Asus Announces x86 Transformer

MrSeb writes with the scoop on Asus's new Transformer tablet/laptop devices: "If you've ever looked at an Asus Transformer and wished that it was slightly bigger, had an x86 processor, and ran Windows, I have good news: At Computex in Taiwan, Asus has unveiled just that. Dubbed the Transformer Book, this isn't some wimpy Atom-powered thing either: This Transformer will ship with a range of Ivy Bridge Core i3/5/7 processors and discrete Nvidia graphics. Like its Android-powered predecessors, the Transformer Book is a touchscreen tablet computer that plugs into keyboard docking station, effectively becoming a laptop (or ultrabook, if you prefer). Rounding out the specs, the Transformer Book will come in a range of models (11.6, 13, and 14 inches), your choice of SSD or HDD, up to 4GB of RAM. All three models will have an IPS display capable of full HD (1920×1080). There's a webcam on the front of the tablet portion of the Transformer, and a 5-megapixel shooter on the back. There's no mention of wireless connectivity, but presumably there's Bluetooth and WiFi; on the wired side, there seems to be only a single micro-HDMI socket (on the tablet), and a USB socket (on the keyboard/dock). On the software side, the Transformer Book will of course run Windows 8. It all sounds great — but Asus kept one tiny tidbit out of its presentation: battery life." Aside from the Nvidia graphics (which, from the looks of it, can be disabled for the on-chip output), perhaps this could be the first "tablet" capable of running fully Free Software? (UEFI evil aside).

Comments

is that a mac book air

[Anonymous Coward]

in the photo? or do apple not enforce copyright or design patents anymore?

Re:is that a mac book air

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck with a functionally wildly different product that might be deriving from ASUS' Seashell as much as anything from Apple.

Re:is that a mac book air

[Anonymous Coward]

in the photo?

No, the fit and finish on the MBA is much higher.

Re:is that a mac book air

[Anonymous Coward]

The photo is wrong. That's not the Asus Transformer. That's the Asus Decepticon.

Re:is that a mac book air

[Solandri]

Contrary to Apple marketing, the ultraslim notebook existed long before the Macbook Air. Here's the notebook I was using in 2000. Sharp came out with this model in 2001. "But those don't taper towards the front like the MBA!" you say? Apple wasn't the first with that either. Take a look at Sony's X505 from 2004.

BTW, all of those fit into a manilla envelope. Apple was just the first to think of doing that as a marketing gimmick. The people who think the MBA invented the form factor remind me of the people in 1995 who thought Microsoft invented the Internet because the first time they got online was with Windows 95. Just because the first place they saw something was on an Apple/Microsoft product, they think that's who invented it.

Re:is that a mac book air

[Bill_the_Engineer]

I think the grand parent was commenting about the design elements of the notebook. You know the black border around the display, the trackpad placement, the keyboard design and color, the aluminum like finish of the laptop body and the edge-to-edge glass on the clamshell.

The very things that make the Asus x86 transformer look very very similar to an Apple MacBook Air.

Re:is that a mac book air

[shutdown -p now]

Edge-to-edge glass on the screen is pretty much a necessity for Win8, since it uses a lot of "swipe from edge" gestures - so you need for the glass to extend beyond the screen.

Re:is that a mac book air

[Anonymous Coward]

let's give the fanboi +5 whilst the one with a brain and evidence gets next to nothing

G-d I love /.

Re:is that a mac book air

[nobodie]

my WeTab with a bluetooth keyboard and mouse and touchscreen running Fedora 16 last Christmas wins in that category. There are a few other people who did it as well, I followed their lead

Yeah, but

[sbrown7792]

Can it run Crysis?

Re:Yeah, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Will it blend ?

11.6” with full HD

[anss123]

That’s 189 DPI. Not too shabby, and here I was looking at a 1366x768.

This might just be my new laptop.

Re:11.6” with full HD

[bemymonkey]

Now if only it had a Trackpoint and was a ThinkPad :-D

In all seriousness though: If you don't need the tablet part, check out asus's ivy bridge zenbooks... Same resolution without all the uselessness :-P

Re:11.6” with full HD

[anss123]

I gave it a quick look. The zenbooks has 4+ hrs of battery life, promising as the transformer may be similar there, but the display is glossy. The review said that the gloss was toned down, but I don't know what lays in that.

I got an iPad2 here, and that display is too glossy for my taste, but less glossy than my laptop.

Also, I would like touch. It's nice for scrolling webpages at least, though I don't know how well Windows pulls it off.

Re:11.6” with full HD

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel HD Graphics 3000 is the definition of useless. Here's proof - 250 other graphics chips are faster. A few of those are several years old and can be found in a $300 refurbished laptop, like the x83vm-x1. If you need battery life, just buy more batteries ($40 each).

Re:11.6” with full HD

[Sycraft-fu]

Depending on what you want, some resellers offer different screens for laptops. Xoticpc is one such place that despite the silly name does a good job. They are where I got my laptop from. When it is available, they offer multiple screen options for a laptop. The one I ordered (a big Sager laptop) had 4 choices, two matte two glossy.

So if you have a display preference, they can be a place to check out (there are other shops like them). They sell mostly MSI, ASUS, and Sager laptops. Not every laptop has screen options, but quite a few do.

Re:11.6” with full HD

[Anonymous Coward]

Pffft, my 10+ year old laptop has a 1600x1200 screen.

LCD's are the only computer related hardware technology I can think of that have gotten worse over time. The main problem is apparently the use of LCD's in TV's which cause manufacturers to focus on crappy low-res TV screens then use the same screens as shitty computer monitors.

Re:11.6” with full HD

[Anonymous Coward]

Your math needs work.

1920x1080 = 2073600 pixels
1600x1200.= 1920000 pixels

Re:11.6” with full HD

[Hatta]

LCD's are the only computer related hardware technology I can think of that have gotten worse over time.

As opposed to computer related software technology, that gets worse as a matter of course.

Re:11.6” with full HD

[Anonymous Coward]

If you need battery life, just buy more batteries ($40 each).

Magical weightless batteries that take up no space? I'll take fifty!!!

Oh, wait - you are talking about regular laptop batteries. P'raps you don't understand the usefulness of a small, lightweight computer.

As for graphic performance, who cares? Fancy graphics are for children playing games. CLIs render just fine on the Intel chipset, and with Keith Packard's drivers GUI rendering's not too shabby either.

Re:11.6” with full HD

[Anonymous Coward]

Pffft, my 10+ year old laptop has a 1600x1200 screen.

LCD's are the only computer related hardware technology I can think of that have gotten worse over time

Perhaps you'd care to name a laptop that has resolution higher than 1080p? I can't seem to find any.

As for LCD panels, there have been very few with higher resolution than 1080p, and they tended to be very expensive (thus not mass-market).

Even HDTVs have come down hugely in price. The resolution-to-cost of LCD panels has got much much better over the last 10 years.

Re:11.6” with full HD

[man_of_mr_e]

The Zenbooks don't have capacitive touch screens, nor do they detach the keyboard to make the main unit a tablet.

Re:11.6” with full HD

[shutdown -p now]

I gave it a quick look. The zenbooks has 4+ hrs of battery life, promising as the transformer may be similar there

I'd expect Transformer to have more, for two reasons. First, it has two sets of batteries, one in the dock, and one in the tablet itself. Today, this gives ARM-based Transformers enough juice to run for 15-16 hours. Second, they have two versions - one is a full-fledged Core i5, and the other one is Medfield. That second one would be less powerful (but how much do you really need from a tablet?), but the battery time should be close to what ARM devices offer.

Now comes the test of MS's EFI freedom pledge

[sethstorm]

If it's EFI setup is locked from the user, I wouldn't be surprised. Asus has done so for their later Transformer models, with no functionally equivalent alternative that does not have UEFI unlocked.

For those snarky folks who say "don't buy it", that doesn't work in practice. That requires a like-for-like alternative to exist which does not have the encumbrances of UEFI locks.

Re:Now comes the test of MS's EFI freedom pledge

[Robert Zenz]

For those snarky folks who say "don't buy it", that doesn't work in practice. That requires a like-for-like alternative to exist which does not have the encumbrances of UEFI locks.

To add a snarky comment, *not having one* should always be an alternative.

Re:Now comes the test of MS's EFI freedom pledge

[Billly Gates]

Let it go.

You can easily disable it and considering the BIOS still has OS/2 and Vesa options I highly doubt any manufactorer would do this. Remember Windows XP does not support EFI nor secureBoot and would make many users and corporations who are cheap skates upset.

Windows 7 supports SecureBoot as well if you really hate Windows 8 so much. This is fud

Re:Now comes the test of MS's EFI freedom pledge

[tepples]

If one chooses not to buy a computer, then how should one read and post to Slashdot? Or what did I misunderstand?

Re:Now comes the test of MS's EFI freedom pledge

[couchslug]

"For those snarky folks who say "don't buy it", that doesn't work in practice. "

Works fine in MY practice.

Re:Now comes the test of MS's EFI freedom pledge

[internerdj]

On your work machine like the rest of Slashdot.

Re:Now comes the test of MS's EFI freedom pledge

[shutdown -p now]

If it's EFI setup is locked from the user, I wouldn't be surprised.

I would, given that Microsoft hardware certification requirements for x86 mandate that Secure Boot can be disabled by the user.

No, not the first...

[Cyclops]

perhaps this could be the first "tablet" capable of running fully Free Software?

Hardly, for instance... take my tablet, a WeTab. It's a keyboad-less netbook, and has run Fedora 15, 16 and now the just released 17.

And it won't be the first, as if it uses nVidia, then it'll hardly run well with fully free software.

Re:No, not the first...

[k(wi)r(kipedia)]

As a company, nVidia doesn't play too nice with free and Open Source software. Then again, they don't sue the pants off the software developers either, so you can mod them neutral. But enough reverse engineering has been done to make most (save the latest and greatest) nVidia powered graphic processors run fairly well using non-proprietary drivers.

Re:No, not the first...

[Scoth]

Not to mention I've been running various Linuxes on tablets since at least the 486/40 Toshiba Dynapad T200CS still stuck in my closet. People seem to forget that tablets weren't invented when the iPad came out and have been around forever.

if it only runs windows8

[dutchwhizzman]

If it only runs windows8, there is plenty of reason not to buy it. I'm fairly certain that if it's not going to be able to do a downgrade to windows7, a lot of people will not want it because of the playskool interface. Asus will probably bring out a bios update to enable other OSes if that happens, so it won't be long before you can run something else on it.

Re:if it only runs windows8

[humanrev]

Hasn't the history of tablets taught you nothing? It's precisely the use of traditional operating systems grafted onto tablets which are the prime reason for their lackluster performance... at least until the iPad with a tablet-oriented interface.

Point being, the "playskool" interface makes perfect sense on a touch-based device. There's a reason most people believe Windows 8 has a much higher chance of success on tablets instead of on the desktop.

Re:if it only runs windows8

[Billly Gates]

Not true.

Windows 7 SP 1 runs with secureBoot and EFI fine. Also every single EFI implementation has an option to disable it since XP is still heavily used and will be used for many years just like OS/2 options are still in many bioses today.

Re:if it only runs windows8

[Anonymous Coward]

Except this is one PC that the Windows 8 Metro interface makes perfect sense on.

Re:if it only runs windows8

[gl4ss]

it's a x86 windows machine. NOT A STINKING WINDOWS RT PIECE OF CRAP(which mandates lockdown).

Re:if it only runs windows8

[SuricouRaven]

Trying to use a desktop interface on a tablet or vice versa is just painful. Witness Unity or Metro and the amount of angry they both inspired.

Re:if it only runs windows8

[DrXym]

Metro is inspiring anger not for being a tablet interface but for treating desktop users as second class citizens and for essentially deprecating classic Windows altogether. I think Metro could work pretty well on a desktop if it offered functionality analogous to the start menu but it doesn't. Everything is shoehorned into the flat, linear tile metaphor and collision between the old and new world looks terrible.

Re:if it only runs windows8

[Anonymous Coward]

If it only runs windows8, there is plenty of reason not to buy it. I'm fairly certain that if it's not going to be able to do a upgrade to windows7, a lot of people will not want it because of the playskool interface. Asus will probably bring out a bios update to enable other OSes if that happens, so it won't be long before you can run something else on it.

FTFY

Re:if it only runs windows8

[Anonymous Coward]

Metro should run as an application inside Windows, the same way we can run Android apps on Windows. Instead they put windows inside of this tablet-oriented application. The management team is clearly insane.

Re:if it only runs windows8

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words the same thing GNOME did.

The setup suck for multiple monitor use and other normal workstation usage.

Bunch of morons, the whole lot of 'em.

Re:if it only runs windows8

[DrXym]

Er no, nothing like GNOME did. First off there is a very loose coupling on Linux between the desktop and the apps that run inside it mostly via protocols developed by freedesktop.org. So if you don't like GNOME3 as your desktop you are free to use any other desktop but with the same apps. You can even have more than one desktop available in the same dist if you want. Secondly, GNOME 3 is first and foremost about the desktop experience, not tablet experience. It is clearly got aspirations to be usable with tablets but it's nowhere close to that yet. Thirdly, GNOME 3 is rather well implemented and pretty elegant. It's certainly not without its faults (Linus went into a valid rant about some of them the other day) but it has well thought out workflows and works well. Fourth if you really hate some particular behaviour and don't want to switch outright you can write an extension to change it. The Mint distribution have customised GNOME 3 so much it more closely resembles GNOME 2 while benefiting from compositing and all the rest.

So no nothing like GNOME.

Re:if it only runs windows8

[NotQuiteReal]

Windows 8 looks pretty much like Windows 7, if you turn off the "Metro" Interface.

Windows 7 = ver 6.1
Windows 8 = ver 6.2

Edit "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RPEnabled" to have a value of 0 and reboot. Now the start button works like you want. You don't have to leave the desktop. Put Metro back by setting it to 1, of course.

I think "metro" is an apt name - it is basic transportation for the smelly masses, and you only see it when it is in your way, or you want to be somewhere else. That said, it is a good interface for people who mostly do just a few things.

I haven't used Win8 much yet, but it seems pretty snappy - who knows maybe Microsoft made it more efficient for tablets, but you can get the benefits using it like a desktop.

Re:if it only runs windows8

[Anonymous Coward]

Edit "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RPEnabled" to have a value of 0 and reboot. Now the start button works like you want. You don't have to leave the desktop. Put Metro back by setting it to 1, of course.

That only worked in the old Developer Preview.

Re:if it only runs windows8

[Miamicanes]

Microsoft has a knack for foisting inappropriate user interfaces on victims. Witness Windows Mobile, which was actually a very good mobile OS underneath its hideously dysfunctional skin, but was completely unusable "out of the box" in any efficient or pleasant manner. Nontechnical users bought WinMo phones, fought with them for a few hours, then angrily took them back to the store. More motivated users spent a month tweaking them, and eventually ended up with a phone that was quite nice & a definite step up from both the early iPhones and the last PalmOS phones. Web developers had nightmares about the possibility that Microsoft could have purchased Macromedia before Adobe did, because they knew Microsoft would have completely destroyed Dreamweaver (the one truly heavy-duty web editor out there, designed for the needs of users who go to work and spend their day doing high-end web design and NOT designed to accommodate middle-management users who want to "edit web pages" and have it work like Word) if they ever got their hands on it. And now, the way Microsoft is trying to foist Metro off on PC users.

If Windows 8 had a nice way to run Metro apps (maybe adding a narrow vertical taskbar-like area to one side of the screen) in a way that didn't interfere with core Windows use or try to make it the official Microsoft-sanctioned way of writing Windows apps, nobody would mind Metro. The problem is, they're trying to cripple DESKTOP Windows down to the level of a tablet.

IMHO, it's a suicidal strategy for Windows whose only "achievement" will be the rapid deprecation of the one realm where Microsoft enjoys unquestioned and nearly-total market domination. If Microsoft focused on keeping PCs as PCs, they'd eventually lose market share to tablets (possibly running IOS, Android, or Chrome) for users who aren't content creators, but they'd still totally own desktop PCs and could use Metro as a way of grabbing a share of the tablet market as well. As it stands, some year around 2018 very well might end up being the "Year of Desktop Linux", because they're going to end up driving content-creators and developers (at least, developers who aren't developing for Windows itself) away from Windows.

In the long run, I believe this will prove to be the great strength of open source software and operating systems like Linux. Ubuntu's corporate overlords might be equally insane, but there's nothing to stop Ubuntu users from kicking Unity to the curb and replacing it with KDE, Gnome, LXDE, or any other desktop environment of choice. If the divergence between the officially-sanctioned user environment and what actual users want becomes too great, users can give Ubuntu the finger and go their own way. That's not the case with Windows. If Microsoft decides that Windows 10 will eliminate the desktop PC metaphor altogether... it's gone, and the only alternative will be to stick with an older version of Windows until Microsoft takes the activation servers offline and quits reactivating old copies. Speaking of which... check the EULAs for Windows 8, 9, and beyond carefully.

I'm expecting Microsoft to change their licensing model at any time to one where you're merely licensing "Windows" for a specific PC, and they have the right to refuse to activate old copies of Windows at all after some date in return for free upgrades to newer versions of Windows. Regulators will love it, because it would technically be a great deal for average consumers. Microsoft would love it, because it would mean they could write off and officially quit supporting old versions of Windows a year or two after they come out with a new version... and prevent a future repeat of their "XP Problem" from happening, by ensuring that XP installations on computers that die "stay dead" instead of getting resurrected on a new Mobo, or surviving a major videocard & hard drive upgrade.

Re:if it only runs windows8

[phantomfive]

I think Metro could work pretty well on a desktop if it offered functionality analogous to the start menu but it doesn't.

Let's be honest, the Start Menu is a horrible hack that is useful only because it's hard to find where the Applications are stored on the hard drive (do you know where the Notepad binary is?) It's something people have gotten used to, but it's not something that is any way a great example of UI design.

There are other serious problems with Windows 8, but if they can get rid of the start menu, they should.

Re:if it only runs windows8

[SuricouRaven]

Nothing wrong with the idea of an application menu. It works. It's efficient, it's fast. The big annoyance for me with the windows start menu is the breaking of the cardinal rule of interface design: consistancy. Things move around. For example, I am in the habbit at work of bringing up a remote desktop client with ctrl-esc R. That used to work. Then I ran another program starting with R, and the menu rearranged itsself, and ctrl-esc R did something else entirely! That should not happen. Metro takes the thing even further though, with the whole layout shifting around unpredictably as the interface tries to guess what I want.

The best alternative to a menu would be an auto-completing text launcher, but tha wouldn't work well on a tablet at all.

Re:if it only runs windows8

[Tough Love]

the "playskool" interface makes perfect sense on a touch-based device

And Windows loses its one strong point - familiarity. Leaving it with short battery life and most likely scary heat issues.

By the way, I like my travelling arrangement with my Xoom a lot more that the transformer's snap-together concept. For me, operating on an airliner fold out tray is a prime requirement and the Transformer loses two ways: 1) the screen can't be moved around independently of the keyboard and 2) the trackpad adds a lot of real estate to the keyboard that I don't need because I can just touch the screen (and get out a dedicated bluetooth trackpad when desk space is available). The airliner compatibility issue is also why battery life is important to me and why this Windows transformer simply will not do, even if it had a real OS.

Re:if it only runs windows8

[spire3661]

NOt only that, but the REASONS why they are doing it are jsut as ire-inspiring. They want to be just like apple with a locked down platform so they are forcing Metro to be center stage. It has nothing to do with advancing the art of computing and everything to do with being able to sell 1s and 0s on an ongoing basis.

Re:if it only runs windows8

[mcgrew]

Edit "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RPEnabled" to have a value of 0 and reboot. Now the start button works like you want. You don't have to leave the desktop.

Um, you can reboot without leaving the desktop? Everything you had open before the reboot is open afterwards (like Linux does by default)?

Yeah, grandma's going to LOVE editing her registry. Odd how you Windows guys bash Linux because "oh noes! U haff two use teh COMMAND LINE!!" (Nope, you don't. And you have no stupid registry to edit and possibly screw your OS up enough to need a reinstall to boot, either).

Speaking of command lines, I was amused yesterday when someone clued me in to how to make it so you don't have to input a password on a W7 single user system. It (and I really laughed at this) entailed entering a command in Windows' command line!

You can switch from Gnome to Kubuntu with a single mouse click if you have both desktops installed. No registry hacks, no command line voodoo. It just works. Too bad Windows isn't so easy...

Re:if it only runs windows8

[Tough Love]

Trying to use a desktop interface on a tablet or vice versa is just painful.

Unsupportable claim. I have my Xoom set up so it's physically nearly the same as a netbook - portfolio case, bluetooth keyboard, bluetooth trackpad (coming soon). There is no reason whatsoever I can't run my usual desktop software on it and use it just as I always use it except that it isn't installed. BTW, I can type 60 wps on this, no problem, vs just a little more on a keyboard with full travel keys.

Re:if it only runs windows8

[Tough Love]

...60 wpm of course

Re:if it only runs windows8

[Anonymous Coward]

It's still not as bad as the Seinfeld advert with Bill Gates wiggling his backside.

Re:if it only runs windows8

[SuricouRaven]

Which makes good business sense. Microsoft learned with Vista that if they make a product 'good enough' then it can be very difficult to get people to upgrade to a successor, and forcing people to upgrade by ending support invokes much upset. Apple found a way to turn every device into not just a one-time sale but a continuous revenue stream by making themselves the middleman in associated services, requiring the user to go via their own sales channel for software and media. It's a very effective business model, and even if some of the end users feel rather disgusted by the idea that their own purchased hardware is locked-down and designed to sacrifice capability in order to extract more money from them it still makes the shareholders happy.

It's actually a pretty good idea

[Zouden]

At first I thought, who wants a hot Core i7 tablet running Windows when they can get a sleek iPad or Android device with 10 hours of battery? But it makes a lot more sense as a business laptop that can transform into a tablet (rather than the other way around). Many business users have a laptop dock on their desk and at the end of the day they disconnect and carry their laptop home to continue work, perhaps with another dock at home. This is an extension of that idea. When it's set up on the desk it's exactly like a laptop, running full Windows & whatever business software, but then the user can carry it to a meeting and use it like a tablet. I'd dare say it's then more useful than an iPad. The battery life will be the biggest killer though.

Re:It's actually a pretty good idea

[shutdown -p now]

Note that they're also offering a Medfield x86 version. This will be handy if you don't need to run heavy loads, but want something that works both as tablet and as a netbook with the ability to run any Windows app (if slow). And the battery life for that one should be on par with what ARM Transformers have today.

Fan?

[WillKemp]

But will it be fanless? For me, that's the main attraction of the Transformer.

And wished

[Anonymous Coward]

If you've ever looked at an Asus Transformer and wished that it was slightly bigger, had an x86 processor, and ran Windows...

... and then I wished that my boss fired me at work for being an Atheist, and I came home to find my dog run over by a pick-up truck parked in my drive way, and I went in the house to find my wife in bed with the redneck who owns the truck, and the redneck grabs his gun and shoots me in the nuts.

Well, on second thought, all of that would be better than running Windows.

Re:And wished

[humanrev]

It's as if people here are completely disconnected from the reality that a lot of people on a more reasonable site like ArsTechnica are and can't comprehend that something like Windows 7 is a very nice OS.

Re:And wished

[Anonymous Coward]

If you've ever looked at an Asus Transformer and wished that it was slightly bigger, had an x86 processor, and ran Windows...

... and then I wished that my boss fired me at work for being an Atheist, and I came home to find my dog run over by a pick-up truck parked in my drive way, and I went in the house to find my wife in bed with the redneck who owns the truck, and the redneck grabs his gun and shoots me in the nuts.

Well, on second thought, all of that would be better than running Windows.

Or, you could quit being a racist bigot, and go fuck yourself for equating running windows on a tablet with your "perceived" persecution for being an atheist (no capitalization) who doesn't own a truck. /fucking asshole

Re:And wished

[Anonymous Coward]

And people like you can't seem to get it that some other people don't agree. It's called an opinion and yours doesn't secede anyone elses.

Re:And wished

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 7 might very well be a nice OS.
Windows 8 on the otherhand is a different proposition.
An aussie friend of mine described it as good as a 'possum on a dunny'.

Re:And wished

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice FUD. Particularly when TFA says:

We donâ(TM)t have the exact dimensions, but the pictures suggest the tablet portion of the Transformer Book will be very similar to the iPad

But then again, that's allowed in /. summaries, because editors, just love speculation and FUD.

Re:And wished

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, for people who don't actually like to be productive.

I was a Windows power user long before I ever used a Unix, but can now say that I'm immeasurably more productive on Linux or OS X. I found the constant rearrangement of functionality between Windows releases to be infuriating and at the shell, the retarded tab-completion, forced quoting and the use of backslash as a directory delimiter make me want to pull my hair out.

I'm pretty sure that I can do almost any task faster from a Linux or OS X box than the most proficient user can on Windows. So, how is it a "very nice OS"?

Re:And wished

[phantomfive]

and can't comprehend that something like Windows 7 is a very nice OS.

"Very nice" as in, "not so incredibly ugly that it hurts my eyes the way XP did." Come on, it's still a complex, undiscoverable mess with strange design decisions. To set an environment variable, you have to right-click on the hard drive and go to advanced settings. How does that make any sense at all? Think of the horrid mess that is the registry, the difficulty of uninstalling things, think of the miserable default DOS shell (which incidentally, as simple as it is, has incompatibilities from one version of windows to another), the way applications are randomly installed all over the place (where is notepad installed?), and these are just the most understandable symptoms of a system that's a mess to the core. Can't delete files that are in use? Ugh.

If you are a person who cares about OSes because you like OSes, then you will not like Windows. On the other hand, if you only care about is finding the right icon in the start menu, then Windows 7 is fine. You are probably in the second category.

Re:And wished

[mcgrew]

Windows 7 is a very nice OS.

Only in comparison to other Microsoft operating systems. I don't find having to reboot at least twice a month nice, I don't find having to run AV nice, I don't find having to reopen all my apps after a forced reboot nice, I don't find having to reboot just because I installed an app nice, I don't find having to go to a command line to enable it to boot without a password nice, I don't find having to deal with a registry nice, I don't find not being able to turn off my notebook's tap-to-click "feature" from the control panel nice, I don't find having to relearn every damned thing after an upgrade nice, I don't find cleaning out crapware like toolbars and McAffee and Yahoo Messenger on a brand new machine nice, I don't find "do it the Microsoft way or don't do it at all" nice. Not the least bit nice.

Compared to previous Windows? Nice. Compared to any other OS? Not the least bit nice, unless by "nice" you mean "pretty", because W7 is indeed pretty, but I don't need my tools to be pretty. I feel sorry for those of you who have only used Windows. You don't know what you're missing.

Re:And wished

[Anonymous Coward]

To set an environment variable, you have to right-click on the hard drive

Didn't stop reading there but stopped caring about your opinion at this point. Please get your facts straight at least. The only one you got right was about the files being in use (which IS horrible and bad design but then the BSD I am writing this on also ain't perfect.).

Re:And wished

[humanrev]

Compared to previous Windows? Nice. Compared to any other OS? Not the least bit nice, unless by "nice" you mean "pretty", because W7 is indeed pretty, but I don't need my tools to be pretty. I feel sorry for those of you who have only used Windows. You don't know what you're missing.

Ha! You think I've only used Windows? Your premise seems to suggest that anyone who's used Linux would never willingly go back to Linux. There are plenty of people who've tried Linux and found it not to their liking. I'm one of them.

A lot of your complaints are trivial and show ignorance on how to do something rather than a flaw with Windows itself. Not knowing how to do something doesn't mean the underlying platform is rubbish, it just means you don't know (e.g. "I don't find having to go to a command line to enable it to boot without a password nice" -> easy enough to do in XP through to 7 the GUI). You have a mental blocker than prevents you from seeing Windows fairly compared to Linux. Perhaps you're more attuned to Linux, that's fine. But I can provide enough complains about Linux (which you'd disagree with) that prevent me from being productive enough to spend most of my time with it compared to Windows, so the issue of OS flamewars and an emotional connection to an OS is pointless because it results in a closed-minded view.

Serious. I've used Linux. It just doesn't offer much benefit since you're treated like a fucking third-class user at best in software and hardware land.

Re:And wished

[mcgrew]

Not knowing how to do something doesn't mean the underlying platform is rubbish

Not being able to easily find out how to do something is a glaring flaw in documentation. Microsoft used to have excellent docs back in the DOS days, but the help has gone from excellent to nearly useless.

easy enough to do in XP through to 7 the GUI

Where's the documentation? I listed the inability to do that in a comment last week, and only ONE person knew how to do it, and his explanation (although simple, one command) required the command line.

You have a mental blocker than prevents you from seeing Windows fairly compared to Linux. Perhaps you're more attuned to Linux, that's fine.

I've been using MS OSes since 1985, and used to be a big fan. They started going downhill some time after DOS 6.2. I started disliking Windows when 98 bluescreened constantly, and disliked it even more when I upgraded to XP and getting past their antipiracy bullshit when I paid for a boxed set at Circut City was a pain. I had to call MS to register the damned thing, and racked up an hour and a half on the phone with them, the damned phone call cost me $40 on my cell phone (I had AT&T back then). When a Windows update broke internet connectivity is when I started looking at Linux, and haven't looked back. Linux (at least KDE) has a lot of features that are either missing or impossible to find in Windows, but I haven't found a single thing Windows will do that KDE won't.

As to Linux, I hate Red Hat and I hate Gnome. If I'd only known about Gnome on Red Hat, I'd probably hate Linux.

Re:And wished

[humanrev]

Not being able to easily find out how to do something is a glaring flaw in documentation. Microsoft used to have excellent docs back in the DOS days, but the help has gone from excellent to nearly useless.

At least Windows has somewhat human-friendly documentation (even if it's often useless). Linux has man pages clearly written by developers which very often don't even come with examples. I find myself relying on the Internet to solve both Windows and Linux issues since the supplied documentation tends to be lacking for both.

Where's the documentation? I listed the inability to do that in a comment last week, and only ONE person knew how to do it, and his explanation (although simple, one command) required the command line.

Well with Windows 7:
Start menu/orb -> Click the user picture at the top of the menu -> Click "Remove your password"

If your setup is different then let me know and I'll tell you what the option is. If it's an edge case I'm prepared to accept its as requiring the CMD but it'd have to be quite unusual.

And yes, activation is a bitch. I personally use a little tool someone developed which permanently activates any version of Vista/7. Not particularly legit but it has got me out of an issue with a legitimately activate machine deactivating itself at some point and me not wanting to deal with Microsoft.

Look, I don't HATE Linux. I've just spent many years trying to convert and falling back to Windows because of issues with application quality and availability, as well as an understanding that by using Linux I'm voluntarily committing myself to being part of a minority of computer users and hence dealing with the resulting lack of support and issues that Windows users simply don't have to worry about (e.g. will this piece of hardware work completely in Linux? will this .doc file I must be able to read properly work with OpenOffice/LibreOffice?). I don't want to deal with those kinds of issues anymore, so I deal with Windows issues instead because I grew up with it enough to know all the kinks. That's my story. :)

Re:And wished

[mcgrew]

Start menu/orb -> Click the user picture at the top of the menu -> Click "Remove your password"

Does it actually remove it, or just remove the necessity of typing it in at boot? I wouldn't want an internet-facing computer to be without a password, I just want it to boot when I turn it on.

I deal with Windows issues instead because I grew up with it enough to know all the kinks.

Well, that's perfectly understandable. I'm so old that I was 30 before I had a computer, that was 30 years ago. I went from a computer with 4k of RAM and a tape drive and BASIC to DOS to Windows (I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to Windows from DOS). The final push away from Windows was when a Windows update replaced a perfectly good driver with one that didn't work at all, shortly after being hit by XCP.

Of course, if you're a gamer (I used to be) you NEED Windows.

Re:And wished

[humanrev]

Does it actually remove it, or just remove the necessity of typing it in at boot? I wouldn't want an internet-facing computer to be without a password, I just want it to boot when I turn it on.

It removes the password completely. There are some protections in place though for accounts without a password (e.g. by default, you can't remote desktop into a Windows machine if the target user account lacks a password - if necessary this can be changed via a group policy setting on the target machine).

Of course, if you're a gamer (I used to be) you NEED Windows.

I'm slowly (very slowly) progressing from being a regular gamer to being a very, very light gamer. In two years time I expect to become a father and so won't have much time for gaming anyway, plus I kinda want to create and build things as opposed to just playing games as a hobby.

Re:And wished

[mcgrew]

It removes the password completely. There are some protections in place though for accounts without a password (e.g. by default, you can't remote desktop into a Windows machine if the target user account lacks a password - if necessary this can be changed via a group policy setting on the target machine).

Well, that won't work for me then... maybe after I install Linux on the Windows box dual boot; I need to move files back and forth between the two machines. If it was dual-boot I could network into the Linux side to get get files back and forth from the Windows partition. With kde there's a password, but you can configure it so the computer itself inserts the password, if you log out without rebooting or access the files from another machine you need to enter the password.

In two years time I expect to become a father and so won't have much time for gaming anyway

I loved playing network games with my kids when they got to be about 10 or 12. Before that it was stuff like whiffleball and legos. The best times of my life were when playing with the kids! They're both in their twenties now, I wish one of them would make me a grandpa.

plus I kinda want to create and build things as opposed to just playing games as a hobby.

Well, I was programming and making web sites for fun as well. One of my sites became pretty popular. One day my youngest, about 12 at the time, came home from school one day with wide eyes and said "dad, did you know you were famous?" It turns out most of her friends were fans of my site and didn't believe her when she told them the site was her dad's! Of course, back then nobody was on the net except us nerds. In sixty years, nothing has been as rewarding and fulfilling as being a parent. Your best days are ahead of you!

I have the Android version

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would anyone buy such a gimped device with that OS and only 2hrs of battery life? I get 1.5 days of actual use out of my transformer prime battery. I have not missed x86 or virus-magnet winders for a moment. This device has replaced my laptop for all of my mobile computing needs. I still have a fat i7 PC laptop on my desk, but mostly just for PC games TBH. I still have not found a game or app to challenge the Tegra 3 chipset. The availability of good apps for Android is the main downside.

Re:I have the Android version

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it's far from "gimped". It may have a shorter battery life, but it's a hell of a lot more powerful and has a vastly larger library of software that people already use and/or want to use.

Try doing some serious work in Blender or try playing Crysis on that Tegra 3. Even if they were available for the Android platform, they would not work well on that hardware. Hell, a single Ivy Bridge i7 core is more powerful than all four cores on your tablet.

Re:I have the Android version

[cdrudge]

The availability of good apps for Android is the main downside.

That would seem to be a huge downside.

I can do everything I can do on my PC. Just not as quickly. Or in as nice of a user interface. Or was well. And I'm missing some features that I really would like. And the guy that wrote the knock off app is no where to be found so support is non-existent. But other then that it's great!

Re:Android will be in trouble

[engun]

Oops, forgot to log-in.

I might add, the writing has been on the wall for sometime now, and Google is still wasting time preparing for an all-cloud future with Chrome OS, although I recall hearing about plans to merge with Android. Still, local storage + processing isn't going away any-time soon, not till internet connections are uniformly 100mbps+ or something. So I don't see the point in preparing for a future cloud-only battle if you lose the current tablet battle and aren't relevant any more for the future.

Of course, Google can still reign in the mobile phone market, because Microsoft isn't going to be able to break into that market any time soon.

Asus A700 due in a week or two

[Anonymous Coward]

Well firstly ASUS make Windows tablets equivalent to MOST of their Android ones, the A numbers are Android, the W numbers Windows, it's not new that they make a Windows tablet, they just don't have much market traction.

So the A500's equivalent was the W500 (which was based on AMD's low power chipset):
http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Iconia-W500-BZ467-10-1-Inch-Tablet/dp/B004SBI2PW

I'm waiting on the A700s (one coming from Acer, one from Asus, and maybe a Samsung unit too), which is the Android 1920x1200 screen Quad core Tegra 3. These Windows tablets don't sell, perhaps Windows 8 will help them, but they're really not so useful on touch screens or low power long battery life devices. Both the Asus and Acer ones are due this month. The Samsung one is rumoured but not released (I'm guessing that's because Apple screen is provided by Samsung and Apple probably got an exclusive windows on high res screens from Samsung).

Re:Asus A700 due in a week or two

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you get all excited over a Tegra 3? Would you be that excited if Intel released a quad core Atom?

I'd be waiting for a quad core variant of the Snapdragon S4 to make its way into a tablet or an A15 derived architecture. Too much ILP is being left on the table with the A9.

Re:Asus A700 due in a week or two

[Anonymous Coward]

You're thinking of Acer, not Asus. It even says so in your quoted link. :)

Re:Asus A700 due in a week or two

[shutdown -p now]

First of all, you seem to be confusing Asus and Acer. A500 and W500 are Acer products. Asus doesn't have any Windows table that is like its Transformer Pad series yet. The news here is that they've announced one (or rather several).

I have the W500. It's not bad for a Win7 tablet, but compared to ARM Android ones or iPad it's too thick and heavy, and the battery life is meh. Compared to Transformer specifically, its dock is very inconvenient and doesn't have extra battery cells in it.

Also, yes, Win8 is kinda the big deal that actually lets one make a tablet running Windows that is as light and small as an ARM Android device, and with a similar battery life. The other piece of the puzzle is Intel Medfield platform.

All I want to know is: how much?

[subreality]

As for the free software trolling - this isn't the first: Android is Free (Apache licensed) software.

Re:All I want to know is: how much?

[SuricouRaven]

Android is somewhat complicated. The core parts of it are free, yes (Though I understand google tends to be a little slow releasing the source for the latest versions), but in actual use manufacturers typically mix it with propritary extras and then lock it down hard through hardware - so, even though you have access to the source in princible, you can't actually run it on most devices without the manufacturer's secret firmware-signing key, and the user is kept from having administrative access short of hacking the device somehow. I had to do that for my phone and tablet just in order to remove some manufacturer's bundled crapware. It's a very complicated matter, because the OS provider and the hardware manufacturer have to coordinate so closely (This isn't like x86, you can't just install it on any ARM device) and yet are working at cross-purposes, with Google trying to keep it open while the manufacturers are often intent on keeping the device locked down in order to promote tie-in services (ie, crapware), minimise support costs or to meet the terms dictated by mobile network operators.

Re:All I want to know is: how much?

[ceoyoyo]

So it's just like OS X or iOS.

Fully free?

[GbrDead]

I don't think so. It seems that the Microsoft tax will be mandatory. I don't mind the money wasted as much as being part of Microsoft's statistics. So I don't buy computers with Windows preinstalled.
And the first EEE PC's were so promising...

Re:Fully free?

[Anonymous Coward]

In Germany it is possible to get EEE PC's with Linux preinstalled officially from Asus.

A convertable?

[Billly Gates]

It would be nice to make this into a netbook and run Windows 7 on it.

Re:A convertable?

[shutdown -p now]

Since it's x86, you can, but why not just buy a netbook then? Win7 is not very convenient to use when all you have is touch input, which is kinda the point of having a convertible.

In fact, Win8 sounds like it's the ideal OS for this kind of thing - use touch-centric Metro when you're using it as a tablet, use the classic desktop when docked.

Article says no fan, but LOTS of vents

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks to be fanless, but with lots of vents, more troubling is the battery life if it's sucking down 4, or 5 times the juice, are we talking 3 hours instead of 15? Presumably not that bad, but are we talking >8 at least?? Not much good if it can't handle a working day.

From the article, the air-vent comment:
"The tablet is positively riddled with air vents. If we assume that the Transformer Book uses the lowest-power Core i7 CPU, the 3667U (17-watt TDP), we’re still talking about a chip that uses at least 4 or 5 times the power of the A5X ARM SoC in the iPad 3. "

Battery life comment:
"Considering battery life was omitted from Asus’s presentation, I would guess “not a lot.”"

Re:Article says no fan, but LOTS of vents

[Stolly]

Depends on the usage.....for office based users looking for something to last a 3 hour meeting before going back to their desks it could be fine.

Re:Article says no fan, but LOTS of vents

[gl4ss]

if it's got an nvidia chip worth having, it better have a mini-fan somewhere.. even the air has a fan, it might not be obvious from looking at it though.

Re:Article says no fan, but LOTS of vents

[Mitchell314]

The battery is probably just good enough to hold on between switching power outlets. :P

Re:Article says no fan, but LOTS of vents

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. What an astute observation. For people that only need three hours of battery, a device with three hours of battery is fine. How does he do it people?

Re:Article says no fan, but LOTS of vents

[Enry]

It's obvious as soon as you start MS Office.

Another over heating nVidia graphics chip?

[Mr0bvious]

I don't know about your success, but even with a fan I've had nothing but trouble with discrete mobile nVidia graphics chips overheating and giving up pretty quick.

A thin device with no fan and an nVidia graphics chip just sounds like a recipe for the same overheating issues they've been plagued with in the past.

Of course, things might have changed with the newer generation chips, but I'm not holding my breath.

To their credit though, I've had less issues on my desktop systems that have more suitable cooling. But I can't say the same for their discrete mobile offerings.

Android?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can it Still run Android?

(I know maybe technically it can of course - but I mean easily/officially. I have tried several different images of Android for x86 both in VMWare and in Virtual Box, with various problems that prevent me from actually using it productively).

Running windows just isn't all that attractive on an ultralight. I know, because I used to have a Sony P type.

Re:Android?

[green1]

If you want to run android, buy the android version of this. The windows version will have 1/4 or less of the battery life, and no other advantages for someone who wants to run android anyway.

I can't understand why you'd want the x86 version of something already designed for android, instead of the android version, if that's what you want to use it for.

Wee! 47 minute battery life!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is awesome! Take that iPad!

Re:Android will be in trouble

[Mr0bvious]

For me the Android tablets are a big win for two reasons:

1) Good battery performance.
2) I can pick the thing up and use it when ever I want with out the damn "Windows in installing update 1 of 18".. "Windows is restarting to finish applying updates"... "Please don't turn your machine off, windows is applying a critical update"..

This may sound frivolous, and the configuration can probably be changed to avoid this. But my last netbook (with Windows 7) was not used too frequently, but every time I turned that thing on, waited for what felt like 5 minutes for it to boot up then get nagged to apply updates, postpone them, etc, then a java update would pop-up, then some other update... What's worse, if I walked away after turning it on (while it was booting, perhaps to make a coffee or get a beer) I'd return and find I missed the opportunity to postpone the update and find the thing shutting down again to apply an update (without me asking it to) - really not a convenient way for a device like this to behave.

I see tablets and netbooks as a convenience machine not a workhorse, and Windows just sours that experience. Let's hope Windows 8 fixes these short comings.

I know you probably think I'm just a Microsoft basher, but I'm not, despite being a Linux user I find Windows 7 is a perfectly reasonable desktop OS and don't really have much to complain about. I'd suggest it to any non tech savvy user who didn't want a Mac. But on a tablet? Given past experiences, no-thank-you.

So I think the likes of Android is safe.

Re:Android will be in trouble

[Anonymous Coward]

"The only real answer to this is that Android needs to stop seeing itself as a toy/mobile OS, and turn itself into a proper desktop OS, by which I mean it should start by introducing a proper office suite, get Photoshop and other popular desktop apps ported onto Android etc. etc., and later consider porting Apache, Nginx etc. etc. to add server capabilities."

As the Linux and Android Kernels have merged, the next logical step would be to port Linux applications to Android. I believe Libreoffice is in the process of doing this. As Linux has a lot of applications like MPlayer, cdparanoia, lame etc which can perform complex tasks on the terminal, it shouldn't be too hard to build GUI's on top of them to work on Android.

why ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whats the point ?
I've got a transformer prime and the very things that make it an excellent device have been removed in the x86 version.
This is similar to buying a set of precision screwdrivers that prove immensely useful. Afterwards, the manufacturer comes back and tries to sell you a sledgehammer with the same screwdrivers glued to the top with the argument: "no loss of precision but now you can do those heavy tasks as well".
As useful as a chocolate teapot.

Re:Android will be in trouble

[The Master Control P]

This made a lot of sense until you started babbling about porting servers to a freaking tablet. Seriously. That's what machine rooms and WiFi are for.

ARM

[Meneth]

Enough with the x86's already. Where's my ARM laptop, dammit?

Re:ARM

[Anonymous Coward]

The original Transformer? :)

Also, these things are also coming out with ARM & Windows RT (see anandtech for details).

Re:ARM

[Anonymous Coward]

A quad core A15 at 1.5GHz or more might do the trick actually.

Re:ARM

[cmdr_tofu]

These http://www.genesi-usa.com/products/smartbook don't look half bad. There are many many more on the market, but they are overshadowed by trendier tablets. Maybe windows 8 arm port will cause this to change.

If you can run a corporate win 8 desktop on arm, why would you want a powerhogging Intel?

Re:ARM

[TeknoHog]

This is not ARM, but it is still non-x86 with completely Free software and firmware. RMS uses one, I'm personally waiting for the new quad-core version.

http://www.lemote.com/en/products/Notebook/2010/0310/112.html
http://kd85.com/lemote.html

Re:ARM

[ignavus]

I have the TF101 (the original Asus Transformer) with keyboard. It is effectively an ARM-based Android laptop, with touch screen (and Gorilla glass!), but I can turn it into a tablet whenever I want.

I love it. I never bother turning it off unless it needs the occasional reboot. It lasts all day - watch movies on the train, read ebooks, play games, surf the web in bed. Very portable entertainment device with enough screen space and keyboard to do lightweight word processing or presentations if I need it.

I just open it up and start using it - no waiting for boot up or unhibernating.

I don't want a Windows based x86 device.

Re:ARM

[Dr. Manhattan]

My wife surprised me with the TF201 (Transformer Prime) for our anniversary. I agree, very nice setup with the keyboard dock. Essentially a netbook with a touchscreen, and you can yank the screen out and make it a tablet. The battery life is literally all-day, and videos play very nicely. (Converted a Blu-ray to 720p and it looks spectacular.) And game graphics are impressive - current-generation-console level, at least. Only complaint is that the file manager is sloooow and a little buggy for big files.

I wouldn't use it for development or office editing, but I have a desktop for that stuff. It fulfills pretty much all my portable needs quite well. And not having to worry about battery life is a major plus - pretty much a 'kiler app' all by itself.

Re:ARM

[Anonymous Coward]

Why on earth would you want an ARM laptop? Lackluster performance, poorer computability - honestly I'm trying to find an advantage here..

I suppose battery life, but an X220 already gets up to 18 hours. I guess it'd be cool to get more than 18 hours - but is it really worth the tradeoffs?

Re:ARM

[Meneth]

Imho, they do look rather bad. Old CPU, old/small/slow flash drive, unknown amount of RAM. I'd like a Cortex-A9 or above, 2+ GB RAM, and a mechanical hard drive. Where is this market with "many many more" ones? I've searched for a long time and can't find anything except for the EFIKA, Lemote, and a few old demonstrations.

Re:ARM

[green1]

Have you tried different file managers? I personally use ES file explorer and have been quite pleased with it.

Now I don't have the Transformer, I have the Acer Iconia instead, but I do have a keyboard folio case which does basically the same thing. For me I wanted a little more tablet, a little less laptop, and the Iconia having the full size USB port on the tablet itself (instead of on the dock) was the deciding factor.

The tablet has completely replaced my laptop for all uses (though I do still have a desktop at home) On it's own I use it to play games, surf the web, quick emails, streaming video, etc. or I pair it with the keyboard (and sometimes a mouse) to do some programming, server maintenance, or even light word processing and spreadsheet work (though I will admit that office suites are one place that android is a little weak, and I've tried quite a few of them)

I do try to remember to plug it in every few days to recharge...

Re:ARM

[Dr. Manhattan]

Yeah, I've tried a few file managers, but only the stock one seems to be able to see flash drives/SD cards in the dock. I don't have a micro SD card for the tablet itself, yet.

Re:ARM

[Randle_Revar]

The Transformer Prime is about the best option I have seen.
With Win8 supporting ARM and the Cortex A15 coming out soon, there should be improvements in that area soon.

Also hopefully some better ARM mini servers. Right now it is all plug and stick computers (I don't need something that small) , and a few full size rack mount systems.

Re:ARM

[green1]

Odd... I guess I'm doubly glad I have the Acer. All USB hard drives, flash drives, and micro SD cards I've tried with it have been immediately accessible from ES file Explorer. Another win for the USB port being on the tablet itself.

Re:ARM

[shutdown -p now]

Any file manager should be able to see SD card in the dock, since it's mounted in a directory under root (it's still Linux, after all) - specifically, it'll be under /Removable. The only difference is that other file managers may not have a convenient shortcut to navigate there, so you'll need to remember the path.

By the way, I heartily recommend Ghost Commander. As the name implies, it's a classic two-pane file manager a la NC and MC. It's also designed to work well with keyboard, letting you use familiar shortcuts for most actions.

Re:ARM

[Dr. Manhattan]

Bingo. There was a setting in EStrongs to enable navigating up to the root directory.

I have the original TF101

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the original TF101 and like it very much. I installed a chroot debian on it and can do all my work with it. Mostly latex/maxima/lisp. Next to that I log in to the university with the citrix client for some other programs.

What I would change, and what would be reason enough for me to buy a new one:
* larger screen, 13 inch
* matte screen
* thinner (i have the original transformer that is pretty thick)

And that's it. They should keep in ARM and android, so that I only have to charge once every couple of days. This way I can be away for a whole weekend and don't even worry about a charger. I would like the screen a bit bigger. Out of the dock I mostly use it to read pdf's and It would be nicer if the fonts where a bit bigger without me having to zoom in.

They need to keep the bootloader unlocked, so that I can install a linux distribution. Though I like debian in a chroot environment with the terminal emulator, it would even be nicer if a _working_ xserver for android existed.

But a x86 transformer. Booo! A windows 8 transformer? Boooo!

Seems I'll have to keep hacking on the original :-)

Yes, but...

[FridayBob]

"If you've ever looked at an Asus Transformer and wished that it was slightly bigger, had an x86 processor, and ran Windows, ..."

I always look look at this sort of equipment and wish that it didn't run Windows...

Re:Yes, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish it was smaller, not bigger - like my old Fujitsu Stylistic LT C-500 that had an 8-inch touch screen. Perfect footprint for portability, but about 4 times too thick. That has been nicely replaced by a Lifebook P1620 convertible with 8.9-inch 1280x768 touch screen (resistive, thank goodness - no twitchy capacitives for me!) , Core2, and very usable keyboard since it does not waste space on a twitchy touchpad, but uses a nice small trackpoint (although that has gotten a bit hard with age for prolonged use...).

Linux runs well on it, especially with drivers I found for the touch screen for the occasional navigational tap and the Onboard on-screen keyboard "app". Battery life is around 4 hours (maybe longer when I use an Extreme SanDisk CompactFlash drive in a disk adapter). At $150 or so on eBay, I think I can pass on this new Asus "monster" until it gets sorted out by time and hacking.

Re:Yes, but...

[shutdown -p now]

You already have the one that doesn't run Windows, and TF700 is coming up as a 1080p version that's still on Android; so presumably this particular story would simply be of no interest to you.

Been there, done that.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yawn, meanwhile, I've been enjoying my Gigabyte T1125. Dual boot with Debian and Windows 7 (x64) whilst also using Visual Studio and VMware Workstation fine. Battery lasts a few hours on normal usage (OneNote, Thunderbird, FireFox, Wifi, Bluetooth, 40% brightness).

Ask ARM

[Sycraft-fu]

They don't seem to be able to make a laptop ready CPU. Realize that ARM CPUs cap out right around where the Atom starts. Ok fine, nothing wrong with that there is a MASSIVE low end and embedded market and ARM rules it. However, it does mean that for laptops, it isn't so useful. It is also lacking features in that arena as well. Really 64-bit is what people are after for desktops and laptops today. The new Atoms can do x64 no problem, ARM for all their chatter about it can't.

This is all extremely low end, laptop wise too. As noted this particular product doesn't use an Atom, it uses a real Core i chip which is a good bit more powerful and is what most people are after in their laptop.

So have a chat with ARM about when, or maybe more accurately if, they plan on moving in to the higher end CPU space. Until they have something there, I doubt there'll be much interest in an ARM laptop.

Re:Ask ARM

[GreatBunzinni]

Really 64-bit is what people are after for desktops and laptops today.

That is only relevant if you wish to access more than 2 or 3GB of RAM per process. If you consider that the majority of netbooks being sold only come with about 1GB of RAM, then 64-bit CPUs are essentiallly meaningless. And this even without considering PAE stuff.

Re:Ask ARM

[Archibald Buttle]

I call FUD. 64-bit is only "what people are after" because of marketing. Nothing more or less. I mean, think about it, what really is the point of 64-bit?

64-bit integer maths isn't really a genuine requirement, and on the rare occasions it is needed the impact of performing 64-bit integer maths on a 32-bit CPU is not too immense. As for 64-bit floating-point maths, most ARM chips have come with this built-in for many years.

Then there's 64-bit addressing, which in reality is a myth, since no CPUs actually support 64-bit addressing. Nobody needs to access 16EiB of RAM, or will need to for several decades to come. I believe that x86-64 chips currently top out at 48-bit addressing, which is 256TiB. 32-bit ARM chips top out at 4GiB, which admittedly is starting to feel a little cramped and is arguably inadequate, but the Cortex-A15 introduced 40-bit addressing (1TiB) which addresses this concern.

The reality of "64-bit" for x86, and the performance advantages it has brought over IA32, has been that it's addressed deficiencies of Intel's old IA32 architecture. The main improvement derives from the addition of 8 new general purpose registers, bringing x86-64's tally to 16. ARM chips have always had 16 general purpose registers.

I'd argue that ARM have already designed cores that are capable of playing in the laptop space. Cortex-A15 MPCore seems up to the job to me.

If you're still not sold on my arguments that you don't really need 64-bit, ARMv8 was announced last November which is a 64-bit ARM instruction set. Applied Micro's X-Gene CPU is based on this.

Besides all of this, given that their business is designing cores rather than manufacturing it's not really down to ARM to push into the laptop space. It's down to their licensees to put ARM cores into laptop CPUs, and to manufacture them using processes that will allow those chips to run at clock speeds competitive with Intel and AMDs CPUs.

Re:Ask ARM

[Anonymous Coward]

When we talk about a 64 bit address space we are talking about virtual memory, not physical memory. The great performance enhancer because of this 64 bit virtual memory is mmap().

mmap() is used to map a file (which may be larger than physical memory, and files can easily be over 4GB) into virtual memory. From that point on you can simply access the file as if it is normal memory. The operating system will translate page-faults into reads from the file, and is also able to remove the pages from physical memory when that part of the file hasn't been accessed for a while.

Another way of looking at it is that you have direct access to the disk cache.

In fact I almost never read from a file any more; I always use mmap to map the file in memory and forget about all the details with reading data into buffers.

Re:Ask ARM

[dkf]

I call FUD. 64-bit is only "what people are after" because of marketing. Nothing more or less. I mean, think about it, what really is the point of 64-bit?

Being able to address more than 2GB of memory without the code getting horrific. Yes, you could conceivably run up to 4GB with only some problems, such as oddness with ptrdiff_t, but after that and you'd need some sort of manual paging solution with overlays or something like that; it was tried in the bad old DOS days (except with lower limits) and it was truly nasty so expanding to 64-bit (i.e., getting a wider address bus) is much better.

I suppose the other possibility would be to make the smallest addressable unit larger than a byte, but that causes lots of problems elsewhere (a lot of software assumes that all pointers to data are the same size). It also wouldn't help very long. A 32-bit minimum addressable unit would still only give an effective maximum memory of 8GB, and we're pushing past that on desktops now. (Things were held back by the 32-bit limit; now that's gone, normal growth rates have resumed.)

Re:Ask ARM

[shutdown -p now]

As noted this particular product doesn't use an Atom, it uses a real Core i chip which is a good bit more powerful and is what most people are after in their laptop.

There are two x86 Transformer tablets announced, actually. One is Core, the second one is Atom (Medfield). Basically one is high-end convertible notebook/tablet, the other one is mass market convertible netbook/tablet.

As a side note, Toshiba has announced ARM laptops (not tablets or convertibles) running Windows 8. It will be really ironic if it'll be Microsoft that will push ARM onto the consumer desktop.

Re:Android will be in trouble

[Anonymous Coward]

Just turn off the whole updates and it will become an Android (in terms of updates)!

Blender 3D

[tepples]

Apart from what you're thinking of, I've run Blender 3D software on an Atom netbook. I see no reason why it won't run on this Transformer Book.

Re:Android will be in trouble

[Anonymous Coward]

They didn't mention price. With all that hardware, there's no way that this thing is going to be in the $300-$400 range that is the norm for Android tablets.

Non-latest and greatest still for sale?

[tepples]

But enough reverse engineering has been done to make most (save the latest and greatest) nVidia powered graphic processors run fairly well using non-proprietary drivers

Which doesn't help if everything still sold new has the Nouveau-incompatible "latest and greatest". In such a case, anyone who wants to run free software would have to buy used. Is this the case or not the case?

Re:Non-latest and greatest still for sale?

[TheRaven64]

I've spent a fair bit of time over the past years talking to manufacturers about supporting open source (FreeBSD specifically, but also in general) and I hear the same thing: they need customers to tell them that they want it to be able to devote any funding to it. This is easy for server stuff, as it's easy to produce customers who are going to say 'we want to buy 10,000 new machines this month that have 10Gig ethernet controllers with in-tree drivers'. It's much harder to find people saying the same thing about mobile hardware. No one refuses to buy an Android handset or tablet because it has blob drivers, for example. It's getting slightly easier with GPUs, because customers buying them for compute clusters want open source drivers so that they can verify correctness in certain code paths.

Re:Non-latest and greatest still for sale?

[Hatta]

They don't need to provide funding. Provide specs and let the community do the work. The reason nouveau lags is because reverse engineering takes a lot of time.

Re:Non-latest and greatest still for sale?

[TheRaven64]

In many cases, providing specs that are clean enough to be published externally is as expensive as providing open source drivers and has a lower return.

Re:Non-latest and greatest still for sale?

[Miamicanes]

A major problem is that many capabilities of modern graphic cards are as much about software as they are about hardware. Think back 15 years, to a period when dialup modems still mattered. Remember the hell and grief Linux users went through over "Winmodems"? Here's the punchline -- the hardware itself actually WAS abundantly well-documented. For the most part, a HSP winmodem is nothing more than a cheap soundcard with an RJ-11 jack and some parts to match the signal level between TTL logic and a live phone line. Or, if it was a higher-end Lucent card, it had a fairly generic DSP whose own datasheets were easily available. The problem is, knowing how that soundcard (or DSP) works is 1% of the job in writing "Linmodem" drivers, because everything past that point is software. That's part of the reason why the Asterisk project had a relatively easy time repurposing Winmodems into "phone interface cards" for interactive voice response systems -- they didn't TRY to be modems, and literally used them only as simple soundcards.

If nVidia came out with a new, totally alien GPU architecture, then personally handed Linux Torvalds a 3,000-page datasheet with register reference and a brief "theory of operation" section -- but no working open-source reference driver, and no working sample code, it would be about as useful for the development of a modern open-source 3D driver as the latest New York telephone book. Even if they ended up with working drivers, they wouldn't hold a candle to nVidia's own binaries, because the people writing the drivers would have only the most minimal idea of how to actually USE the raw bare-metal hardware sitting under them to achieve the desired 3D outcomes.

Seems the article writer is missing something....

[Lumpy]

" perhaps this could be the first "tablet" capable of running fully Free Software?"

I have had Linux tablets for the past 10 years. Fujitsu tablets have been running "fully free software" for as long as linux guys have had out hands on them.

Why is it that everyone thinks that tablets are brand new? I have had a tablet for over 20 years, My first ran Windows for Workgroups 3.11, for Pen computing.

If you want a Ubuntu Tablet, go onto ebay and buy a used Fujitsu Stylistic and install Ubuntu. You have a choice from the $100.00 ST5011D to a $500.00 current model. So even the really poor people can have one.

Why isn't parent modded troll?

[reiisi]

We don't need to stoop so low to insult Microsoft products.

Re:Why isn't parent modded troll?

[mcgrew]

Thanks, asshole, that was at a -1 already. If you hadn't drawn attention to it I'd have never seen it. Mods, please mod me and the parent down to -1 so nobody else will see the damned GP's post!

Re:Android will be in trouble

[MickyTheIdiot]

Why? Really.. why? There is no reason Android needs to become a desktop OS.

I'm sorry, I don't buy the "everything must converge" theory and, quite frankly, when Win8 comes out it will probably kill the idea off once and for all. There isn't an institution that I can think of that will put Windows 8 on their desktops unless they want to drive their users and support people insane.

However I do believe Linux and Android apps should be ported back and forth... but for other reasons.

They have it the wrong way around

[Sycraft-fu]

So the way it should work is Windows on the desktop runs with a normal desktop, mouse and keyboard UI. However Metro apps can run, and they run in their own window, or fullscreen if the user wants. Basically it adds functionality to your desktop. You can run smartphone and tablet apps, if you find a reason to. Wonderful.

However instead they try to treat your system like it IS a smartphone, despite of course it being operated by KB + M, and just throwing in classical desktop operation as an afterthought. They really seem to think full screen tablet like apps are the future. They aren't, of course, having multiple windows to work with is one of the big points of a modern desktop system.

Worse still? They are doing it on their server OS. Server 2012 has all the same metro-ified UI even though it is clearly of no use there.

This is marketing overriding reality. I'd bet a dollar that MS research has studies that show that Metro is great on touchscreens, not great on KB + M. Microsoft actually does lots of real empirical research on their UIs. However the marketing department probably decided they loved the idea of One UI To Rule Them All and that they could use it to push MS smartphones and tablets and so said "No, Metro is THE UI, make it happen!"

Net result? People will refuse to upgrade to 8. They'll keep running 7. What's worse is it will create a mentality like with XP of not wanting to upgrade. People will decide 7 is the only "good Windows" and won't upgrade. So in 2020 we'll be trying to push people to Windows 10, which ill be a good OS, but they'll be resisting because "7 is the only good one."

I am really just getting sick of this fucking tablet/smartphone obsession UI designers have these days. We get it, the smartphone market is huge. That's wonderful, I love mine, by all means let's have good UIs for them. But stop trying to fucking force that shit on the desktop. It is a different paradigm. Hell you see it with Unity for Linux just as much as Metro for Windows. This "OMG SHINY TABLETZ!!!" attitude of UI development.

Of course in either case the shell can be replaced, I'm not worried personally, I'll upgrade to Windows 8 at work (I'm the Windows admin, I need to know how to use the latest Windows) and I'll just replace the shell with something that gives me a useful desktop, same as the Linux lead has done on his system. However neither of us should have to. These people should be smarter. They should save the tablet UI for tablets and have a good desktop UI for desktops.

Re:They have it the wrong way around

[SuricouRaven]

You mean it'll be Vista all over again - people will take one look at the horror, then just refuse to upgrade from the predecessor until Microsoft gets their act together. Everyone I know skipped Vista altogether, and kept on using XP until Seven came out.

Re:They have it the wrong way around

[DrXym]

I believe that MS decided that tablets were the main focus of this release and features for desktop / legacy systems taking a back seat. If so it would explain why stuff that should be in Metro simply isn't, such as folders, or the ability to zoom out the UI to fit more tiles into the space. Just those two things would go 90% of the way to making Metro tolerable to desktop users.

The experience is so borderline awful that I think Windows 8 will be as reviled as Windows Me and Windows Vista were. At least on the desktop. It's hard to say if the same will apply for tablets where Metro is kind of nice to use albeit more primitive than ICS for example. I could see trouble brewing there too though especially confusion surrounding Windows on Arm and Windows on Intel and what one version allows that the other doesn't adding to the resentment.

All that makes me think MS will have to turn out a Windows 9 pretty fast and I wouldn't be surprised if one main focus on that release is fixing the desktop experience.

Re:They have it the wrong way around

[Coolhand2120]

Just curious, I hear this critique all the time. What was in 7 that wasn't in Vista that made you want to adopt 7 and not Vista? Please, no emotional responses, just the facts.

Re:They have it the wrong way around

[tlhIngan]

I am really just getting sick of this fucking tablet/smartphone obsession UI designers have these days. We get it, the smartphone market is huge. That's wonderful, I love mine, by all means let's have good UIs for them. But stop trying to fucking force that shit on the desktop. It is a different paradigm.

Exactly.

it's why even Android tablets are outselling "tablet PCs" nevermind the iPad. Going the opposite way is equally painful.

Touch devices must have a different UI out of necessity - a desktop interface can be forced to work, but desktop apps will quickly break the illusion (hint: Windows 7 itself is pretty nice touch-only, but once you run an app it all falls to pieces and you'll be scrambling for a mouse).

It's just the nature of the beast - touch-primary devices have different operations because of the touch interaction. Desktop interactions ditto because they don't have touch, but have a keyboard and multi-button mouse (it's extremely difficult to "right click" on a touch screen).

Hell, even Apple's taking it a bit slow on the iOS-ification of MacOS - they have inherited a few things (App Store, Launcher, (lack of) scroll bars, "natural" scrolling). Even then, you can ignore Launcher (it grabs icons from the Applications folder anyhow, so it's just a gloriified start menu), and natural scrolling can be disabled (to be honest, on a touchpad it works surprisingly well. Not sure about a mouse+wheel though). Not sure about the scroll bars if you can bring them back, though I suppose the disappearance won't be missed to much since people probably use scroll wheels far more often. And Apple's a company that loves to challenge conventional thinking (e.g., thinking "save" and "quit" are leaky abstractions and instead doing a save-with-history and automatic app shutdown/restore. Some are contentious rightfully (auto-app management), but interesting).

Re:They have it the wrong way around

[EdIII]

It was not so much about features, as it was stability.

Vista sucks ass for stability and performance. Now, I know, that plenty of people will come out defending it. However, I have *never* came across a Vista set up that performed well.

Networking for one, is a complete disaster. From the weird crap it does/did with DHCP discovery because they were oh-so-much-smarter than everyone else, to taking 5-10 minutes to identify a network.

I could go on, but it never really came down to features for me. Plenty of stuff that is in Vista is in my Windows 7 Pro right now, but the Windows 7 Pro is working well for me.

So maybe Vista was just a testing ground and they refined a lot of stuff they were trying to do and put it in Windows 7.

#1 reason I switched from XP to Windows 7?

SSD Trim support.

#2? Stability over Vista.

Re:They have it the wrong way around

[man_of_mr_e]

Well, I used both 7 and Vista, but 7 does have a number of features that Vista lacks. Jumplists for one, and Libraries for another (yeah, lots of people hate Libraries, but I like them).

Re:They have it the wrong way around

[SuricouRaven]

They largely fixed UAC. It was a well-intentioned idea, but Vista's implimentation was very awkward - it'd pop up authorisation boxes for every little change, to the point that it didn't even provide security as people habitually clicked 'yes' every time. Seven changed it around so only things that really needed authorisation asked. Really, though, I think it was more that by the time Seven came out, sticking with XP was getting much more difficult. A lack of new hardware support, the looming threat of the (much-delayed) ceasation of security patches.

Re:They have it the wrong way around

[spire3661]

The main issue with Vista was the idiocy between intel and Microsoft. Intel begged MS to lower the base system requirements of what it meant to be Vista certified. The result was an untested OS, on hardware that should have never been Vista certified. This decision created a huge snowball effect. Vista was not terrible on good, robust, stable hardware (it wasnt especially polished either). What earned it the ire of everyone can mostly be traced to Intel foisting inadequate hardware on us and MS allowing it. Everything else that was wrong with Vista was greatly magnified by these events.

Re:They have it the wrong way around

[spire3661]

I get why people like libraries, and they have their place, just not IN PLACE OF the normal file system. Libraries SHOULD NOT be nearly as prominent as they are in the explorer window.

Re:They have it the wrong way around

[Anonymous Coward]

Tend to disagree, it seems to be the right strategy -

For Users
1) Touch friendly UI, that is fluid, dynamic and snappy. Certainly better than current grid locks
2) Desktop interface is click away, just think Metro as better replacement of start menu. Everything available single click and no efficiency lost. Pin it to Metro or Pin it to desktop, which ever interface you spend more time with.
3) Easy to find applications, safe
4) Better integration between Phone, Tablet, PC, Xbox and Cloud
5) Full application compatibility to Win 7 (x86 Win 8), so easy move for Enterprises when they are ready
6) Better manageability

For Developers
1) Best tools in the market, even with 4% share on phone they reached 100,000 applications faster than Android. So developers are interested even if phone is catching up its share
2) Same tools for Phone, Tablet, PC, Xbox
3) Reach is not limited to Phone, but a much bigger market than anything out there (60m Xbox, 450m Windows 7, etc.)

For Microsoft
1) Leverage desktop momentum to build tablet market, they own 90+% market with over 1 billion machines running Windows in some form.
2) Push focus more to WinRT or Metro applications, more secure and also earn revenue per app. Another revenue stream.

Ivy Bridge Core-i3 is probably most common model.

[MtViewGuy]

I think for the people who do want decent battery life, the new Transformer running the latest low-power Core i3 CPU, built-in Ivy Bridge graphics, and 4 GB of RAM is all they need. Unlike Intel's past built-in graphics chips, the HD 4000 GPU built into the Ivy Bridge chipset is no slouch at even 3-D graphics, so for most users there is no significant advantage to offering an additional GPU unit.

You pay for using "Free" software

[Anonymous Coward]

>Aside from the Nvidia graphics (which, from the looks of it, can be disabled for the on-chip output), perhaps this could be the first "tablet" capable of running fully Free Software?

If switching to new software takes away functionality, it wasn't free.

Re:You pay for using "Free" software

[DrXym]

There are dozens of no-name tablets which are capable of running fully free software. Many of them already do by shipping with one vanilla version of Android or another.

Can't see this being cheap

[DrXym]

This thing has the specs of an ultrabook plus a touch screen and breaks apart into two halves. I cannot see this being cheap whether the keyboard is sold separately or not.

Re:Can't see this being cheap

[Lehk228]

original transformer cost me 600 bucks, (32 gig model) i got it more as a replacement netbook than as a tablet, though i do frequently use it without the keyboard I can bring it along without bothering with power cables for up to a week depending on how much i am going to use it, and the power adapter is TINY more like a cell phone charger than a laptop power supply, the fact that the keyboard/USB host/dock is a power booster rather than a drain is just gravy.

Re:Can't see this being cheap

[DrXym]

I think an x86 transformer is likely to cost in the ballpark of existing ultrabooks so throw a few hundred on top of that. And you might not even get the keyboard in the base model.

Transformer?

[Majutsushi]

And here I was hoping they were talking about a PC that could transform into some kind of vehicle ... Oh well, maybe next time.

Blame software patents and the SGI example

[dbIII]

Some of those SGI people that got badly burnt by patent trolls ended up at Nvidia. I can't see Nvidia opening up their source code while some software patents too obvious to have a right to exist cover just about everything in 3D graphics.

First (modern) tablet with a noisy fan?

[Lazy Jones]

Just speculating, but the specs suggest that there will be one... Blergh.

Install updates over lunch break

[tepples]

One of the first things I do when I set up a Windows PC for my own use is set it to download updates automatically and let me choose when to install them. Then I can tell it to install updates over a lunch break or other natural stopping point.

Not quite like Mac OS X or iOS

[tepples]

Android is definitely not like iOS because it allows use of applications from "Unknown sources" without a recurring fee. And it's not quite like Mac OS X because the GUI parts are part of AOSP. It's just the Google Play Store and specific applications that interact with Google services that are non-free.

Re:Not quite like Mac OS X or iOS

[ceoyoyo]

There are manufacturer specific Android versions that are locked down as far as installing apps as well. And I bet those manufacturer specific GUIs aren't open.

The differences are less than you'd like to think.

CPU registers

[tepples]

That is only relevant if you wish to access more than 2 or 3GB of RAM per process.

Or if you want more processor registers without having to waste cycles spilling them to the stack all the time. ARM, for example, has fifteen to x86's eight. I don't know much about x86-64, but it also has more registers than x86.

And this even without considering PAE stuff.

Desktop versions of Windows have typically shipped with PAE off because so many device drivers were incompatible with PAE.

Re:CPU registers

[Anonymous Coward]

Or if you want more processor registers without having to waste cycles spilling them to the stack all the time. ARM, for example, has fifteen to x86's eight. I don't know much about x86-64, but it also has more registers than x86.

Don't mistake x86-64, which is a very specific computer architecture, with a processor having been designed with features such as having registers which are 64-bit wide or using 64-bit memory addresses.

Re:Android will be in trouble

[jittles]

I don't know if you're trying to troll everyone but... you do know that you can turn off automatic updates right? My preferred setting is "Download and Notify me, but do not install" mode. That way when you're ready to do the update, you don't have to wait for the download. But I will tell you from my personal experience (having a Dell streak [free gift from Dell to get my work to buy them, they suck], an HP Touchpad, iPad 1, iPad 3, and an Asus Transformer) that Android doesn't have very good battery life with their tablets. I'm not sure why. The HP Touchpad is champ, in my experience. That is followed by the iPad, the Asus Transformer, and finally the Dell streak. Don't get me wrong, I like Android. The only reason I ditched my Transformer and picked up the iPad 3 was screen resolution. I use the device for RDP and its much easier to do that at 1600x1200 than 1024x768. I don't think that it has anything to do with battery life either, because the Touchpad had crappy life w/ ICS as well. Better than Honeycomb, but not as good as WebOS

Costco has 7" Samsungs w/ ICS for about $200. I'm seriously tempted to pick one up to use w/ my ODB-II and other car related bluetooth devices.

Who wishes that?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you've ever looked at an Asus Transformer and wished that it was slightly bigger, had an x86 processor, and ran Windows...

I pretty much wish the opposite of that.

Re:Android will be in trouble

[Mr0bvious]

Certainly not a troll - I don't have enough time for that.

My post was to illustrate why I don't think this kind of device will have much impact on Android's success. The masses will not change the configuration on the machine as you suggest, they buy a device and expect it to work well without tweaking, configuring etc - having the ability is somewhat moot if the user doesn't know, understand or care about doing so. Perhaps if they came configured as you suggest by default, things might be different.

I'm not saying that it is inherently flawed, I'm saying that for most users (ie, not the /. crowed) the experience is not particularly good for the casual use device. Just as the (current) tablets are not particularly good for 'desktop' work. They are different markets and I don't see a Frankenstein incarnation harming either market.

I like choice and I'm glad companies are creating lots of different devices for us to choose from. My point was just a response to the idea that "the Android will die in the tablet market if Win8+x86 transformers take off", or more to the point, I don't believe they will take off anywhere near as well as the Android tablets have due to the points I made.

It is the masses who produce the revenue for the manufacturers - tablets are aimed at the masses and not the tech minded geek - although we love them too.

While not related to my original points, but as you pointed out, you can get nice name brand ICS tablets for about $200, at this price point it's going to be hard to challenge and at this rate they could even be $50-$100 in a year or so...

Wish for a Transformer that...

[rossdee]

You could fold up into a toy truck that would fit in your pocket
and also you could plug into a 240V outlet in the rest of the world and run 120V appliances

Re:Wish for a Transformer that...

[Anonymous Coward]

You could fold up into a toy truck that would fit in your pocket

They have these

...and also you could plug into a 240V outlet in the rest of the world and run 120V appliances

and could probably be combined with this pretty easily, although changing the frequency from 50Hz to 60Hz is a bit harder and required by some appliances

As a condition of Google Play Store

[tepples]

There are manufacturer specific Android versions that are locked down as far as installing apps as well.

All devices that have the Google Play Store allow sideloading through Android Debug Bridge. Even AT&T phones during the first few months of Android phones' availability on that carrier, when "Unknown sources" was unavailable, supported adb install. This support is part of the Compatibility Definition Document; without it, Google is unwilling to license the Google Play Store software.

And I bet those manufacturer specific GUIs aren't open.

There is an official GUI for Android. There is no official GUI for Darwin.

Re:As a condition of Google Play Store

[ceoyoyo]

To both your points: so?

Both OS X/iOS and Android are OSs with open portions and closed portions. Both have an open kernel. There are various open GUIs available for both. Manufacturers also make closed GUIs, for both. Parts of both systems on actual devices, particularly cell phones, are invariably closed (the baseband, for example). Manufacturers also provide a variety of closed applications for both OSs, many of which are installed by default and in some cases, on both OSs, may not be removable.

If you buy a phone from Google you're going to get something considerably more open than a phone from Apple. But if you buy a tablet from Amazon, you're going to get something pretty much as locked down as a tablet from Apple.

Come on Ubuntu...

[FunkyELF]

Ubuntu needs to get off their asses and release their Android integration they demo'd a while back. They're keeping it to themselves not even available for purchase. I think they're looking for a manufacturer to build a device while there are tons of people ready and willing to install it on their own rooted devices.

First tablet to run free software?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. The Amazon Kindle already runs Linux.

Unknown sources on a Kindle Fire

[tepples]

Both have an open kernel. There are various open GUIs available for both. Manufacturers also make closed GUIs, for both.

I agree with most of what you say in the paragraph. But the key difference that I'm trying to point out is that for Android, unlike for Mac OS X, a freely licensed GUI is distributed by the same entity that maintains the kernel and the core libraries and is considered the platform's official GUI. This means there is enough of a freely licensed operating system for, say, Archos to sell its 7th and 8th generation devices with mostly vanilla AOSP on them.

But if you buy a tablet from Amazon, you're going to get something pretty much as locked down as a tablet from Apple.

Did you mean "from Barnes & Noble"? The Nook Tablet (the new version, not the Nook Color) is locked down nearly as tight as an iPad, but I remember seeing Settings > More > Device > Unknown sources on a Kindle Fire.

Re:Unknown sources on a Kindle Fire

[ceoyoyo]

I thought I remembered that Amazon had originally locked the Kindle so installing from other sources was not allowed, then relented. Just like they interfered with other app sources in the browser, then relented.

I'm not saying that OS X/iOS and Android are the same, just that they're less different than many people, including Google, would have you believe, particularly once certain handset manufacturers and carriers get their hands on it.

Google also restricts the use of some of the (closed and proprietary) apps that would be considered part of Android, like the maps app. Many would consider those apps on a smartphone to be at least as essential as the GUI.

Asus didn't get the memo.

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

First of all, Transformer sequels suck.

Also something that transforms from a PC to a toaster/Fridge hybrid is laughed at in certain social circles.

Linux vs. Nvidia Optimus

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds to be Nvidia Optimus based tablet. Currently neither Nvidia binary nor Nouveau driver supports Optimus technology on Linux. So Windows is unavoidable.

As a Transformer owner myself, I say this: STAY AW

[Anonymous Coward]

Asus simply cannot be trusted with your money. My Transformer TF101 was sold to me on the belief--as Asus told review sites like Anandtech--that the dock would be compatible with other Transformer-series models going forward. That was a lie; it was specific to the TF101 and is now effectively worthless to me when I upgrade the tablet in the future. Had they told the truth, I wouldn't have bought the dock (and therefore, likely wouldn't have bought the Transformer in the first place.)

They followed that up with the TF201, a model so badly flawed that GPS didn't work at all, and Bluetooth / WiFi worked poorly as well. The reasons were twofold: poor design (metal casing that blocked radio, and pogo pin connectors that didn't connect properly), coupled with poor build quality. Asus' answer to the problem? Sticking its fingers in its ears, shouting "LALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU", and then finally removing an already-advertised feature from the spec sheet rather than actually fixing the problem.

Then come the Ice Cream Sandwich updates, which have caused massive problems with random reboots, boot lockups, boot loops, and sleep of death. In Asus' own fairly substantial poll on Facebook, almost 90% of respondents have reported that they've been experiencing these issues, as many as several times a day. The tablet is essentially worthless, at this point; you can't do anything meaningful on it knowing it will likely reboot and lose what you were working on.

Simple enough fix, you'd think: let users roll back to Honeycomb while Asus fixes this problem, one they appear to have largely because they've requested combined builds for both Tegra2 and Tegra3 devices from Nvidia, where other vendors seem to be working on the builds in parallel. (These problems basically don't exist on other ICS tablets and phones).

But no. After THREE MONTHS, Asus is still forcing these bug-riddled, barely-tested updates on new TF101 buyers, still provides NO official way to roll back, and still considers your hardware warranty invalid if you dare install your own chosen operating system on the hardware you paid for. (And for most users, it's only even possible to install your own choice thanks to the hacking community. Even though the vast majority of production of this device lacks any mobile connectivity except WiFi / Bluetooth, Asus locks it down to prevent users exercising free choice, and patches exploits in new production as soon as they're found).

And after three months, the problem still continues for many, many people. This despite Asus publicly telling users the update was fixed after pushing several updates that didn't fix the problem. (But then why am I surprised? Months ago after the problems were first reported by the community, Asus flat-out lied to the media and said no such problems existed.)

Sure, you may feel the fact that this is an X86 version somehow avoids all this. Frankly, I doubt it. Asus will find some way to screw this up too, and you're naive if you think this is a product worth buying.

AVOID ASUS LIKE THE PLAGUE.

Re:Android will be in trouble

[jittles]

This is true, most people do not know how to change those kinds of settings. And at some corporations, they do not allow you to change the settings anyway. It is their way or the highway.

I agree, I don't think an x86 version of the transformer will take off. But you never know. There are certainly times when I wish that my tablet were more suited for development work. I could easily write code on a tablet, and I just need a light weight compiler to do sanity checks on my code. But I'd never give up my desktop monitor for development regardless. For some things you need a lot of screen real estate, and for others just a small and simple UI you can keep in your pocket.

Overprinced/Hyped

[fast turtle]

That's about all I can say as I've been seriously looking at the Acer Iconia W5xx. The interesting thing is, it's a Win7 Tablet that comes with a keyboard dock and is sized the same as a standard notebook at 8x11 inches. It's also spec'd/priced to compete directly with the same size/spec'd iPad unlike the Transformer and many of the other tablets I've looked at recently.

As I said, it's sized the same at 8x11 and the weight is almost the same as my 1/2 inch notebooks for school when they're full of paper/handouts and such. So I think Acer has really nailed the form factors and price point they needed to.

Re:Overprinced/Hyped

[shutdown -p now]

W510 is still 1.5x the weight and 2x the thickness of iPad, not to mention Transformer (which is both lighter and thinner).

Also, its dock kinda sucks. For one, it's too light, so when you dock the tablet, it really wants to tilt. It's usable on a hard surface like a table, but not on your laps (so it's not really a laptop hybrid). And the reason why it's so light is because it doesn't have an internal battery for extra juice when the tablet is docked, like Transformer does.

That said, I do like the trackpoint-like thingy that Acer has put there. On a device of that size, it makes more sense than a tiny, cramped trackpad. I wish Asus would copy that. But for the rest of the form factor, Asus is definitely ahead of Acer in this niche - their convertibles really are laptop-like when docked, and the docking is more convenient, as well. Not to mention the battery life.

Great

[Tough Love]

This will be a great way to compare x86 battery consumption to ARM tablets and cut through the misinformation. The bottom line is: what is the price you pay in weight and battery hours to run Windows?

Still a big bezel

[Mal-2]

It still has the same problem as the Aspire One of the same size (which it greatly resembles) -- the bezel is huge. there's a lot of could-be-screen space wasted around the outside. I'd take a bit lower pixel density to have the same number of pixels occupy a larger area. It IS nice though that it's not the same 1366x768, 18 bit panel as the Aspire 5253.

Re:Still a big bezel

[shutdown -p now]

It's a tablet, remember. It's supposed to be convenient to hold.

Re:Still a big bezel

[Mal-2]

I don't know how other people hold these, but I don't see that a bezel an inch wide all the way around is helpful. Half an inch, sure. I know what happened with the Aspire One -- they took the same screen as the 10.6" model and stuck it in a larger shell. The smaller machine had the same display with a lot less wasted space. It also had a somewhat more cramped keyboard and a much more cramped trackpad, but the point is that the display bezel was driven by the need to accommodate the size of the display rather than choosing a display that best fits the form factor. I can understand that on a netbook, particularly on a large netbook that differs only in size from the next model down. I can't so much understand it on a tablet that's built from the ground up around that display.

Re:Still a big bezel

[drkstr1]

I have a transformer, and I assume that bezel is for the front facing speakers, which I greatly appreciate.

Atom is x86

[bill_mcgonigle]

not very fast x86, but fairly low power (if a low power chipset is paired with it).

i.e. "the title is confusing"

the os/2 options only needed for older ver of it a

[Anonymous Coward]

the os/2 options only needed for older ver of it and it's about setting a ram limit

Re:Android will be in trouble

[shutdown -p now]

That's because it's a much more powerful device, as well. It's bigger, too (it starts at 11", and models go all the way up to 14"). That's a niche of its own.

The one that'll be competing with Android tablets directly is 810, which runs on Medfield - think same price and battery life as ARM, but able to run any existing Windows app, at least as good as a typical Atom netbook. Similar size, too - 10.1", and at 0.87" thick it is thinner than the new iPad.

Re:Seems the article writer is missing something..

[shutdown -p now]

Because Apple redefined what "tablet" means. Previously it meant any PC-like device that was handheld but larger than a smartphone/PDA (i.e. designed primarily to be held with two hands). These days, it also implies that the device is running software that actually makes it convenient to operate in such a way.

Re:Android will be in trouble

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, yes. No, NOT a troll.

Notify works great...unless windows decides the update is Critical, in which case, it still just spontaneously installs and restarts anyhow, when it feels like it in the name of improved services. As I personally discovered when my angry wife wanted to know why I kept rebooting her desktop, "I leave documents open! Why do you keep doing this to me?"

Checking the logs, windows decided for me that it knew better and was installing critical updates at will.

My *favourite* was Windows insistent and repeated re-installs of a critical driver...again without asking. I have no issue with automatic updates, but if I select a setting that says don't update without asking...I d*mn well expect that setting to be followed.

Pissed me right off, so yes, I also consider this a big annoyance and agree with the poster.

extending addressing by widening the byte?

[reiisi]

I can't imagine trying to extend the addressing of a widely deployed CPU by changing its minimum addressable integer.

Widening the internal registers generally impacts software much less.

Check your use of ptrdiff_t. If you are running into "horriific" issues, you may be trying to do things the wrong way (possibly inducing security issues, as well).