacrifice features for a larger screen. With the MPU-6000, they have no excuse to be selling "g-sensors" as if a tilt compensated compass is still cutting edge.
Aluminum is less than $3 a pound. A brushed aluminum(or composite) case is worth another $20 to me.
They are still pricing these fucking things as if they already had control of the market. They need to start thinking like new players in the console market and sell these at a near loss. They can worry about profit when they have successfully achieved front runner status.
Their PC "brand name" doesn't mean shit here, it's a new arena. They need to buy front runner status by breaking even and then when their name is synonymous with "best android tablet" they can start pricing them like they are fashionable.
Nobody wants to buy a status symbol like a tablet computer until a clear front runner has established itself. I'm not going to pay Apple pricing for "2nd place" aka the loser tablet, aka the tablet no one else wants. It is EMBARASSING to be seen with as it hurts my credibility as a tech snob to be seen with a product which demonstrates that I couldn't pick a winner out of a line up.
Until they have bought 1st place status, their product is a commodity and sales will be lack-luster on any metric other than "cheap as dirt" for "incredible value". They need to start thinking about accessories as profit centers and lower the bar like a crack dealer. "First time is free man..."
I'm sure it had nothing to do with the almost complete lack of consumer interest in Android tablets.
This quarter the iPad is hitting 65% market share. That's a lot, but remember it started the year in the high 90s. The only thing that might keep Android from being the top tablet platform in 2013 is Windows 8, and that's a long shot.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
People who buy android typically are smart enough to NOT buy a dell.
I'm sure it had nothing to do with the almost complete lack of consumer interest in Android tablets.
Its all in the price. Apparently a tablet that is worth about a quarter of an ipad sells really good at a quarter of an ipad price. Trying to sell "not as good as an ipad" for same or higher price doesn't work so well.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
It's still available on the UK site.....
Will there still be room in the market for Windows 8 tablets by the time Windows 8 comes out, or will substantially all applications that one would want to run on an ARM-powered tablet already have been ported to Android?
And Android marketshare went from 34% to 26%. iPad is also expected to grow back to 75% share.
So that's why Android tablets lost 8% marketshare last fiscal quarter?
> I'm sure it had nothing to do with the almost complete lack of consumer interest in Android tablets.
Let me revise and extend you remark to make it more accurate:
I'm sure it had nothing to do with the almost complete lack of consumer interest in Android tablets at close to iPad prices.
Google has been playing games by withholding the source and access to the Market to all of the no-name products while ensuring all of the brand name ones keep their prices out of 'commodity' territory. Now that 4.0 is available perhaps they will allow the clones into the Market and prices to seek their own level. We shall then see if consumers are interested in Android tablets at half the price of an iProduct.
Personally I have zero interest in them at current pricing. They cost a lot more than a netbook yet have less stuff inside and no MIcrosoft tax to explain the higher price. And while the form factor is interesting, the price they pay is being less generally useful than a netbook or laptop. But get em down under $200 for fully equipped ones (GPS, BT, WiFi-n, camera, 1GHz+ CPU, good display) and I suspect uptake will pick up. But the Android forces have pretty much lost this Xmas selling season because there ain't no way products based on 4.0 will make it to stores in quantity this year.
Democrat delenda est
More likely it had to do with a complete lack of consumer interest in small, low resolution, pre-Honeycomb, Android tablets. Everyone from Lenovo to Archos is producing better tablets in that price and specification range.
I still don't know why people want tablets. I have a Lenovo 10" myself and don't see what the big deal is. But I can honestly say that there's no way people who want them are going to settle for something like the Streak. It doesn't make sense on any level.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Like Samsung (Galaxy Tab). Or Acer.
So that's why Android tablets lost 8% marketshare last fiscal quarter?
I suspect it's as much because only Apple fanboys still think they really 'must have' a tablet while the rest of the world doesn't see much use for them. I played with a Transformer at a trade show a few months ago and it was kind of cool but I couldn't see myself doing anything with it that I don't really do with my netbook.
I read an interesting survey a few weeks back showing some huge percentage of iPad buyers bought it on hype and barely use the thing a few months later; I forget what site it was on.
Lol that's some Kool Aid your offering. Its been estimated there are 350,000 Android devices being activated each day. While that number seems high to me, it wouldn't surprise me if its mostly on the mark; http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2011/03/07/in-the-us-android-is-now-the-number-one-smartphone-os/ .
My karma is not a Chameleon.
People who buy Android are typically people upgrading from a feature phone to a cheap smartphone.
There are fewer netbooks in existence than there are tablets sold. That you happen to have a netbook doesn't mean anything for the 99.99999999999 of the population that doesn't.
You're half right. While it is true that consumers have an almost complete lack of interest in Android they have an equal lack of interest in IOS. Consumers want gadgets but only if the gadgets high techiness is able to get out of the way and the consumer can do cool things without knowing too much. This is where IOS excels and Android has faltered...until now. While handset OEMs have focused on prettying up the interface to distinguish themselves Barnes & Noble flat out covered up the underlying Android base and focused on User Experience as much as UI. They also hit a price point that was palatable for more of the masses by leaving out the ubiquitous front and rear cameras and a few other bells and whistles and not skimping on the screen or touch interface. Of course the Android community likes to point out how easily hackable the device is but I'm reasonably sure total sales were not overly impacted by this fact. The success of the NC got Amazon's attention and Bezos & Co. have now launched the Kindle Fire. For all intents and purposes a BlackBerry PlayBook without cameras and running Android. The Fire has taken the NC concept and gone even further. By tying the Fire to amazon's cloud services they seek to capture the kind of repeat business Apple has using iTunes. For /. aficionados these devices are toys but for Joe Average these are just what the Dr. ordered. And at $199 entry point they are right at impulse buy territory.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
So the fact most tablets are on the order of magnitude of a basic iPad, around the $400 mark, makes people think that tablets are too expensive. Of course Google is not providing the support that MS does, so the manufacturers have to shoulder all costs, which of course results in a more expensive product.
I think the strategy that will work is the Amazon strategy. Use the Android base, customize it into t a differentiated unique product, attach it to a service. The Android fanbois won't like it, but they aren't going to provide a mass market anyway. They were the one's cheering when HP had to sell it's table at a rock bottom price. Selling low does not move an industry forward. Selling good products at affordable prices does. This is why people buy Xbox, iPhone, and Deskjets. Not because they are cheap, but because they are good.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I knew this would happen since any product with a name as stupid as "Streak" will fail. Can you imagine telling your friends you own a Streak with a straight face? Try it, I bet you can't do it.
You are getting this 65% market share from android manufacturers SHIPPING numbers. Those tablets aren't being sold. Who cares if Android manufacturers shipped 35% of the tablets out there when almost none (aside from the fire) were sold?
There are fewer netbooks in existence than there are tablets sold. That you happen to have a netbook doesn't mean anything for the 99.99999999999 of the population that doesn't.
A netbook is half the price of a Transformer and probably faster too. So if you're thinking of buying one you could just buy the netbook and save a few hundred bucks.
Whoa! What? Dell had an Android tablet for sale?
When the iPad came out all I heard was how overpriced it was. How you could get a netbook that does 10 times as much for less money. Now I see company after company failing to produce a comparable product at the same price, and a bzillion Slashdot posts about how no one can compete with Apple because they sell the iPad at a loss and make money back from the app store.
To be honest, who in a right mind would be interested in a Froyo (!) tablet with smartphone resolution (yes, my basement price smartphone has the same resolution) for a price rather close to an iPad? It is not a selling proposition, and it took Dell a very long time to realise that. And don't mention cost - the customer does not care one bit about cost.
Or to put it in a different way, people are not willing to spend more on a lesser known quantity. Lets face it, Apple have become very well known the last couple of years...
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
True for me, but I don't see what the problem is...
Stupid sexy Flanders.
There are a lot of Android devices being activated, and OP was being stupid by conflating Android phones and Android tablets, but let's not be disingenuous in the opposite direction: Android tablets have not exactly set the world on fire yet. Android on tablets needs a bit more time to mature, and for efficient supply-chains to be built by the various manufacturers.
I just bought 3 Nook Touches. I honestly don't see the point in tablets at all, but that's just me. The wife and kids all wanted them, though, and were satisfied with the specs. They know they aren't getting iPads. Just saying... my daughter just had her birthday, and the other two are for Christmas... I think these devices are selling wildly for Christmas.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
I hope Michael Dell take his own advice..
What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders"
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
My droid x was a free upgrade and has done everything I've wanted.
What exactly is the problem here?
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
I read the title as "Dell Streak Kills 7, Bails On Android Tablets" - and here I was expecting to read about some kind of story about a Lithium battery explosion.
-=- I tried going insane, and it was fun for a while, but I got bored and decided to go sane. -=-
GP was making assumptions about how "smart" Android buyers are. Most of them aren't nerds. Most of them are ordinary people buying the non-fruit-flavored smartphone platform that doesn't cost an enormous amount.
Find where I said there was a "problem."
Dell had the best tech support. It was what differentiated Dell from the rest. Then Dell hired a management consulting firm to come in and see if there was a way they could improve the business. The consultant's advice was to be more like Gateway Computers and cut back on support. The result went straight to the bottom line and the stock price shot up and management and everybody made fortunes. Anybody with a clue saw what was happening and sold out. The stock price has never recovered and you know what Dell's reputation is like.
LOL he's an apple "fanboy" because he dislikes Dell?
Poser.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
And that is the problem. Most people are below average, ;) Place your product where it takes a smart person to use it and you're doomed.
If it was about saving money, it'd be better just NOT to buy them.
It's about quality of product, not about saving a few bucks here and there.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
... Most people are below average...
Citation please. That implies that the "smart" are way smarter than the "dumb" are dumb. In my experience, the smart really aren't as smart as they think they are and the dumb folks aren't that dumb as they are told they are.
This is why people aren't as willing to buy from companies like Dell as opposed to Apple. A few quarters of less than stellar sales and they bail on the whole market and you're left with an unsupported device. Happened with the Zune, HP's tablet, some very good mp3 players of yore. And to add insult to injury, these companies expect to be able to charge the same for their devices as Apple does.
Gee whiz, I wonder why people choose an iPad where for exactly the same money they could have had an Android wanna-be from a company not completely behind their own product.
EXACTLY!
As an iPad fan (not fanboy, a fan), I love what they did with the iPad. However, competition is a wonderful thing. Android should create their own niche, and grab more of the market that way. Then, Apple would be forced to change. As it is right now, there's little competition, only fanfare on both sides.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
By call them "cheap smartphones" you invoke images of flimsy feature-less hunks of plastic that can barely qualify for the smart- prefix.
Try using "less expensive" next time, the tablet and smartphone markets are flooded with chinese knockoffs and 3rd shift runs that very much qualify for the "cheap" designation. It's best to draw a very clear line between what you mean and what they make.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
Or perhaps they want a physical keyboard (a friend of mine has chosen Android over iPhone for exactly this reason).
RETURN without GOSUB in line 1050
Asus is selling 300k units per month of theirs. Lack of interest? Just because it doesn't have a pre-existing audience that would happily buy it even if it was a turd in a white box with Apple logo on it, doesn't mean there's no interest.
Streak failed because it was just plain not good. It shipped with Android 2.2 (not even 2.3), and they have only started rolling out Honeycomb in October - while all their competitors had Honeycomb tablets selling for months.
Pretty much... I see nearly everyone (non-geeky) who has an android has one because it was either free or a very low price during their Verizon contract renewal.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
... does Dell feel the need to make so much stuff? Nobody ever bought their crap MP3 players, I've never seen a Dell phone anywhere,* and now here they are, killing two tablets that were barely a year old. Are there companies who will buy from no one but Dell, and Dell feels that the more stuff they make, the more sales they'll get from these few customers? If that's what they think, it's obviously not working out. A lot of their products have lifespans measurable in months.
* I admit it's possible I've seen one and not known it.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
The Nook Touch is not a tablet - it's a book reader. Maybe what they really wanted was Nook Tablets. They might be kind of disappointed if they are expecting an iPad alternative and end up with an e-reader instead. Just sayin'.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Amazon has the superior marketing position, so they will probably do very well with that Fire product. Which is kind of a shame, really, because the like-priced Nook Color is better device, and for $50 more the Nook Tablet is far superior.
I had kind of decided I was going to plop down $150 for a refurbished NC myself, but then I compared it to the Nook Tablet at the B&N, and I don't think I'd be as happy with the Color. If it wasn't for the locked bootloader I'd probably have one by now.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Maybe if you didn't have AdBlock+ running, you would have seen an ad for it :p
No Apple product is half as good as anything from HP, Dell, IBM or Sony (though IBM doesn't make PCs anymore). Apple products are at least twice as good as products from these companies that are intended to compete with theirs.
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
When I visited an aunt recently, I was surprised to find that she went and bought herself an Android tablet. Surprisingly enough it was a model that I had been eyeballing myself.
Not everyone buys an Apple product by default.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If you think 350k/day is high imagine what you will think of the current number... 550k/day!
http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/14/android-now-seeing-550000-activations-per-day/
grape - the GNU free, open source rape
Mine is no cheaper than an iPhone.
Both brands of phone are subsidized at similar levels.
If Apple doesn't have a "can't be bothered to pay more" option then that is by no means the fault of Android. That merely represents a group of customers that Apple chooses to ignore. So it is good that Apple isn't a monopoly.
Being willing to ignore wide swaths of the market is nothing to brag about.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
You make it sound like Android devices are the only ones that are heavily subsidized by carriers.
That's not the case of course.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I think Android Tablets have been hurt by all the cheap stuff that was released with old versions of Android that don't include the Google Marketplace. Sure.. Google warned it wasn't ready but consumers don't listen. They got burnt and will shy away from Android tablets for quite a while to come even though the newer ones should be just fine. Google should have rushed a tablet market place out for the old "smartphone-only" OSs even if they sucked on the Tablet. By not doing so they just made it worse.
Sadly, IOS is going to be king for a while.
Who all saw this coming? Dell has to constantly try and play catchup with everyone else in the industry, it's pathological at this point. They ruined their reputation for having reliable workstations, they ruined their Gold Tech Support when they started outsourcing it to themselves (the new "Pro Support doesn't state the guy on the other end has to be certified A+ or MCP, just 'English Speaking'"), etc etc. What else do they have at this point but to try to hop on the next big thing and pray they can accidentally do it better than everyone else?
They need an Executive Enema. Get rid of these guys in suits desperate to have their name on the "next big thing(tm)" and maybe the ones that are left will be able to actually get some work done.
Yea, having standards of quality and user experience is nothing to brag about.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
We're getting a nice 7" tablet for $100 for my daughter for Christmas. She's 4. We were initially going to get one of those Leapfrog or whatever "computers" but that was $100 and each app/cartridge is in the $10-15 range. Buying the $100 tablet was an easy decision. And yes, it's a Chinese knockoff.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
Do a little research...the locked bootloader isn't a problem anymore, it has been overcome.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
My iPhone - When you show me one Android device that doesn't have OBVIOUS UI lag in scrolling, then ... and ONLY then will I even consider the idea that Android may eventually one day be comparable to iOS. If the OS is incapable of smooth scrolling, its a shitty OS, I don't care WHAT it is under the hood or who's fault it is. And I'm sure you'll (or some other fanboy) name off some device that 'scrolls perfectly' and it won't, you'll just be oblivious to the fact that you've never seen it done right.
My Mac Book - When purchased, Dell, HP, IBM, Sony did not offer a laptop with the same hardware for the same price, sorry to burst your bubble, but not everyone buys $250 el cheapo netbooks. And the only place I can get a good Unix desktop.
My Mac Mini Server - Simply won't find anything with this power in this form factor and this OS, which fits my how perfectly.
Time Capsule/Airport Base Station - You can find stuff that does basically the same thing ... when it works ... and when you aren't having some sort of issue with their shitty software ... No, in fact there is nothing that compares to a Time Capsule.
Now I realize fully that I could spend far less cash and cobble together all of this shit on my own with a bunch of OSS software, but it wouldn't work nearly as well, and I'd have to maintain it ... worry about upgrades, reintegrating software, getting everything to play nicely together. I could spend hours a month just keeping up with updates ...
Or
I just buy something that doesn't suck ass and works well together.
Real peple who code their own kernals and IP packets no better!
What are you like 12 years old? Dude I have real shit to do. I'm sorry you're life is so boring and poor that you think hand writing an IP packet is something to be proud of, let me give you a hint ... it isn't. Neither is writing your own kernel for no other reason than to do it. I most certainly have the capability to do so, and in fact have done so on more than one occasion ... WHEN I NEEDED my own kernel for a microcontroller or to simulate some bad packets for testing a network stack.
I do not however go around acting like I'm bad ass because I can do something that every intelligent person uses a computer to do automatically. You're bragging about being able to do something by hand that EVERYONE ELSE in the world realized they didn't want to do by hand and so they automated it ... If you were nearly as hard core as you'd like to pretend, you'd be using a can-and-string system to communicate rather than all these computers that simplify things for you.
In short, you're an idiot.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Streak failed because it was just plain not good.
This a thousand thousand times. I've walked several people into Best Buy who were ready to buy tablets and explained the pros and cons of the various models. Not a single person has given the Streak a second glance. They usually go for the Transformer.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
Also, it was one of the many pre- Honeycomb Android tablets that never really caught on... Had the device been a Honeycomb device from the get-go (not possible given its release date...) it probably would have done much better.
Dell has, in general, failed to execute properly when it comes to Android. The Streak 5 was "meh" and didn't catch on, while Samsung's Galaxy Note is proving popular. Similarly, the Streak 7 was a dud, while Samsung's Galaxy Tab series did well enough to spawn a variety of Honeycomb devices in multiple screen sizes (10.1, 8.9, and the new 7.0 Plus).
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
err, turd in a white box? First gen AppleTV, iPod HiFi... I could name a few actual turds in a white box with fruit stamped on the side.
The audience for any given apple product isn't preexisting because we're all hard wired to automatically lust after anything from Cupertino.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Even my HTC Rhodium running xdandroid (about as far from an officially supported Android port as one can get - the device was a native Windows Mobile device and had a fairly weak CPU) had no problem scrolling through menus.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I beg to differ..they *can* be a full blown tablet.
You root them and put cyanogenmod7 on them and voila...great little tablet.
Isn't the e-ink screen going to make it painful for a lot of functions, though?
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I have a netbook I almost never touch, and a Galaxy Tab 10.1 with a Bluetooth keyboard. There is one main reasn I use the Tab 10.1 - portability.
Portability is not just about the size - the Tab 10.1 is a little better than the netbook in size but not by much.
Where it blows away the netbook in portability is turn-on time and battery life - It gets the same "screen on" time as the netbook, but unlike the netbook, I can put it to sleep and wake it up in less than a second, and its battery life while sleeping is VERY good (maybe 5%/day sleep drain).
As a result I rarely need to carry a charger around, and when I get somewhere, I can immediately turn it on and start using it.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Where's your evidence to back this?
If Asus Transformers weren't shipping, then why was it impossible to order one that wasn't being price-scalped for at least 2-3 months after release? Even the traditional "non-scalping" vendors like Amazon were selling for $20-30 above MSRP.
Even after devices stopped being unobtainium, accessories were selling like crazy - even in June it was impossible to find chargers for the device.
Similarly - you are utterly and completely deluded if you think that a manufacturer would keep shipping tablets that weren't selling, and that retailers would keep these devices on the shelves. If you seriously think this is possible, I have one word for you: Touchpad.
Do you REALLY think Samsung is stupid enough to release two new tablet variants (the Tab 8.9 and the Tab 7.0 Plus) if the Tab 10.1 isn't selling well? If there's so little demand for the Tab 10.1, why is Apple so afraid of it?
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Those are mostly phones, not tablets. I actually quite like most Android phones, but the tablet experience has not been a good one (I'm on my second, now, a Xoom, after the failure that was the Optimus Pad). Android fans need to be honest with themselves: the product was rushed out the door by Google, and made worse by OEM incompetence/indifference/opportunism.
I am hoping ICS helps out, but I was not at all impressed with Honeycomb, to the point where I thought the PlayBook was a better experience for casual use.
--srj/mmv
Ok, Sheldon, I meant "tablet."
Stupid sexy Flanders.
I wasn't "being stupid". This is a discussion about the Steak 7, which is a tablet. The post I replied to was about the Xoom, which is a tablet. I referenced the Transfomer and the PlayBook, which are tablets.
There's no conflation of the two going on.
And yes, you're right to note that, while Android works very well on phones, it's been, well, let's be honest, a commercial failure on tablets, with even the best-of-breed examples competing on price and selling only when they hit fire-sale pricetag levels, and that the reason isn't due to marketing or consumer stupidity, but because the product really hasn't been very competitive, and that's the fault of Google and the OEMs.
And no, that's not the case with Android phones because the OEMs seem to try harder and Google's offering doesn't have that "premature" feeling.
--srj/mmv
Android tablets are being subsidized by carriers. The iPad is not.
--srj/mmv
IDC. The same place the person i responded to got the iPad share figures from.
If that were true why did the iPad marketshare increase by 3% in the same quarter?
just the phrase itself, "most people are below average," is a contradiction. translation: "average people are below average."
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
My bad...I read the parent as using a Nook Color...not the eInk thing....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Fuck this absolutely stupid argument.
Do you really think all those tablet manufacturers make money from showing big numbers? No, they make money from selling, and if it doesn't sell, they pull it, just like Dell did. The same argument was raised about Android smartphones, but oddly enough we don't hear it all that much nowadays.
In making your rant against Android fanboys (apparently anyone who doesn't have a problem with their Android phone is a fanboy...) you come across as the worst stereotype of an Apple fanboy.
When you show me one Android device that doesn't have OBVIOUS UI lag in scrolling, then ... and ONLY then will I even consider the idea that Android may eventually one day be comparable to iOS
Really? So it doesn't matter whether your device loses all signal when you hold it wrong, or if it churns through its battery in under a day after a software update, or if it prevents you from installing any apps that compete with those published by its maker, no, none of these matter. The sole criteria on which to judge the worthiness of a mobile platform is a minor graphical bug that has no real bearing on usability.
And if anybody claims that actually, they haven't seen that particular bug on their device, they're an ignorant fanboy whose opinion can be discounted.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
They should be hoping so, as Windows Phone tablets is a total branding breakdown that's just out the door for a brand name that's a refresh of a brand name that's a refresh of a brand name.
Yeah, because a netbook is so great for reading magazines in portrait mode on.
Nah. NO SALE.
My bad...I read the parent as using a Nook Color...not the eInk thing....
Ya I actually researched it a little. Cyanogenmod doesn't currently have a version that will run on a Touch at all. There was some interest in the forums, but even more comments wondering how useful it would even be...
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I downloaded an app for Streak 7 that let me browse my directory tree, get to my SD card and move a pdf over to my tablet and view it with the acrobat viewer app I downloaded.
When you can do that with an ipad with out hacking the tar out of it, I might think about upgrading.
I just use cloudreader, and upload stuff from whereever I get it up the http interface (make the right clicks on cloudreader and it acts as a http server for anything else on its network). Simple fast easy don't need to fiddle with SD cards.
The main reason to respond is your subtle Freudian slip there "I might think about upgrading". In other words, even to you, an ipad is an upgrade from android...
Note that every "non-glowing positive" comment about android tablets is automatically assumed to be a ipad fanboy. That was not my intent. All I'm saying is the original poster is completely wrong, the market has not shown a lack of interest in android tablets, its shown a lack of interest in OVERPRICED android tablets. There is intense staggering market demand when android tablets are closed out or discontinued at a reasonable price.
Some day my ipad-1 will die. Cracked, or the 43 step battery replacement procedure freaks me out, or whatever. I might buy another ipad, might buy an android tablet. But theres no way in heck I'm buying an overpriced android tablet. A properly priced android tablet, maybe ... maybe. But I'm not paying 4 times what I think its worth.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Or to put it in a different way, people are not willing to spend more on a lesser known quantity. Lets face it, Apple have become very well known the last couple of years...
Folks in the PC market were trained for years that "yeah an intel mac is just a PC but you pay twice the cost of the hardware to get the OSX software".
OK... for the sake of this argument I'll say I believe that. Personally I think it's wrong, but its a very popular viewpoint. I'll run with it and pretend.
So, the $400 ipad comes out. I've been trained that means the hardware costs $200 and you're paying $200 for the fancy apple software. OK here comes this android thing that is all free and open and stuff. That means I'll still be paying $200 for the hardware, but it'll be free software like linux and so I expect to pay $200 for this android tablet. What you say? List price $600 for the android tablet? F it, I'm not paying any more than $250 for it at most, I'm getting a "fairer" deal with the ipad.
Actually this is a pretty good question. How come ipads are not dramatically more expensive than android tablets? A kindle Fire should cost about as much as a "Regular old Kindle".. right? Its just a different software load, at least to a non-technical user. But no, its like twice as much... F that, I'm either buying a plain Kindle or a full fledged ipad. Remember the market placement disaster of the Edsel?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Fair enough. I did not quite get that you were speaking about tablet Android specifically, though in retrospect I should have. The main thrust of my argument was about the silliness in taking the overall Android "activations" and taking that to mean that Android tablets are doing well in the market.
I have to say, Mac servers spew so much heat out of the back end we needed a spot cooler just for them.
Beyond that your list is fair.
I often find my GF's android incredibly sluggish. I've seen some nice ones around the office, but they seem to be the exception, rather then the expectation.
I don't know about that. I remember accidentally changing the hd settings in the bios (200MB in a 25MHz 486) and the packard bell phone tech actually walked me through fixing it. He didn't even need to transfer me.
Trained? I priced out a Macbook Pro 15 similar to the XPS 15 I purchased. Same i7 CPU. 4gb RAM instead of 6gb on my Dell. Slightly larger-but-slower HDD and better graphics card. No bluray on either. Final cost? $2199 for the Apple. $899 for the Dell. That's over double the cost with the Mac lacking USB 3.0 and e-Sata ports.
The reason why iPads aren't more expensive than Android tablets is that Android tablet makers thought they could price the same as Apple and do well. Apple set the tablet pricing and others followed rather than realizing they should be setting lower rather than even with Apple.
Actually, Android devices sold quite well when priced well. Best Buy had Acer A100 7" tabs for $189 and 10" Acer A500 tabs selling for $229. They had the Asus Transformer up for $250 for Black Friday and currently have it for $299. Newegg sold out on the Toshiba Thrive instantly as did Amazon when they put it up, both at $199. Kmart sold out on their mis-price of the Acer A500 as well at $212 or so.
Android devices can sell. It's just that makers are going to need to realize that people aren't willing to pay the $500 for an Android tablet that they are for an Apple tablet.
That said, I think Google needs to work on it if they want a decent shot at the tablet market. One thing I've been hearing more and more are comments regarding Windows 8 tablets. Even with the atrocious metro UI, the ability to switch to a full-blown OS with plenty of app selection is enticing for many.
Dell doesn't know what they are doing, aren't making the KINDS of Android devices that people want, and not at the prices people want.
Sorry, but that doesn't make "failure of the Android device to catch on with consumers" an accurate statement. The correct statement is "Dell fails at figuring out how to make compelling Android devices that people want". Big difference.
Wow, way to state your incouragble bias right at the end there. It sounds like, in your eyes, the only "right" way is the Apple way. You'd fit right in on the ID side of an evolution debate...
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
2013? That's a long way off, and predictions like this always have a way of failing.
The problem is that there's really no money in Android tablets unless you're Google.
I think this is the point. People don't buy Android phones - cell phone carriers do. They roll the phone into the cost of the plan.
About the only phones that people actually pay cash for, up front, before the plan is even activated, are iPhones.
The XPS is a big, thick, ugly, hunk of plastic shit. It's a fucking Dell man.
Yes, you can get a thicker, plastic Dell for less than a Macbook Pro. This has always been true. If you start looking at the thinner, lighter laptops that are made of real metal, the ones that are actually crafted to compete with Apple's laptops instead of with the generic Winblowz hunks of creaking shit out there, they cost the same or more than the Apples. If you add in the cost of Windows Ultimate (IE something with almost all the functionality of OS X instead of a neutered starter OS with training wheels) you will exceed the Apple option in cost.
The Mac Pro. I have yet to find a workstation comparable to a Mac Pro in the last few years.
Btw I have my own operating system project. :)
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
Which of course points to the reason Dell is dropping Android tablets, it is finding it difficult to compete directly against the ODMs, Other Device Manufacturers, the companies who actually make computers. Apple is in the same sinking boat, it is inevitable that the ODMs will win, when it all becomes about reaching price/hardware performance points.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I'm no Apple fanboy, but how can you respond like that? He just said that if a modern OS cannot perform smooth scrolling, it's a shitty OS, and I'd agree. People have standards when it comes to UI, and it's nothing to do with the "Apple way"... unless of course you've become accustomed to the high interface standards Apple are known for and hence are less tolerable than Linux users I guess.
To all newcomers - people here are very close-minded and can't handle complaints about Linux. Keep this in mind.
Try the XPS 15z. Metal case. Same weight and thickness as a Macbook Pro. Still much less. $1299 vs. $2249. Twice the RAM, 1080p screen, USB 3.0 and e-Sata ports on the Dell. Better graphics card, Firewire and Thunderbolt on the MBP.
> Even with the atrocious metro UI, the ability to switch to a full-blown OS with plenty of app selection is enticing for many.
Except of course WE know that is a lie. Tablets with x86 processors are heavy beasts with short battery life and ARM tablets only get Metro instead of the full Windows desktop. I suspect there will be much wailing when end users plump down premium cash for em and then realize they have the smallest app base of any of the tablets while the marketing whispered sweet promises of it being "Windows."
Of course if Intel actually manages to get a CPU that can compete with ARM everything changes. But they have been throwing Sagans of cash at the power problem now for years with little to show for it. A 'low power' netbook or even ultrabook has several times the battery capacity of a large tablet's power source and compared to a phone it isn't even close. Most people's smart phone has a couple (as in way under ten) of Watt/Hours in the battery and that has to run several (2G, 3G, 4G, WiFi, BT, GPS, NFC, FM) radios, four or more processing cores (my cheap ass phone has modem CPU, modem DSP, GPU, CPU, DSP) and keep the DRAM refreshing, run the backlight, etc. And a phone really needs to be able to make it through most days without a recharge during the day. No way Intel plays with what is left over in that power budget anytime soon with a chip powerful enough to run Win8. They might manage the larger tablet form factors but phones are just not in the cards.
Democrat delenda est
Unless you NEED an unlocked phone paying full price is silly. By the way there are plenty of people who buy android phones off contract. This is a marketing/sociology issue where part of the aura of apple is price. It's a luxury item & draws a certain crowd. I'm not against them, they're perfectly fine people. But I see no reason to be proud you paid more or your item has bigger profit margins. I would rather buy what I want & live my life.
Honest to god I hope somebody gouges your eye out for such an incredulous remark. "Ugly hunk of plastic!" First off the core chassis of the laptop is built on a metal frame so it doesn't warp or pop its chips. The crafted aluminum is still under patent & doesn't add that much in cost to the whole production. This is such a pointless argument. People who bought the new x86 OSX systems are buying equivalent PCs. You're welcome to pay more for perceived value but they do compare perfectly well. Don't try and claim because Apple dropped an extra 30 bucks on an aluminum shell they're uncomparable.
This is true, I own a Streak 5, but Dell has been absolutely terrible at providing support and Android updates to the device. They also shipped it with a completely horrendous UI called "Stage". The build quality was "OK" but not great, too. Dell just didn't properly perform in the market segment.
I will be switching to a Samsung Galaxy Note very soon, and there's quite a buzz about that tablet, and most of it seems to be simply because Samsung knows how to do Android well.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
This isn't true... enthusiasts, both Apple and Android, will pay cash for a handset upgrade just because they want the latest and greatest.
People who don't care will just go on a plan with their cell provider, and upgrade either when the plan expires, or when the phone breaks or becomes so old as to be useless.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
Since Apple runs on x86/x64 hardware nowadays, it's very easy to build or buy a system which is just as reliable from off the shelf parts or from an OEM.
Both sets of hardware will run Windows or Linux, which is a good way to remove OS disparity from the equation (OSX cannot be the reason why Apple is better, that's a jokable and trollish fanboy premise).
So, thinking about two systems, x86/64, same internal components, same OS, but one is white and has fruit on the cover.
Why is one twice as good as the other, again? I'm a bit lost.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
Your home brew is not a product from Dell or HP is it? You built it yourself. Hardly a comparison. I was comparing Apple to other computer manufacturers. If your labor is free (to you) and you are crafty and able to get the parts at good prices you can do better especially when you start loading up the upgrades. You won't have support of course. You'll be assuming the risk that some parts won't play well with other, drivers etc. The labor, risk and lack of support are costs too though different people value them differently. Most people aren't computer nerds so they won't want to take the same path as you. Tell me, can you build a laptop with 6 hours of battery life and all the other specs including weight and form factor of a Macbook Air or do you think that a plastic box with a monitor attached is the same thing?
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
I'm sure it had nothing to do with the almost complete lack of consumer interest in Android tablets.
Nice troll. So Dell jumping into Windows phone 7 indicates an acute sense of what consumers want rather than just the usual and well documented thuggery from Redmond?
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
You're certainly welcome to try to gouge my eyes out, tough guy.
My point is that a higher quality laptop made with actual metal, with a better battery, is going to cost more money.
The quality and parts in the build don't merit almost double the price. You're paying a high premium for the Apple brand. It happens on business all the time. Simply look to clothing for numerous examples of it. You're buying a designer computer and paying designer prices for it.
You're absolutely right people have standards, and the scrolling issue is ridiculous at best. My personal phone is a Samsung Moment and my work phone is a Motorola Atrix, both run Android, and neither have scrolling issues. I'll admit the Moment can get sluggish at times, this is not unique to Android as I've seen the same thing on iPhones.
Parent was speaking how GPs claims were so ridiculous that they'd fit right in with the ID crowd. Given how trollish the comment was, I think this is fair.
Also note, OS X lion on a sufficiently old machine will perform like a dog, same with IOS 5 on iPhone 3GS. So again, statement is just inflammatory, if the hardware is insufficient for the software then it's understandable that there is lag.
Why is why I don't post that much on Internet forums (well, such that I don't take things seriously here). You can't get any serious discussion over such things - people are accusing everyone about being fanboys or trolls. Sometimes it's justified, while other times it's just a lashing out against anyone who has a different opinion which they don't want to hear and be exposed to. Honest discussion and discourse is impossible with emotional topics like politics and computing... and just about everything I guess.
To all newcomers - people here are very close-minded and can't handle complaints about Linux. Keep this in mind.
It's the combination of having a machine that's half as thick, has twice the battery, and has a real OS that you are paying for.
http://armdevices.net/2011/12/06/ice-cream-sandwich-preview-on-archos-g9/
looks plenty snappy to me.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
I think there have been actual teardowns of the Apple products that looked at the various components and found the costs of them totaled up to the $200 region.
I think one possible issue is that a lot of the companies involved as phone manufacturers, not computer manufacturers. As such, they are used to (at least in USA) have the carriers act as intermediaries. The carriers absorb the upfront cost, and spread it out over the contract years.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Samsung Galaxy GT-i5500 ... no UI lag
When you show me one Android device that doesn't have OBVIOUS UI lag in scrolling, then ... and ONLY then will I even consider the idea that Android may eventually one day be comparable to iOS.
Android kicks iOS around the block already. My Xoom is silky smooth. Sometimes I use an iPad and it drives me nuts. Browsing response is terrible compared to the Xoom on the same network, going to the same sites. The iOS UI is actually quite crappy when you strip away the fandom.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Remember the market placement disaster of the Edsel?
No. Nor do I remember Woodstock, hoop skirts, the Kennedy assassinations or the moon shot. The implication being I grew up with computers after punch cards but before mice and once foreign cars became common. Maybe the downfall of Detroit could be traced back to the malformed son of Ford?
Win 8 will have a huge instant ecosystem
True, Windows 8 for x86 will, but I predict Windows 8 for ARM will have as much "instant ecosystem" as Windows Phone 7 had at launch for the following reason:
as well as access to all the current corporate software and developers
Only for those developers who choose to port their applications to Windows 8 for ARM. Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6 had Rosetta, a dynamic-recompiling emulator to run PowerPC applications on Intel Macs. But Microsoft has no plan to introduce a counterpart to Rosetta to run off-the-shelf applications designed for Windows for x86 on Windows 8 for ARM. If they decline, Windows 8 for ARM won't have as much software.
I got a touchpad on firesale because I wasn't willing to spend the current going rate on a tablet. I still think an iPad is overpriced for what you get. The fact that others haven't been able to do it for less doesn't change my perception.
If the touchpad hadn't gone on sale, I probably still wouldn't have a tablet.
He clearly states that even if you present him with something that does scroll perfectly, it won't because it wasn't done "right", aka the Apple way, and anyone who disagrees is essentially an oblivious idiot. I had an iPhone 3G, a Nexus One, and now a Samsung Galaxy S II. The SGS2 scrolls just as "perfectly" as the 3G did as well as the iPhone 4's (haven't seen a 4S) that I've compared it to.
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
The Galaxy Note is a Galaxy S II with a higher CPU clock, 720p screen, and the Wacom pen interface added.
Even if they completely fuck up the pen interface, the remainder of the Note is a refinement of one of Samsung's top sellers.
And yes - Samsung does know how to do Android well. The biggest flaws in my I777 are all problems that were inflicted by AT&T.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Please carefully read my post before fanboy kneejerk. I mentioned quite clearly that you can buy an OEM system which is easily on par with the same components in an Apple PC built by the same manufacturers like Foxconn, just like the off the shelf parts are also made by the same group of manufacturers.
The only difference is the white plastic.
If you're not sure about what you're trying to say, go research fail rates and warranty return rates on Apple stuff compared to other major OEMs. It might teach you something.
And please, don't go comparing an apple laptop to a generic desktop PC as if that's some kind of valid comparison.
And don't go suggesting that because someone doesn't want to pay twice as much as they should for a white PC with an apple logo on it, they're a computer nerd. It just digs you deeper into the apple fanboy hole you live in.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
It was more an exaggeration of feeling. Lord knows if I were to actually gouge your eyes out it would have to be for something more deserving than a simple value judgment rationale. First off: Actual metal? Once again, the core of every laptop EVER made is of metal to avoid flex and destroying the motherboard. Second: Better battery life? I understand the Air has a tremendous battery life but the Macbook and Pro line are just about average for equivalent models and size.
The upgrades do cost money but for half the thickness all you need to do is build a single board instead of using daughter boards like most manufacturers do so they can offer customization. In other words: If you want choice you end up with thickness. Twice the battery life is really only in the Air which is $1000 minimum, so for that amount you could easily buy a $500 model and invest in a spare battery or even two that work just as well and extend your range. I doubt you're carrying around your laptop in a manilla sleeve so the extra size and weight of a battery should be minimal. As for a "real OS" I would believe that the OSX due to it's utter lack of support for most business, science, and academic apps is lacking. It's a minority subset of the whole, dwelling somewhere in the Linux-sized territory for elites who can afford to drop twice the amount on equivalent hardware. Critical mass or not, a software community cannot be supported by a rich minority if it ever wants to blossom into a dominant OS. Thus your argument at best is weak.
Remember the market placement disaster of the Edsel?
No.
Cool, now history can repeat, at great profit to those who know and understand history. We love that in the "computer" business. Or any business.
The Edsel disaster was a very large and very public example of a world market leader trying to sell a midrange product too cheap to be a luxury good and too expensive to be a daily driver commuter for the masses. A pretty good tech analogy would be an Android Streak 7 tablet... Not cheap enough to be competitive against "kindle with spam" and not nearly good enough to be an ipad killer.
One line summary is that finding a gap in the market, does NOT mean automatic profit if you attempt to fill that gap, no matter how big of a "market leader" you are.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger