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Now That It's Here, Is There a Place For Windows RT?

Posted by Soulskill on from the stand-over-in-the-corner dept.

concealment sends this quote from Ars: "The argument back then was this: Windows on ARM would mean discarding the thing that makes Windows entrenched and important: Windows applications. Tablets need all-new applications, and if you're going to run all-new applications then you don't really need Windows. ... In the time it has taken Microsoft to bring Windows on ARM to market, ARM's once overwhelming battery life advantage has been erased. The ARM CPUs may still have a slight power use edge, but the difference will typically be dwarfed by the power consumption of the screen. The Intel processors, in turn, bring CPU performance that is probably best in class (or close to it), and most importantly of all the ability to run the full version of Windows 8 and existing Windows applications. The hardware could look identical to the user, but if it has Intel inside, the user experience will be quite different. ... With these constraints and limitations, it's hard to see who exactly Windows RT is for. I acknowledge that there are certainly some users who will be content to use the browser, mail app, and perhaps type the occasional letter in Word or balance their checkbook in Excel: people for whom the Windows Store's current gaps do not matter. But I think a much wider selection of users will be ill-served by Windows RT."

8 of 287 comments (clear)

  1. Headline with a question mark means ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    No.

  2. Re:Win 8 RT by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 4, Informative

    Outlook is needed for legacy reasons. I'd really like to know if MSIE 6.0 will be supported on these devices.

  3. Re:Fucking shill. by unixisc · · Score: 2, Informative

    Did you even read it? The submitter was questioning the rationale for Windows RT to exist in the first place. If he was an MS shill, why wouldn't he instead make bloated claims about how great Windows on ARM is?

  4. Re:Windows 8 by viperidaenz · · Score: 4, Informative

    Atom CPU's have already sold as low as $19 a piece.

  5. Re:Windows 8 by larry+bagina · · Score: 3, Informative

    The MS/EC agreement was for computers only. Tablets and phones (WinCE at the time) weren't included.

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  6. Re:Windows 8 by viperidaenz · · Score: 4, Informative

    Atom Medfield and Clovertrail are SoC's. They have integrated memory controllers and GPU's. Regrettably Intel don't have public pricing on Medfield and Clovertrail Atom's

  7. Re:The Magic 8 ball says ... by murdocj · · Score: 1, Informative

    Only on Slashdot could you see a post about "sheeple" that is rated +5 insightful. There may not be sheeple, but there is certainly Slashthink.

  8. Re:Windows 8 by sproketboy · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not quite. C# lacks a universal binary. You need to build for each platform which is a PITA compared to Java.