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Hello, I'm a Mac. And I'm a $248 Win8 PC.
theodp writes "A little birdie told me which Windows 8 machines would sell out fast. 'Cheep' ones! While no official sales figures have emerged, anecdotal evidence suggests that cheap Windows 8 laptops were a big hit with Black Friday shoppers, leaving some Walmart and Best Buy bargain hunters disappointed at missing out on the sub-$250 deals. So, was the Doctor-Desktop-and-Mister-Metro dual nature of Windows 8 and lack of a touchscreen no big deal to these bargain basement 'Laptop Hunters', or did they not realize what they were buying? Or, as a GeekWire commenter suggests, perhaps they were really just looking to score an ultra-cheap Linux laptop!"
They have no idea what they purchased, it was a cheap buy and they will be sorely disappointed when it runs like crap a year from now.
There was so many people around but I managed to get one! Wohoo! It's great!
A turd is a turd, I wouldnt touch it even for free. Think about TCO and ROI. I used my Mac for more than a year at my job until they actually bought one "for me".
I haven't played with Windows 8 out of the box, but I really hope there aren't first boot tutorials that showcase touch capabilities
People aren't buying "Windows 8" PCs, they are buying "cheap" PCs that, as an amazing coincidence, come preinstalled with the latest version of Windows (which is... Windows 8)
What's the point of this article, and why the comparison with Apple?
They work fine, once you put an operating system on them.
The summary ascribes far more intelligence than is present in people who buy "rock bottom" priced computers. They're only more intelligent than the person they sell it on to.
Do you see what I did there?
Earlier today, the entire chess club surrounded one of these new $250 Windows 8 machines. They were all poking at the screen, but while it was changing colors on them, it wasn't responding. (Guess what guys? That's not a touchscreen. Those colors are what you get when you poke a normal LCD display.) They were convinced that all Windows 8 machines had touchscreens, though, and so they never used the touchpad.
And then they tried shutting it down. I was mocking them for a while, as an entire chess club couldn't figure it out, so then they passed it to me and I couldn't figure it out either. Turns out the option to shut it down is hidden behind an invisible menu, hidden behind two other submenus unrelated to shutting things down.
We eventually had to look it up online, as I expect many people will have to do.
It was an interesting case study though, in how fucked up Microsoft made the Metro UI.
You're likely to see a rush of returns and exchanges, for an anything-but-this-thing alternative. Which, of course, will not against total Win8 sales/installs for marketing fodder. Such is the Windows Experience.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
If they wanted a cheap netbook to put Linux on, Google is selling Acer's Intel-based dual-core 64bit VT-enabled chromebook with 2GB RAM and a 320GB HDD for $200.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
it was a cheap buy and they will be sorely disappointed when it runs like crap a year from now.
I know several people who bought very cheap netbooks and were very happy with them for a number of years. Heck, I still use my ageing eee 900 daily.
Cheap doesn't mean bad or badly built. Not everyone needs a 64 processor monster to surf the web.
At home I have a nine year old Dell P4 that was average at the time. It runs Ubuntu 12.04 now, serves as backup host and for my scanning project, batch scanning my slide collection. Browsing the internet is not a problem. Yes it's a lot slower, but still acceptable. Converting a 500 MB DNG image to JPEG takes 5 minutes, but who cares if it's a batch job. I added 3GB RAM and a new videocard four years ago, and just added a 4TB drive. If necessary I can start Virtualbox with XP and run Photoshop and Illustrator CS4 inside. For not too extreme images, it's OK, although that can be sluggish.
I bought a $298 Gateway nV series with Windows 8 preinstalled. I played with it painfully for 15 minutes then put Ubuntu 12.10 (KDE) on it. I was amazed to see all of the bloatware still there in tile form. The charm interface is incredibly painful with a touchpad and even more so cause it was a Gateway touchpad which is painful to use in any regular desktop OS.
If they wanted a cheap netbook to put Linux on, Google is selling Acer's Intel-based dual-core 64bit VT-enabled chromebook with 2GB RAM and a 320GB HDD for $200.
I noticed this too. They do seem incredibly good value. I have no idea why Google are not pushing them more. The deal is also unfortunately US centric. I did notice that Google is planning on launching a touchscreen version, which hopefully would bring me Ubuntu with Androids in a virtual machine.
I find it interesting that this tidbit was glossed over.
However, the scene wasn’t so rosy for Microsoft at the Mall of America in Minneapolis, where analyst Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray and team observed and tabulated traffic and sales at Microsoft and Apple stores. Microsoft saw 47 percent less foot traffic than the Apple Store did, and far fewer sales — 3.5 items per hour, compared with 17.2 items per hour at the Apple Store, as reported by Fortune’s Philip Elmer-Dewitt. Most of the items purchased from the Microsoft Store were Xbox 360 games. During the two hours that the Piper Jaffray team observed the Microsoft Store, they didn’t see any Microsoft Surface tablets being purchased.
we specialized in this field of cleanroom wipers,cleanroom consumable for laptop. www.xmnewstar.com
WTF? Slashdot is referencing a comment on Geekwire as a basis for people installing Linux? How low can it go? Idiot submitters like theodp and symbolset are turning Slashdot into a anti-Microsoft tabloid rather than any place for serious discussion. Not surprising that people with half a brain are ditching Slashdot in droves in disgust.
A Linux VM can be a wonderful dev "box". Lots of tools just an apt-get away. But yes, it can be torture trying to get it to on (say) an old Atom netbook with Intel graphics. For some reason, I couldn't get it to recognise the graphics chip as legit :/
I'm quite surprised that someone would be brave enough to make this comment today. What your saying is not just untrue, Linux has dedicated distributions just for Netbooks, and light Linux ones too. If for some reason you still need to force the "intel" driver. There are many ways to achieve this (forcing the intel driver with an /etc/X11/xorg.conf, removing the xserver-xorg-video-modesetting and/or xserver-xorg-video-fbdev, but if your capable of running a VM you are more than capable of these solutions. I have a slew of expensive hardware that won't work with Windows7 including scanners and wireless adapters...and several computers. Linux has a whole host of problems...hardware support isn't one of them.
I will pay an extra $500+
for a well-designed & configured machine.
For a robust, stable OS.
For cheap OS upgrades.
For useful free apps - pages, numbers, etc.
For standards compliance.
For better than average HW, w/ excellent, reliable support.
For a good OBE.
For drivers that work the first time.
For a decent user interface.
For free, professional, in person help in every major city in the world.
For not wasting 200 hrs on configuration.
For a good API & Xcode.
For a useful command-line.
For smart standards & consistently.
For fighting entropy.
For letting me get stuff done quickly.
For a free HW swap within warranty.
For useful online documentation.
For a ridiculous resale value.
For BSD / Unix.
For superior security.
Thanks for the standard, karmawhoring typical Slashdot drivel.
but cant bother to have Linux for my desktop. Time is money.
Are you kidding? Tell that to my windows 7 installation that spends more than 20 minutes in endless updates and reboots, every single time I turn it on.
SImple. They were buying what they thought was a great deal and the cheapest computer around, as this is the only computer christmas present they could buy while thinking it is a real computer.
I will pay an extra $500+
for a well-designed & configured machine.
For a robust, stable OS.
For cheap OS upgrades.
For useful free apps - pages, numbers, etc.
For standards compliance.
For better than average HW, w/ excellent, reliable support.
For a good OBE.
For drivers that work the first time.
For a decent user interface.
For free, professional, in person help in every major city in the world.
For not wasting 200 hrs on configuration.
For a good API & Xcode.
For a useful command-line.
For smart standards & consistently.
For fighting entropy.
For letting me get stuff done quickly.
For a free HW swap within warranty.
For useful online documentation.
For a ridiculous resale value.
For BSD / Unix.
For superior security.
The irony of having al this by just installed Linux. Seriously what a waste of money.
People who can afford real laptops buy them, and the rest buy cheap netbooks. So who is the buyer MS has in mind for the $800 Surface with a netbook-size screen? If I have $800, I can get a primo Asus laptop with a big screen and nice specs. If I can't afford a laptop, I can't afford a Surface. I can't figure out Microsoft's target audience, who they think is going to buy the Surface. If I want a status gadget, I'll get a $600 iPad.
Endless reboots=youre doing it wrong.
Also, IIRC, with Windows it only interrupts the process (cleanly) if you do a reboot as its downloading / applying updates. As I remember, doing so on Linux tends to mess things up. (dont you have to run dpkg-clean or some such after interrupting the apt process?)
95% or more really only want to connect to facebook, yelp, twitter, instagram, etc. email as a stand alone application is dead. Web browsing is dead. In so far as consumers actually need to find something, all they want is the first hit they see when they type "Gimme hurrp durrp whars Twilight playing?" in the Bing search field. And EVEN THAT is going away because MS will put what it thinks you should know or want or need on a crawl that you can stab at with your sticky fat finger.
I am hoping Windows 9 does away with words entirely and uses icons like the cash registers at McDonalds. You want pizza, stab the pizza button. That's all people want anyway. Larnin's for them funny Asian people, bubba.
They bought a computers cheaper than you and your making out your more intelligent. The irony burns. I would be very surprised if any are disappointed with their purchases.
Run Linux on it.
It'll be faster.
I may grant that it's not as bad as Vista, but XP started off fast and as it was patched to less than a virus laden whore it got bigger and slower.
Vista started off big and slow.
7 slowed down on the first SP.
8 will do the same.
They were really just looking for a cheap Windows laptop, and that's what they found. This summary seems needlessly snarky and I fail to see why this is news at all.
I mean, it might be news that Windows 8 isn't crashing and burning as it looked likely to, but it sounds like this exists just to make fun of people who bought 250 USD PCs.
Endless reboots=youre doing it wrong.
Also, IIRC, with Windows it only interrupts the process (cleanly) if you do a reboot as its downloading / applying updates.
Not sure how I can be doing it wrong. I only boot Windows to play a few games, but when I do I instantaneously stop feeling like playing games due to the endless waiting due to the updates. Didn't know I could interrupt the updates, the updating screen seemed pretty clear to NOT shutdown/reboot the computer. Though I would I want to reboot? Wouldn't that postpone the update process into the upcoming boot?
As I remember, doing so on Linux tends to mess things up. (dont you have to run dpkg-clean or some such after interrupting the apt process?)
No idea, I don't use Debian. But if you are updating from the terminal, you can always ctrl+Z and pause the process...
In Gentoo though, things are installed into a alternate disk image which is merged in one shot into the real system if the installation succeeded.
Moving the cursor to a corner of the screen is incredibly painful?
Is it not possible to have any "story" about Windows not include numerous apropos-of-nothing Linux references? We get it; you use Linux (and that pirated XP partition that you all have), no one cares.
Well, Mac or whatever your name is, stop trying to sell me shit. I don't care about your windows 8.
*shuts door in your face*
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
I believe there are people that would just like an up to date laptop as a secondary pc and this inexpensive one will work great because at that price it really does not matter.
Religious sites have been serving up malware more than porn sites now.
YOU were on Religious sites?!?!
I suppose it was by accident because of a Fark link or you were just curious.
Yeah, right.
Well... it sounds like you have the same problem I do - boot into Windows once every few months and get inundated with updates. At the same time, I have the same problem with Linux - up until recently I rarely used my laptop for work, and might grab it once every couple of months. That was frustrating because I would only use it when I was going to be waiting for a long time somewhere and only had wifi (often tethered to my 3G phone); at least it would ask me if I wanted to update before downloading, though - Windows was very frustrating that way because it would automatically start downloading things even though I was on a slow connection. Yes, in either case you could go out of your way to turn that off, but then you have to remember to do it manually when you had a good connection.
Anyway, as I mentioned earlier in another post, I did get a BF laptop (ordered online, though). Not quite that cheap, but comes with windows 8 and I'm actually looking forward to checking it out although, at minimum, I will try to make it dual boot. I'm agnostic about OSes, but for the kind of development I do, I the least frustrated with Linux at the moment.
On a side note, about these people claiming Linux takes too much time, I was doing a peer session with another programmer using a Mac. At every step we found he was missing something we needed (his laptop - it was our first session on a new project using Django, a small project just to learn about it). Every library we needed was really annoying to get and install... he was getting mad at me because I just kept smirking and saying "apt-get install mysql-server," "apt-get install MySQLdb" while he was trying to find a download. Windows would have been worse. So I really don't get how any developer could possibly think they need to "waste" time on Linux when my experience has always been the opposite - but I suppose it depends what kind of work you do.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Windows8 can still do everything Windows7 do, stop being lame with posts like that
Precisely! Since we are telling stories I would also like to share mine..
My current Gentoo installation was performed around 2004. At the time, I lost around a week with trial-error learning my way how to install the damn thing. Well..it has been 8 years, I changed laptop meanwhile and with successive updates, the same installation persists.. When I first installed it, Gentoo was one of the few Linux distributions supporting the new amd64 architecture. My laptop was an Athlon64 beast that would take all the space of my backpack. Around half the way, I bought a Turion64 X2 laptop; because the system was binary compatible between these two CPUs, I copied the whole system into the new laptop. I changed the compilation flags to use a few extensions that new CPU supported and let the system update (the newly compiled stuff will benefit from the flags) over time.. I did however, perform a fresh Gentoo installation very recently because I decided to turn into x86 (the binaries are smaller, takes less RAM).
Currently, the laptop is certainly old by today's standards but my system has been fast and stable as it has always been, I don't see any reason to upgrade.
I believe there are people that would just like an up to date laptop as a secondary pc and this inexpensive one will work great because at that price it really does not matter.
Exactly. Even as an IT professional, that's what I do.
- A solid desktop for my main needs: gaming, programming, database-work, etc. Large screen, comfortable use, fast speeds.
- A cheap portable laptop for when I need to do something mobile or I just need to do something casual while sitting on the couch.
Sure, if money AND space were an issue I'd consider just a solid / expensive laptop to fit both needs. But in my case, having both is quite fine.
Admittedly, when my laptop died my tablet filled "most" of the void left by the loss of my portable machine. But sometimes in IT you do need a portable rig.
The support for your hardware, too? (See 7th line)
I also wasn't aware that Linux comes with hardware swap warranty (see 5th last line).
And how does Linux provide you with a ridiculous resale value? (3rd last line)
I'm really glad that you brought up these points, Apple have recently got in trouble for fitting their [not your] overpriced electronics [not computers] with refurbished parts..in China no less. They also got in trouble in the EU for only offering a 1Year Guarantee...When EU has a mandatory 2Year Warentee. As for resale value, cheaper machines drop less in price, Apple used to have good second hand value...but that was before the move from a computer company to an electronics company where upgrades to old hardware extended the hardware life...an option available to other manufactures.
Apple rip-off their customers :)
I'm typically on Linux, when I do boot under Windows 7 for my kids, once in a while, it's update time! can last a good hour sometimes. Yes, many reboots
In parallel I maintain a fleet of compute Linux servers, they are not on the internet, but of course I update them every time the compute load goes down a bit. I may have hundreds of packages to update every time, but there is only one reboot.
Seriously the W7 update scheme is not ideal.
No free professional help in every major city in the world
Your seriously arguing that there is no help for Linux...or that Apple support is free [hint: its not stupid], and they also break the laws in the EU/China for offering less support than is mandatory. http://www.ubuntu.com/support Personally though if you really need greater support pay for it its $105...but the vast majority don't.
The pre-installed Windows 8 bloatware was still there in KDE?
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
Not kidding anyone, if you read further up the thread, I am a Mac user. And deleted the Windows 7 emulation, couldnt be bothered to have it updating everytime I thought I needed it.
Your laptop running Linux (Ubuntu), Chrome (Google), and Flash (Adobe) is unstable and you blame whom exactly?
Just because Google and Adobe do not have their shit together while developing for Linux, does not necessarily mean that Microsoft can take credit for a fine OS.
That said, I run Mac OS and Windows 7 just fine on a dual-boot Mac Pro. Adobe products do suck pretty much anywhere though.
-ted
They want cheap. They got it. I operate a small town computer repair/refurb center and Black Friday we dread: nothing but crazed Best Buy deal-missing mongrels who never seriously shopped Laptops before, looking for the cheapest deals. We sell refurb, hell those should be half what that $248 BF special was.......pitiful mentality. Between this and the number of Windows 8 Machines I think will be returned, we should have a banner year selling Windows 7 machines....
I cannot even fathom how shitty a $250 Windows 8 PC must be.
That's the problem.
Despite trying to be efficient by extending the life of old hardware, running a P4 or Sempron 1.8Ghz will consume so much more power than a netbook or nettop over the course of a yr or two that it's actually less efficient than just replacing it with a nettop.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
That's what the Microsoft store is selling, vs 17.5 per hour at the Apple Store in the same location.
That's not consumerism for Microsoft. It's a subsidised operation.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
"I actually like [new_windows-1] - it was a shame what they did to it in [new_windows]."
Facts take all of the premium out of arm waving - T. Reynolds
"The charm interface is incredibly painful" you lost the all rational reasons to say this when you installed ubuntu (even with kde).
Consumers buy cheap computers because they want something for nothing. 99% of them do not realize exactly what it is they are buying other than the fact that they see "laptop" which is associated in their minds as expensive listed for a price that forces their brains to shut of and go into zombie mode.
If it'd be possible to get the cost of windows removed, it'd be a good buy for a laptop...I don't want a red cent going to Microsoft.
I know it's hard for people on here to believe, but Windows 8 is actually pretty amazing. I would never go back to Windows 7 at this point.
Same with XBox: Popcorn, check. Wine, check. Snuggled up to wife, check. Lights down, check. Fire up Xbox to watch a movie on Netflix, Xbox needs to be updated, Netflix needs to be updated, no way to skip. WTF?
Thank god I got the Wii fixed. I don't need to buy some stupid subscription to use a service I'm already paying for either.
Most people don't know or don't care about any perceived issues with Windows 8. TFS honestly sounds like nothing more than clickbait. They aren't buying Windows 8. They're buying a want a laptop that comes with Windows 8. If they actually care enough, they can take their existing Win7 license if they have one and put it on the new laptop, or just buy a license.
Most likely wont.
Why is it that all the haters out there blame Windows for the crapware and all the BSOD's? How about compatibility or hardware issues???? Or is it just another way to bash M$FT????? Crapware comes from OEMs, not Microsoft. Idiots and haters.
Wait, how is rebooting being that hard? The "normal" approach is to go to one of the right corners with the mouse (bottom will be closer), then move up to the Settings button, click it, click Power, and click the option you want. That's a gesture and three clicks - not ideal, but a hell of a long way from the claimed level. If you like keyboard shortcuts, you can open the Charms bar (what the gesture does) using the chord Win+C, reducing it to a key chord and three clicks.
Locking the screen can be done using Win+L, as it always has been, or by clicking your name/icon in the upper right of the Start screen, and then choosing Lock. Logging off can be done using the same click on the Start screen, but choosing "Sign Out" instead. Counting opening the Start screen, that's three clicks either way (or one keyboard chord).
There are other approaches, too, including a bunch of old ones that have been around for literally over a decade:
* Put one or more shortcuts / scripts to shutdown.exe on the desktop (with command line specifying the desired options for rebooting or whatever).
* While the Desktop is selected (press Win+D if you have a maximized app open), hit Alt+F4. This will bring up an (circa Win2k) old-style shutdown option list.
* Actually just run shutdown.exe with parameters (from any command line or the Run dialog, which can still be accessed anywhere using Win+R).
* Ctrl+Alt+Del, then click the Power button in the lower right and select your shutdown option.
* Win+L (to lock the session), then click once (to dismiss the lock screen) and click the Power button in the lower right. Only works if using a password.
I'm sure there are some that I'm missing. You can also find scripts and such that will add the power "buttons" to the Start screen as tiles, including some from Microsoft themselves.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
You don't even need to use a corner. Win+C opens the Charms bar. You can (still) use the keyboard to do anything you want in Windows, and while some things take longer than before (the change to Start search, where "Settings" now require an extra action, annoys me), others take the same amount or less (try managing WiFi or volume on Win7 using the keyboard...).
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Fuck any Jewish-owned company.
My understanding is that Microsoft is working real hard on preventing that.
Also cheaper laptopsmean cheaper BIOS which mean less options, most of those options are probably the ones you most want if you are going to install an alternate OS.
I spent 3-4 hours and about $20 in parts this weekend getting a "cheap" Win7 laptop back into decent condition and it's still not quite right. Not worth the money. The worst issue seems to be the hinges but this one also had crappy heatsink design (requiring a full teardown and a shim). Keyboards and screen connectors also seem to be weak spots. These days I spend the extra money and buy something that will last. I'm liking the Thinkpads but there's other brands too (Dells Latitudes seemed to be pretty decent).
You don't mess anything up if you're downloading. If you're installing next time you resume the system says: do an aptitude install -f . Guess what, you do that and then you can return to installing stuff happily.
Besides you are not allowed to say "you are doing it wrong" because that was exactly the response many linux users used to give and they were flamed for that "oh yes, blame the user! that's a soo user friendly OS if the user can get in that trouble!"....
You don't have to download and install the updates every time you boot up. Here are the 4 options: 1) Install updates automatically 2) Download updates and let me choose to install 3) Check for updates but let me choose to download and install 4) Do not download or check for updates automatically
You should change your Windows Updates settings to not force a reboot, and to download but do not install--only notify. That way you could have the updates apply when you are done, do a reboot, they will finish installing, and you can shut down.
My understanding is that if you pause the updates ctrl z, and then reboot, you will possibly break the update system. Certainly dpkg doesnt like it, and I assume yum doesnt either.
(skipped long point-by-point reply to get to the real point:)
Not surprising that people with half a brain are ditching Slashdot in droves in disgust.
And what does that make us two?
"Live tiles turned start screen into “incessantly blinking, unruly environment that feels like dozens of carnival barkers yelling at you simultaneously."
"Give me the zen garden calm of Steve Jobs' "less is more" approach to interface design any day."
These are two best quotes from this article and the comments section.
The real deal is just come over to the dark side all the way.. MAC anything! Since moving along my HP's and my Windows OS .. I am a happy convert, with actual time to produce and to be productive rather than talk about it in hope on endless forums.
My understanding is that if you pause the updates ctrl z, and then reboot, you will possibly break the update system
repeat after me:
i dont reboot a linux system
i dont reboot a linux system
i dont reboot a linux system
i dont reboot a linux system
You got a Gateway and were surprised to see bloatware? They are one of the worst bloatware vendors. Next you'll be surprised that you buy an Apple computer and it comes with MacOS, or that copy of Ubuntu you are using is running on the Linux kernel...
dumbass.
I'm looking for a computer that can be logged into by any thief with a Microsoft ID!!
Im going to bet you reboot your desktop linux system to install new kernels, and to test new bootloader installations.
Im also going to bet that you dont have the ability to selectively apply patches using the default package manager. For better or worse, Windows does updates quite differently which allows programs to keep just working regardless of what updates are done to the system. It has downsides, but I rather like that a random apt-get upgrade wont break my music player or vmware client.
If it's shiny, new, and looks cool - it'll sell in the USA, no matter the product. All it took for me was the plethora of YT vids showcasing the
crappy "Surface" technology, and 1st time firing up of the machine taking 8-12 minutes or more. Then I read that the clickon keyboard is tearing apart
with less than a month of usage.
What did M$ do? They "tried" to jump in on the Apple and Droid bandwagon and sorely missed. W8 SUCKS!!! and the consumer doesn't know how to use a PC
anyway, so why and the hell would they know how to use it with a touch interface (not intuitive, slow and clunky)
Better options under the tree this year are a Nexus or iPad4 (skip the iPad Mini) - and forego the wave of surface and W8 toys.
IF you want a rock-solid laptop on good technology(OS-wise) & hardware, try a MacbookPro or get a cheap W8 PC and fire up Ubuntu or another flavor of Linux -it'll save you the pain.
M$ can't write a decent OS anymore - and nor do they seem interested in innovation, but rather in only playing catch-up and imitation.
I'll take OSX any day or (pick your flavor of Linux) but, in this monopolized world we live in (don't kid yourself, it IS a monopoly) users have to choose
what works... and OSX dominates.
If I wanted to worry about tearing down and rebuilding each little component, I would bring back the days of Heathkit from not so long ago - but no, ALAS, consumers just want something that DOES what they need it do, without having to pass a MSSE test in order to use their machines at home.
This is where iOS and Droid thrive - now we only need to move those to the larger home pc platform, which is why Apple wins in this dept., with Google
arriving on the scene as well.
Microsoft's big clients who buy millions of dollars of licenses are in the drivers seat at Microsoft.
If you've ever been a large enterprise client of Microsoft, then you know that they treat you like gold.
If you have a nice shiny new computer from a major manufacturer Windows 7 runs just fine. That's what the enterprise clients are running. So will Windows 8.
There is no reason at all for them to support your cobbled together old PC at a rock bottom price. They don't need you.
If you honestly believe they built Windows 8 strictly to appeal to consumers, you need to go back to business school. Most likely, a large enterprise client (The Military perhaps) is why we have Windows 8, and the whole consumer hoop-la is just another revenue stream - but not the primary one...
It's not the size of the processor, it's how many units it plugs into.
I've thought about it, and I think Windows RT and the restrictions are all about Office, and really nothing else.
Microsoft sees OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice taking market share from the real linchpin of the Windows monopoly, Office. The reason is simply that it's cheaper. So, they find a way to preserve their Office monopoly by making a version of Windows that will only run Office. In order to compete with a regular PC with OpenOffice.org, they make the hardware cheaper, thus squeezing the hardware margins, but leaving their software margins largely intact. Now the consumer can get a machine that does everything they really want (Office and Internet) for cheap, and it supports Microsoft Office formats "perfectly." Because of API restrictions, users can't get OpenOffice.org to run on these new, cheap computers even if they wanted to. (Not that they would want to, as "real" Microsoft Office is included "for free.")
Windows RT is about monopoly maintenance for the Office monopoly, plain and simple.
Moving the cursor to a corner of the screen is incredibly painful?
I take it you've never used a Gateway touchpad.
It's not called Black Friday anymore. It's called Buy Nothing Day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buy_Nothing_Day
Buy it. Look as all the pretty apps that are pre-loaded and want you to pay money to use them---Reformat the HDD and install Linux.