First Bay Trail Windows 8.1 Convertible To Start At $349

crookedvulture writes "Bay Trail has its first convertible design win. Intel's newest SoC will be available in Asus' Transformer Book T100, which combines a 10.1" Windows 8.1 tablet with a keyboard dock that includes a gesture-friendly touchpad and USB 3.0 connectivity. The tablet is powered by an Atom Z3740 processor with quad cores clocked at up to 1.8GHz—600MHz slower than the Z3770 chip benchmarked by the press. The screen has a relatively low 1366x768 resolution, but at least the IPS panel delivers wide viewing angles. Asus clearly intends the T100 to be an entry level device; the 32GB version is slated to sell for just $349, and the 64GB one will cost only 50 bucks more. Those prices include the keyboard dock and a copy of Microsoft Office Home & Student 2013. They also bring Windows 8 convertibles down to truly budget territory, completing the collision between tablets and netbooks."

Comments

Seems Pricey

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems rather pricey for a 10" netbook.

Re:Seems Pricey

[gl4ss]

well at least it has 2 gigs of ram..

on more relevant note: it does make surface rt pricing a joke(this and probably next gen..).

Re:Seems Pricey

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I don't know whether Surface RT was a genuine fuckup, or whether it was Microsoft reminding Intel that they've ported the NT kernel before and can do it again in the hopes of spurring them to get their shit together on the low-TDP side; but either way RT looks dead, dead, dead. Under interpretation one, Microsoft gimped it hard enough, either to protect other parts of their business or to push 'winRT'(the runtime not the OS) that it was pretty sick already and Intel just shoved a knife in it's back. Under interpretation two, Intel appears to have risen to the challenge, or at least close enough that full binary compatibility with all things Windows will be worth more (to anybody considering a Microsoft product at all) than an extra sliver of battery life.

Re:Seems Pricey

[gl4ss]

a billion dollars is a genuine fuckup.

it's easy to see why they took the risk as well. they wanted to see how a platform goes where people are forced to pay MS to pay for their software, a platform where MS has all installation statistics, a platform where MS controls what can be installed. They shoved hundreds of millions down ISV's throats too trying to get software for it.

it probably would have fared a little better if they had allowed other than metro sw on it though.. but they ran out of time to provision that, so they took the easy route. however I think why they did it then was that ballmer wanted to try it before leaving.. I mean, Metro was seriously half baked in other aspects as well when shipped out, just like windows phone(still is, there's still couple of ridiculous limitations limiting types of apps one can make.. and hell, you might get vpn sometime next year ;DD and ms approved vpn at that so probably not nsa proof).

Re:Seems Pricey

[UnknowingFool]

I don't think MS needed to tell Intel that. Apple's iPad sales alone would have done that. Apple is selling 15-20M iPads a quarter all of which don't use Atom. Then there are all those Android tablets. Apple has partnered with Intel many times before. There are rumors that the first iPad prototypes used Intel but battery life and heat were the two main factors that kept Apple from using Intel CPUs in iPads.

Re:Seems Pricey

[cbope]

Really now? Show me a netbook with an IPS screen and 4 cores that sells for less than $349. What? Can't find one? Whoops...!

Re:Seems Pricey

[NatasRevol]

The billion dollars was a 'we give up' payoff.

They most assuredly lost a lot of money before that too.

Re:Seems Pricey

[MightyYar]

I would think that Apple would much rather get parts from Intel than from Samsung.

Re:Seems Pricey

[Jmc23]

Good thing it's not a netbook!

Re:Seems Pricey

[UnknowingFool]

That's why Apple is getting parts from TSMC and possibly Global Foundries in the future. It makes sense from a logistical standpoint to have more than one supplier. Using Intel doesn't help in that regard. Long term Apple believes they need to design their own chips. So far it has worked out. The new A7 seems to be another step in a larger scheme. Some competitors decided multiple cores was the way to go while Apple thought 64 bit was the strategy.

Re:Seems Pricey

[FunkyELF]

it probably would have fared a little better if they had allowed other than metro sw on it though.. but they ran out of time to provision that, so they took the easy route.

They should have modified Visual Studio to produce fat binaries that include both ARM and Intel binaries.
I think this is what Apple did to XCode during their PPC/x86 transition.

Or they could have tried to get Visual Studio to leverage LLVM and ship bitcode so things could be ever further future-proofed and extend to more than just 2 architectures.

They missed a great opportunity by not letting RT/ARM run desktop applications. And it was a arbitrary decision too, not a technical one as RT has been hacked to run in desktop mode.

Re:Seems Pricey

[nhat11]

And has a x64 processor to run win apps too.

Re:Seems Pricey

[roc97007]

Seems rather pricey for a 10" netbook.

True. But significantly cheaper than the Surface Pro. At least, the prices are going in the right direction.

Still, Win8 would have to improve considerably before I'd ever consider one.

Re:Seems Pricey

[roc97007]

I think Microsoft had two motivations to release the RT: (1) to show that they are a player in the ARM space. (2) to muddy the waters in the non-Intel tablet field. There might have been a third motivation, to strong-arm Intel into releasing a more tablet-friendly architecture, but I suspect that was a bonus rather than an objective.

In any case, I agree with you -- the RT is dead. It was never meant to be a serious product.

Re:Seems Pricey

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

"Or they could have tried to get Visual Studio to leverage LLVM and ship bitcode so things could be ever further future-proofed and extend to more than just 2 architectures."

That's the humorous part of all this: Microsoft started work (more than a decade ago, if I recall) on the 'Common Language Runtime' and the 'Common Language Infrastructure', with the 'Common Intermediate Language' playing the part of architecture-independent bytecode representation. It's ostensibly a standard and whatnot; but basically Microsoft's ".NET" is the serious implementation.

The already have, in house, widely used, supported by their dev tools, an architecture independent mechanism. Loads of ISVs even use it fairly extensively.

Architecturally, they might actually have the best position among any major vendor to make cross-platform binaries happen; but they threw it all away to try to have a mandatory app store. Elegant, really.

Re:Seems Pricey

[Anonymous Coward]

How long will people think that x86 and/or x64 instruction set compatibility is a selling point? Binary compatibility is way over rated.

In fact, the entrenchment of intel arch it is probably the only way that MS survives. There are many reasons why being able to port programs to different arches is advantageous. But MS has ignored those advantages to its determent. Funny how it will be a CPU arch that kills the worlds largest SW house.

Re:Seems Pricey

[saihung]

Really? I use x86 DAW/Djing software and I've been looking for a tablet robust enough to run them on. If this will run my performance software reliably then I'm in for one, and it saves me several pounds on my travel rig. If you have a better way to run low-latency audio software then I'm curious to hear about it.

Re:Seems Pricey

[gl4ss]

well, it was political. what I meant with ran out of time is that they ran out of time to shoehorn windows ce apps into the application store and they ran out of ideas how to sell that to the audience that they could only get the apps from the application store..

the had planned that metro would work as the trojan horse to tie people to their software marketplace. too bad nobody seems to want metro apps.. and why the fuck would I indeed want pdf viewer that can show me one pdf at a time and in general an experience that goes in feel back to using dos with something like desqview(although, technically that was more fully featured multitasking system!).

Re:Seems Pricey

[0123456]

How long will people think that x86 and/or x64 instruction set compatibility is a selling point?

So long as they have crusty old x86 Windows software they need to run.

Re:Seems Pricey

[Rob Y.]

They wanted an app store, partially, but not just, "because that's what Apple does". Essentially they know that they can't make money on OS software for tablets. The price points have been set too low by Android devices, and even Apple devices. So the only way to play in the tablet business is to try to make money on all the content, including apps.

Yeah, they could've tried, I guess to charge an OS premium for "it runs all your Windows apps", but that probably wouldn't have flown. Either way, the price points for portable devices are on a downward trajectory, which is good for everybody but Microsoft. And if laptops get replaced by cheap devices like this one from Asus, then it's netbooks all over again, and the Windows monopoly will be worth a whole lot less.

Re:Seems Pricey

[TemporalBeing]

"Or they could have tried to get Visual Studio to leverage LLVM and ship bitcode so things could be ever further future-proofed and extend to more than just 2 architectures." That's the humorous part of all this: Microsoft started work (more than a decade ago, if I recall) on the 'Common Language Runtime' and the 'Common Language Infrastructure', with the 'Common Intermediate Language' playing the part of architecture-independent bytecode representation. It's ostensibly a standard and whatnot; but basically Microsoft's ".NET" is the serious implementation. The already have, in house, widely used, supported by their dev tools, an architecture independent mechanism. Loads of ISVs even use it fairly extensively. Architecturally, they might actually have the best position among any major vendor to make cross-platform binaries happen; but they threw it all away to try to have a mandatory app store. Elegant, really.

Yes. .NET does that. But it never really got used for shipping stuff using the Byte Encoding, just the final x86/x86-64 binary encodings. Yeah, some people did the byte encoding stuff early on, but that quickly fell by the wayside as people realized it was only ever going to be on Windows, and normally 32-bit/64-bit x86 Windows at that.

Yeah, if they got serious they could push for the byte encoding again, or even make it the default output. But then, you wouldn't get much benefit if you had to mix non-.NET code with it.

Re:Seems Pricey

[Anonymous Coward]

No.

.Net code is still compiled to the intermediate language MSIL. That's why tools like Reflector can easily decompile it.

The header for a .Net binary has a field which indicates the target platform. The default value of this field set by MS development tools has changed from "Any" in older versions of the tools to either "x86" or "x64" (based on the project settings) in recent versions. That's it.

In conclusion, MSIL (aka "byte encoding") is still used, and you can make a binary target any processor by hitting a single field in the header. (And in case you're wondering why MS would make such an apparently retrogressive change, it's because developers put platform dependencies in their code without realising it.)

Re:Seems Pricey

[Anonymous Coward]

get the 64 gig of ram, cuz yoy know the first 32 gb is used by the operating system!

Re:Seems Pricey

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

"Yeah, if they got serious they could push for the byte encoding again, or even make it the default output. But then, you wouldn't get much benefit if you had to mix non-.NET code with it."

I have particularly unpleasant memories of dealing with some application whose developers had managed to make it require .NET 4 and some 16-bit version of Installshield or something just to copy it into place, so I don't doubt that there is a lot of 'mostly ready' code that has resulted in products that aren't going anywhere but x86 without one hell of a shove.

I just find it somewhat ironic that Microsoft theoretically has one of the better technological positions to support a multi-architecture binary software ecosystem, and has been working on it for years, and yet managed to fumble so profoundly and make so little use of that.

IO bottleneck

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets hope ASUS will use fast nand chips, faster than in it's TF200 -TF700 family.

gesture friendly touchpad?

[Qzukk]

Does a "gesture friendly touchpad" mean its one of those completely flat surfaces with no edges that randomly make shit flip down/out/over what I'm trying to work on because there's no way to tell when you're moving the pointer and when you're swiping the charms bar?

Or does it mean one where the damn gestures are turned off by default without having to install synaptic drivers and dig through their driver menus, or hunt around in the registry, or say fuck it and replace windows entirely?

Re:gesture friendly touchpad?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd put my money on the former.

Re:gesture friendly touchpad?

[Jmc23]

No. Is it that hard to look at pictures?

Nothing too exceptional.

[stewsters]

Another windows 8 tablet. Quad core 1.8GHz, 1366x768 resolution. Meh.

Re:Nothing too exceptional.

[Noughmad]

Another windows 8 tablet. Quad core 1.8GHz, 1366x768 resolution. Lame.

FTFY

Re:Nothing too exceptional.

[FunkyELF]

I have 1920x1080 on a 15.4 screen and it seems perfect for a laptop.
1366x768 at 10.1 is actually a higher DPI count but then you're lacking real estate.
The price seems right though for what you're getting. I'd just prefer to pay a little more, say $50, to get a 1600x900.

Re:Nothing too exceptional.

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

But does it have more space than a nomad?

Re:Nothing too exceptional.

[Noughmad]

I don't know, how much time does it take for Captain Kirk to talk it into exploding?

Yay slashvertisement

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is the linux angle? Not even a conversion coupon code?

Re:Yay slashvertisement

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Where is the linux angle? Not even a conversion coupon code?

It isn't mentioned; but 'Windows RT's fairly clear demise, in favor of cheap-ass x86 devices, is almost certainly good news for Linux(Not 'This is the year of Linux on the Desktop!!!' news; but good).

Per Microsoft's secure boot requirements, ARM-based 'Windows RT' hardware Must Not allow (either out of the factory, or by user modification) signing keys for boot payloads other than Microsoft's own and cannot allow disabling 'secure boot', while x86 Win8 devices can.

It remains to be seen how many will actually be purchased for linuxization; but Windows RT devices are (short of breaking TPM-backed UEFI secure boot) 100% useless for Linux, or anything else that isn't blessed by Redmond. Wintel tablets, though, are just funny shaped wintels, and so only the questionable state of Linux touch GUIs stands between you and installation.

Re:Yay slashvertisement

[Anonymous Coward]

Wonder if Win8.1 devices don't fall under Win8 requirements.

I could see MSFT re-'securing' the boot payload for their own gains.

Why won't 'HD' just hurry up and die?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

What I wouldn't give to be able to travel back in time and prevent 1366x768 or '720p' from being defined as 'HD' resolution. Ideally with some sort of plan that involves more explosions than a braindead summer action movie. What a pox upon the eyes of the world, especially with so many applications making poor use of extra horizontal space (so it's barely better than 1024x768, circa 15 years ago) and 768 pixels being pretty narrow for the 'well, just flip it 90 degrees' strategy that saves other widescreens for non-movie purposes.

Re:Why won't 'HD' just hurry up and die?

[Kjella]

640x480 = 307200
1280x720 = 921600
1920x1080 = 2073600

Remember that 720p TV was triple the pixels of NTSC and non-interlaced so a doubling there as well, sure for a computer monitor it wasn't much but for TV it was a huge change with six times the bandwidth. In fact unless you're watching 1080p24 content with pulldown I'd rather take 720p over 1080i (interlacing: die die die). And maybe finally now UltraHD will drive a new generation of monitors, even on 30" it's topped out at 2560x1600/1440.

Re:Why won't 'HD' just hurry up and die?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather take 720p over 1080i (interlacing: die die die).

You must have a really crappy deinterlacer. 60i looks as good if not better than 30p on my 120Hz TV, mostly because it appears smoother, and the TV does such a good job of frame interpolation that I can't remember the last time I saw interlacing artifacts.

That said, I was in the gym the other day, and I saw a ton of interlace artifacts on the TV's over the bikes. Maybe some cheap monitor manufactures have been skimping on the deinterlace logic, or the TV's are simply misconfigured.

Re:Why won't 'HD' just hurry up and die?

[MightyYar]

Yes, and they had to make it all fit in MPEG2 over-the-air and the TV technology of the time was still CRT. They did a decent job given those constraints. If you designed the system today you might make different choices and you'd almost certainly use a different CODEC.

Re:Why won't 'HD' just hurry up and die?

[wiredlogic]

15 years ago I was rolling with 1600x1200 on a monitor capable of even higher resolution than that. Now you have to pay premium coin just to get a modest improvement on that vertical resolution.

Re:Why won't 'HD' just hurry up and die?

[tlhIngan]

What I wouldn't give to be able to travel back in time and prevent 1366x768 or '720p' from being defined as 'HD' resolution. Ideally with some sort of plan that involves more explosions than a braindead summer action movie. What a pox upon the eyes of the world, especially with so many applications making poor use of extra horizontal space (so it's barely better than 1024x768, circa 15 years ago) and 768 pixels being pretty narrow for the 'well, just flip it 90 degrees' strategy that saves other widescreens for non-movie purposes.

Because 720p and 1080i are not equivalent. 1080p is not officially "HD".

720p and 1080i take roughly the same bandwidth, but there are cases where 1080i is inappropriate and 720p is better. Primarily, you'll find it in the fact it's progressive versus interlaced.

Fast action things like sports need the enhanced framerate (720p is 60fps), while dramas and other programming prefer the enhanced resolution offered by 1080i. It's basically framerate vs. resolution - you can have 60 progressive scanned frames at 720p, or 30 frames at 1080i (60 fields).

And don't get me started with "1080p", which seems to mean 1080p30 for the most part (which is roughly equivalent to 1080i...).

And no, you cannot convert 720p to 1080i without losing information - because the reduced framerate of 1080i means you're going to have to discard lines.

Re:Why won't 'HD' just hurry up and die?

[roc97007]

15 years ago I was rolling with 1600x1200 on a monitor capable of even higher resolution than that. Now you have to pay premium coin just to get a modest improvement on that vertical resolution.

Agreed. If it's not 1200 high (minimum), I'm not interested. Admittedly, this makes it difficult (but not impossible) to find monitors.

Re:Why won't 'HD' just hurry up and die?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Oh, I don't doubt that the TV broadcast standards people had their reasons, they might even have been good ones from the perspective of the awful legacy tech they were dealing with. I just bitterly resent how they managed to smear their shit all over the computer market. Had it stayed confined to broadcast television, they could have done whatever they liked for all I care.

Re:Why won't 'HD' just hurry up and die?

[Anonymous Coward]

Many places are starting to use h.264 for broadcast television.

Re:Why won't 'HD' just hurry up and die?

[Anonymous Coward]

Premium? I see a number of 2560x1440 monitors on Amazon for around $300-$330 right now. That's hardly expensive.

15 years ago, I remember spending close to $700 for an NEC Multisync CRT.

Re:Why won't 'HD' just hurry up and die?

[MightyYar]

I was referring to ATSC, but yes - even ATSC plans on using newer codecs in the not-too-distant future.

Re:Why won't 'HD' just hurry up and die?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Are we going to have another decade+ of handwringing about what will happen to the poor, poor, old and/or poor people whose constitutional right to TV will be destroyed if they need to buy an ATSC tuner with newer codec support? Because damn was the NTSC->ATSC transition annoying...

Re:Why won't 'HD' just hurry up and die?

[MightyYar]

I think that the argument was that the airwaves were public, and so those who benefit from the transition should pay some of the cost to those forced to transition?

Anyway, LCDs don't seem to have the life of those old CRTs, and OTA tuners seem less abundant in general, so it may not be as big an issue. There is an initial "backwards compatible" stage - hopefully they can make the next generation of sets more forwards compatible during that stage. I dunno, it's definitely a first-world problem! :)

who voted for this Slashvertisement?

[Gravis Zero]

seriously, everyone who voted for this "article" needs a spanking.

Re:who voted for this Slashvertisement?

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe I should remove adblock. I am thinking that if the slashvertisements are getting this bad and this overt and this frequent... I am part of the problem.

Re:who voted for this Slashvertisement?

[Anonymous Coward]

Around here, I suspect that the same round of first-bashers are the ones who promoted it as a story. Easy karma on Slashdot to decry Slashvertisements and mock Micro$oft, and I think you're smart enough to connect the rest of the dots.

Re:who voted for this Slashvertisement?

[Anonymous Coward]

seriously, everyone who voted for this "article" needs a spanking.

S-n-M fan? Your dominatrix Slashdot says enjoy your Slashvertisement-n-Marketing or taste the mod lash oblivion of -1!

Neat!

[DogDude]

Neat-o! Although, I don't understand why I wouldn't just use a full-featured, full-power laptop...

Re:Neat!

[Lumpy]

You dont understand the need to look trendy. These are only being sold to up and coming executives that want to look like they are technology hip to senior execs... Sadly it makes them a laughingstock of the IT department.

Re:Neat!

[CohibaVancouver]

I don't understand why I wouldn't just use a full-featured, full-power laptop...

I have a Surface Pro (NOT RT. Repeat after me NOT RT) tablet at work - and it works like a charm. It's a Core i5 running Metro + Win 8 pro. Runs full Office and has access to all network resources. At my desk it has its desktop extended to another monitor (try doing that with an iPad) with attached keyboard & mouse. Away from my desk it's got a detachable proper clicky keyboard and a nifty stylus.

If I'm "tableting" with it and I just want to check something I tap a metro tile's app and pull it up

If I need to do 'real' work I go to the Windows desktop.

All my colleagues carry two devices (iPad + Notebook) - I carry one. Every time I pull it out at a meeting or at the airport people say "oooh... what's *that*?" The RT noise is distracting people from what is otherwise a very cool machine.

You couldn't pay me to lug a laptop around anymore.

Keyboard...

[Prof.Phreak]

Am I the only one who is sick of those right-shift-key-right-next-to-up-arrow keyboards?

Re:Keyboard...

[Anonymous Coward]

No you are not.

a step away from the wrong direction

[Thud457]

holy crap , $349, with the keboard included ?!!! And it's a less crappy keyboard than the current crop of surface POSes.
This a real game-changer, it's almost not deludedly idiotic.

Any Atari 8-biters out there remember the dirty membrane keyboard peasants that could only afford the Atari 400 back in the day?

Re:a step away from the wrong direction

[eyenot]

You mean the dirty membrane keyboard peasants that could only afford the Sinclair ZX-81? Those Atari people were minor barons at the very least.

Give it up already

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody wants Windows 8 so who cares ?.

Re:Give it up already

[kmoorman]

"Nobody" is pretty strong. For example, I'm pretty sure that more PCs are running Windows8 that Linux, yet nobody in their right mind would say "Nobody wants Linux so who cares?", would they?

Re:Give it up already

[Anonymous Coward]

Why did they bother? It has Win 8 so it's already DOA.

More garbage chink hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

lol Asus

More disposable crap for gadget kids who never grew up.

Re:More garbage chink hardware

[0123456]

Asus netbooks were awesome; the build quality on our Eee PC netbook is better than my laptop that cost nearly 4x the price. But the Android Transformers feel very delicate in comparison -- I've seen a number of people on web forums complaining that they cracked the screen when removing the tablet from the keyboard dock -- and this just looks like a Transformer with an Atom CPU instead of ARM.

And, of course, it will probably be even more horribly out of balance than the ARM Transformer as I'm guessing there'll be even more heavy stuff behind the screen where you don't want it.

MSFT is going to ruin tablets like netbooks

[Anonymous Coward]

MSFT with their "golden touch" is poised to ruin tablets just like they did with netbooks. When netbooks were introduced, they had a lightweight version of Linux and no harddrive. MSFT made them into impractical laptops which ran XP. Now that ASUS is selling a Windows "tablet," I guess we can look forward to the same "innovation" that killed the netbook.

Re:MSFT is going to ruin tablets like netbooks

[0123456]

Ditto. If this wasn't a crappy 'Transformer' with a touch screen I'd buy one to replace our old netbook, but I don't want something that's a crappy tablet that also tries to be a crappy netbook.

Re:MSFT is going to ruin tablets like netbooks

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that they could do that as the net-book manufactures also made laptops (at a higher margin) and both needed friendly windows licensing deals and wanted the low margin product to die, the tablets come from phone manufacturing companies (chasing higher margins than phones) that do not make PCs at all.

different motivations will make killing this hard.

Meh? Really?

[snookerdoodle]

Ok, I don't get the "meh" posts. Touchscreen. Keyboard. $400 for 64 gb version. Real Windows (i.e.: Windows 8.1, not RT).

This is a pretty nice computer at a very nice price.

Re:Meh? Really?

[UnknowingFool]

Well most here are thinking that it's not an iPad or Android killer. They are probably right. It's a Surface RT killer.

Re:Meh? Really?

[stewsters]

It has the same resolution as my phone, so I wouldn't want to use it for writing any code. That my use for a keyboard. 2 GB of ram and an atom processor means I probably wont be able to play Dwarf Fortress at a decent frame rate, so there goes my hardcore gaming angle. I already have a phone and its lighter, so my emailing, quick messaging, and Angry Birds fix is satiated. I don't really have any reason to get this.

Re:Meh? Really?

[timeOday]

I don't get it, how is this not an iPad killer? For $429, you could get a 32 GB iPad mini with a 7.9" 1024x768 screen and no MicroSD slot and no keyboard. Or for $30 less, you could get a 64 G transformer with a 10.1" 1366x768 screen, a MicroSD slot, and a keyboard, that can serve as a tablet, or run any PC application out there. Seems pretty "killer" to me.

Re:Meh? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

The "meh" part is when you realize how much of that 64Gb is left for storage of your own stuff. It's an interesting device, but for a real windows system it's going to be pretty cramped if you start installing a significant number of programs. I guess investing in removable storage will be a necessity. For media browsing functions, it should be fine, though.

Re:Meh? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe. But it is running Windows. That kills it for me. Can you put Linux on it?

Re:Meh? Really?

[snookerdoodle]

I think the fact that it has Windows (and not RT/iOS/Android) makes it different. If it ran OS-X, I'd be just as interested. There is software I (and, I believe, others) use that only runs on OS-X and Windows. That would be a reason for some to get this. I've wanted a tablet. There isn't an OS-X one and the other ones that run Windows (again, RT is not Windows) are much more expensive than this. Of course, if Apple ever comes out with an OS-X tablet, it's probably going to cost at least $1,500.

Re:Meh? Really?

[bemymonkey]

It's meh because it's essentially the same as the previous generation - except for the price.

Quad core - only 1.3GHz and still Atom (albeit with OoO execution) so pretty meh.
Still only 2GB RAM, so meh.
Only 32/64 gigs of slow-ass on-SoC eMMC pseudo-SSD storage, with even the 64gig version only providing about 30 gigs of usable space after you subtract the Windows 8 recovery partition and the space Windows 8 itself uses, so meh.
No active digitizer as far as I can tell, so meh...

If Bay Trail truly provides a substantial performance boost, this device may truly merit a "wow", but Atom has always been hyped up every new generation... and each and every time, it was just a miniscule improvement that kept netbooks in the way-low-end. And 2GB of RAM means it's constantly memory-starved anyway, so there isn't really a chance that the device will be very fast anyway... even a Haswell i7 will slow to a crawl with 2 gigs of RAM.

Re:Meh? Really?

[roc97007]

Ok, I don't get the "meh" posts. Touchscreen. Keyboard. $400 for 64 gb version. Real Windows (i.e.: Windows 8.1, not RT).

This is a pretty nice computer at a very nice price.

Windows 8. Meh.

Re:Meh? Really?

[roc97007]

I don't get it, how is this not an iPad killer?

It's not an ipad killer because Microsoft hasn't built up the mindshare that Apple has, and because Windows 8 is pants. Microsoft tried to sell the Surface at boutique prices, and that didn't work out as well as they'd hoped. This device is at least priced right, but that only fixes one problem to uncover several more. Not the least of which is, most people don't want Windows 8. Yes, it'll run Microsoft legacy apps, in a weird, Win8 kind of way. That's not as important as it used to be.

Re:Meh? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Those things you list as benefits are actually detractors to the target audience of tablet users.
Tablet users don't want computers. They want easy to use appliance like devices that don't get malware. I agree that win8.1 has come a long way and it the "metro" interface will deliver a tablet-like experience in many regards. In fact I think this device may be an excellent compromise "hybrid" tablet/computing device and I'm excited to buy one. There have been moments when I've needed to have a bit of general-purpose computing need that was juuuust out of reach on my ipad or even nexus 7. Slap this thing in to it's keyboard, hotkey to desktop mode. Bam. Computer. Powershell, text editor, full fat webrowser with extensions, office suite. Everything.

But, as far as the average consumer is concerned, it's still no ipad. There's a reason apple sells ipads hand over fist, and no it's not some silly notion of obsessive brand loyalty. They really do just work. (If all of apple's customers were as obessive as some people claim we'd have bigger problems. Like California's secession and being renamed "Applestan")

Re:Meh? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Call me back when the a version not running an Atom CPU. For $400, you can easily get yourself a notebook with a *real* quad core and 4 GiB of RAM.

Re:Meh? Really?

[0123456]

Call me back when the a version not running an Atom CPU. For $400, you can easily get yourself a notebook with a *real* quad core and 4 GiB of RAM.

And two hours of battery life.

I was looking at potential netbook replacements recently, and there certainly were a number of non-Atom options in the $400-600 price range, but according to the reviews, if you actually tried to use the CPU power, it overheated due to the small form factor and throttled back, and still sucked the battery dry very quickly.

Re:Meh? Really?

[squiggleslash]

It has the same resolution as my phone, so I wouldn't want to use it for writing any code.

Well in fairness the pixels are quite a bit bigger. The problem with your phone is that the pixels are really tiny and thus you have to use a font that uses a lot of pixels per character to make out any words. As a result, it's difficult to fit much text on the 4" screen.

This device uses much larger pixels, which, while making everything look blockier, has the advantage that you need less pixels to represent each character. As a result you can fit quite a large amount of text on the screen and still have it be readable.

This has been your daily dose of "Take something someone has said a little too literally". Coming up next, "Your using the wrong homophone!"

Re:Meh? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Its 4x faster in sigled thread perfomance than the previous generation.

Re:Meh? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 8 is "pants"... on the desktop. But on a tablet, that's where the interface doesn't suck. And this thing is, you guessed it, a tablet! I seriously doubt that Windows 8 is "pants" on this device.

Nobody minds Windows 8 on a tablet. They just want to keep 7 around for their desktops because, well, 8 sucks on non-touchscreen hardware, and touchscreens have almost no reason to exist on the desktop.

Re:Meh? Really?

[roc97007]

> Windows 8 is "pants"... on the desktop. But on a tablet, that's where the interface doesn't suck.

Compared to Windows 8 on the desktop.

Re:Meh? Really?

[roc97007]

...and if Win8 is so great on a tablet, why are sales of the Surface Pro so weak?

Could it be... that Win8 is the problem?

Re:Meh? Really?

[timeOday]

The Surface Pro started at $899! (Now $799).

This new one also advertises 11 hours of battery life, compared to 5 for the Surface Pro.

The Surface Pro 2 should be a nice upgrade with the Haswell processor extending battery life. But they will never sell many at those prices.

Re:Meh? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

32GB iPad mini has almost over 31GB available for use. Windows on 32GB gives you 12GB or less than a 16GB iPad mini.

one big flaw though

[slashmydots]

It has Windows 8 though so nobody wants it. Everything else they mentioned is great but if the user can't stand the OS's interface, they're not buying it.

Re:one big flaw though

[UnknowingFool]

Metro/Modern is actually a decent UI for tablets. The desktop is where it sucks. Maybe Win 9 will have a dual UI mode as 8.1 doesn't seem to fix this gap.

Re:one big flaw though

[eyenot]

But you don't have to actually use Metro to get things done. The normal desktop is still there, and if you start typing in Metro, then what you are looking for quickly pops up in a search result.

I don't understand peoples' dismissal of Metro, considering it's not even the star of the OS. It's just a weird-looking box house that you can, for all intents and purposes, totally ignore and go on without really using. I only acknowledge its existence because I see it every time I go to start searching for something, like group policies.

And there's another thing: typing for what you want. A lot of people don't do that. There are tons of Windows users who still click through the control panel and then click through admin tools and then yada, yada. Well if you hit the windows key and start typing, what you want shows up pretty quickly.

Metro isn't any different. And I personally hated the Start Menu, it was slow to render and was a cluttered mess. Metro's a cluttered mess but at least it's immediately there when I ask for it.

Re:one big flaw though

[Anonymous Coward]

Metro is dismissed because we don't fucking want it. End of discussion.

Re:one big flaw though

[Saethan]

Took me all of 5 minutes to find an app to give me a start menu in windows 8, and I use it purely in desktop mode on my laptop. Seems like a lot of Win 8 complaints are complaining for the sake of complaining. I daily switch between win 7 at work and win 8 at home with no issue.

Re:one big flaw though

[UnknowingFool]

It works for you, great. Other people don't like Win 8 for a variety of reasons besides the Start Menu. Don't be so dismissive od other people.

Re:one big flaw though

[0123456]

Took me all of 5 minutes to find an app to give me a start menu in windows 8, and I use it purely in desktop mode on my laptop.

So every time you use a Windows 8 PC at work, or while traveling, or at a friend's house, you're going to download new start menu software and install it on their PC to make it work something like it should have worked to begin with?

Re:one big flaw though

[0123456]

But you don't have to actually use Metro to get things done. The normal desktop is still there, and if you start typing in Metro, then what you are looking for quickly pops up in a search result.

If I wanted to type to run programs, I wouldn't be using a fscking GUI.

Re:one big flaw though

[Anonymous Coward]

It has Windows 8 though so nobody wants it.

Not the first time you've trolled with this exact same remark. I'm somebody who just bought Windows 8 a few weeks ago. I love it, start screen included. Then again, I'm not an Anti-MS zealot and have enjoyed ever release of Windows dating back to 95.

Re:one big flaw though

[Anonymous Coward]

Works great for me too, except I don't use a start menu replacement. I think the new design is awesome. People have been crying, complaining, and trolling about EVERY new release of Windows. The idiotic nature of people makes it inevitable. Fuck em'.

Re:one big flaw though

[roc97007]

Metro/Modern is actually a decent UI for tablets. The desktop is where it sucks. Maybe Win 9 will have a dual UI mode as 8.1 doesn't seem to fix this gap.

As much as I dislike Apple (my work issued me an ipad; after a week I gave it back), they understand touch interface in a way that Microsoft probably never will. Yes, with diligence you can figure out how to make Win8 do most things, but it's not an OS you can just pick up and use, as you can any Apple device. Conveyance, I think someone said. They eye is not led to what the fingers should be doing. It's a major defect, and it may not be fixable.

Re:one big flaw though

[roc97007]

> But you don't have to actually use Metro to get things done. The normal desktop is still there, and if you start typing in Metro, then what you are looking for quickly pops up in a search result

Ok, agreed. Given that, why do you need touch?

Re:one big flaw though

[roc97007]

But you don't have to actually use Metro to get things done. The normal desktop is still there, and if you start typing in Metro, then what you are looking for quickly pops up in a search result.

If I wanted to type to run programs, I wouldn't be using a fscking GUI.

Mod up. This is a key point that Microsoft doesn't seem to get. If we're going to be typing the names of programs, why not just boot into a CLI? Why even bother with that garish refrigerator-door interface?

Re:one big flaw though

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure. The difference is that with: Win 8, Win Vista, Win ME, Win 95.... the critics are right.

Win 8 works for you? GREAT! Congratulations!

Don't think that this doesn't mean that for we who have to support OTHER users who can't tell a GUI from a wad of GUM that we shouldn't be rightfully bitchy when any company decides to completely redo their interfaces such that it costs MY business hours and hours of unnecessary troubleshooting / help desk time so that people can do the same job they did yesterday but in a completely different interface.

Re:one big flaw though

[Anonymous Coward]

And therein lies the issue. Metro is supposed to be a tablet gui, yet it requires a keyboard ...

Re:one big flaw though

[sharklasers]

And yet the keyboard is one of the focal points in Unity, as well as GNOME 3 for launching applications as well. It works really well - typing quickly is faster than using a mouse.

A GUI doesn't mean ZERO use of a keyboard. I'm sure you use Ctrl + C/Ctrl + V to copy and paste instead of using the mouse all the time. Why? Because it's faster. But you'll also click on radio buttons for example because it's faster than tabbing to their group and selecting up/down for the right one.

That doesn't mean I like Windows 8 though (it's aesthetically crap and boring and takes us back to the early 90's of GUI design). But when I use Linux I also prefer having the ability to summon a means of typing in a few characters of a program I want to run instead of moving the mouse. Particularly if I'm already typing something and think of something else to run.

Real Convertibles for Real Work

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish someone would make a proper high-resolution convertible for resembling performance capable of real workload that isn't a fragile piece of plastic and has the left Ctrl key in it's proper place, the extreme left corner!
Panasonic CF-AX3

will be available ... for Japan market

Well crap, and it has a Japanese keyboard too. Damn it.

I remember the Timex Sinclair TS-1000..

[Anonymous Coward]

that I had that had one....along with the zx80 and zx81 I saw in Radio-Electronics.

Meh-be

[eyenot]

The roomie I just moved in with was appalled when I discovered for her that her newly purchased notebook was actually a slower and worse-off computer than the laptop she was hoping to "upgrade" from. So we sent it back and now she has the credit and wants me to shop for her.

She kept mentioning the RT and liking it, but I warned her away and told her that tablets are still a developing technology, that it's in its awkward stages and next year she'll have something worth picking up. She said "okay, maybe next year it would be a good idea" but still seemed lost.

I'd like to say she has some good news when she gets home today, but the tablet isn't much better than the notebook. There's no removable media, not even a full-size SD slot?

I see these things as glorified palmtops. They're just slightly larger, but they fit the same niche -- something to pull out of your backpack or Euro-wallet at the airport or cafe and use within serious constraints on time and space. It's a useful gadget to complement a fully functioning PC at home, but IMHO it doesn't really qualify as a principal or "base" PC.

But oh, look: it's priced like a PC.

Scratching my head / not catching on.

Re:Meh-be

[timeOday]

It has a MicroSD slot, so how is the lack of a full-size SD slot a problem? A 32 GB micro SD is $20, just like a 32 GB non-micro, and normally include an adapter if you want to use it in a camera or something that needs full-size.

Unlike earlier Atom-based Windows tablets, these Bay Trail ones seem like they will not be horribly slow. Personally I would opt for a model with a better screen, but would expect to pay more for it.

Re: Meh-be

[AvitarX]

It's priced like a pc only in the sense that it's less expensive than a tablet.

Re:Meh-be

[Jmc23]

How is microSD not removable media? microUSB on the tablet? USB3.0 on the keyboard?

Don't ruin your friends life by steering her away from something she likes and serves her purpose just because it doesn't serve YOUR purpose.

Re:Meh-be

[asliarun]

The roomie I just moved in with was appalled when I discovered for her that her newly purchased notebook was actually a slower and worse-off computer than the laptop she was hoping to "upgrade" from. So we sent it back and now she has the credit and wants me to shop for her.

She kept mentioning the RT and liking it, but I warned her away and told her that tablets are still a developing technology, that it's in its awkward stages and next year she'll have something worth picking up. She said "okay, maybe next year it would be a good idea" but still seemed lost.

I'd like to say she has some good news when she gets home today, but the tablet isn't much better than the notebook. There's no removable media, not even a full-size SD slot?

I see these things as glorified palmtops. They're just slightly larger, but they fit the same niche -- something to pull out of your backpack or Euro-wallet at the airport or cafe and use within serious constraints on time and space. It's a useful gadget to complement a fully functioning PC at home, but IMHO it doesn't really qualify as a principal or "base" PC.

But oh, look: it's priced like a PC.

Scratching my head / not catching on.

Very interesting - the way you put it. If you read Anand and Brian's analysis of Baytrail / Silivermont performance, it pretty much lands up at half the CPU and a third of the GPU performance of a typical Core i5 that you would find in a slim notebook (Ultrabook). The crucial difference is of course that Baytrail consumes dramatically less power - about 2-3 watts (compared to 10-15 watts for a regular notebook CPU/GPU).

Reference: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7314/intel-baytrail-preview-intel-atom-z3770-tested/2

This power difference is crucial as it is low enough to be realistically used in a slate or iPad form factor. However, where it gets tricky is to determine if the performance tradeoff is worth it, especially if you are trying to do something meaningful - i.e. beyond simple surfing and answering emails.

There are two ways to look at this - firstly, Silvermont is about three times more powerful compared to the older Atom. So, if you are looking to replace an old Atom based Netbook, the answer is obvious - Silvermont will most certainly not suck in terms of netbook style usage, while still not heating up and keeping your family jewels safe. Personally, I think the best solution is a dual boot Silvermont that will boot Android and Windows 8.1 - it will let you use Android as a true tablet, and will let you use Windows 8.1 in a limited notebook way.

However, if you are looking at this as your primary computer replacement, I don't think Silvermont is going to cut it. You are better off with a Haswell. The dramatic power reduction in Haswell means that you can get a slim notebook that will still get you 8+ hours of battery life, almost rivaling an iPad. That is actually a game changer in itself if you think about it. This means that you can carry around a fairly lightweight and compact notebook with you and not bother lugging around chargers. In other words, you can carry it around like an iPad. Getting battery to last an entire work day or an entire school day is pretty cool! Something like the Macbook Air 13.

It would be super interesting if Intel came out with a version of Silvermont with beefier graphics (say, HD3000). I suspect that would be enough to support full HD meaningfully and to be a true viable notebook replacement.

Re:Meh-be

[eyenot]

It would be super interesting if Intel came out with a version of Silvermont with beefier graphics (say, HD3000). I suspect that would be enough to support full HD meaningfully and to be a true viable notebook replacement.

As it turned out, the roomie's bad experience with purchasing her first ever brand-new computer online left a sour taste in her mouth about the whole idea of buying a computer online. It's hard to reason with superstition. And, since I'm not somebody she knows very well, I wasn't able to convince her to try any other online avenue. She was firmly set on the brick and mortar route, and was too impatient for me to call around to the almost a dozen local computer stores looking for a deal. So off we went to Best Buy. I was at least put in charge of selecting the computer based on the price window, and for roughly $60 more than the notebook she sent back I managed to nearly triple the purchased processor speed, I believe double the hard drive capacity, increase the screen width by roughly 1.50 times, and add certain amenities like HDMI, USB 3.0, chip reader, the latest multi optical writer standard, etc. She was surprised was you can get by not trying to save the most money in an attempt to obtain something that looks similar to what you already have and assuming that newer means faster. She was quite surprised that there's an entire world of hitherto meaningless statistics and other data to take into consideration. Ah, the bane of computer illiteracy faced with the need to spend money wisely.

Meanwhile, she espied the large tablets, the newborn technology I was warning her about. She is dead set on purchasing basically a large flatscreen to port around with her. I asked her if she intended to affix it to a large CNC, blueprint copy, elevator directory, or other machine that would benefit from having such a console as opposed to physical push-buttons. She didn't get it.

I don't see any purpose in the attempt to market touchscreen tablets, essentially overgrown iPods, to everyone in lieur of productivity. It's just profit-seeking behaviour, much like how you can easily get a thorough response on a forum like Slashdot by mentioning that you have money to spend.

Re:Meh-be

[eyenot]

I had mentally excluded microSD from the criteria of "removable media" because when I showed her what a microSD looks like, she said "forget it". So, sorry chum but sometimes size does matter. And I, for one, have to agree with her. I don't think anybody should be reliant on something so important being so small, let alone the profit-minded producers of tablets. There are numerous practical reasons why not to consider microSD for anything but cameras, ipods, and other tiny devices that you don't really intend to remove it from. And a customer's size preferences aside, I would never try to sell somebody a computer meant for serious, daily use where the sole removable media was some sort of chip. As you well know, when you purchase new software in a store, you don't receive it on SD cards.

And you could suggest that software be obtained from online, but not everybody is in "the cloud" at this point in time, especially not certain customers. Especially not people who ask questions about their right to the software. When I told this particular customer (my room mate) that the Office 365 she was so interested in was a 2-year subscription, she abruptly lost interest. Telling her that she could conveniently download it online over her slow, overpriced internet did nothing to bring her back to M$'s weird new idea.

Well, perhaps you're one of those stodgy types who shakes their fist and insists that the latest, fastest, and smallest devices not only have to be adopted, but will be adopted. But I look around and I still see CDs and DVDs are the de-facto main media in use everywhere and that they obviously will be so for probably another decade.

Meanwhile, the computer she chooses has to be able to burn CDs for the purpose of business presentations at her workplace. Despite anything else, that is a requirement.

God, you look like such an ass, now, telling somebody else not to be so presumptuous when that's exactly what you're doing.

Re: Meh-be

[eyenot]

Including the costs of a keyboard, a stand, a tiny piece of (potentially unreliable solid state) flash to make up for the "32GB" model really coming with 16GB of remaning capacity, the price point compares to a fairly decent, new, fully featured laptop.

That doesn't include the cost of realistically including a large, cheap flatscreen monitor to view without having to slouch.

I can't understand somebody like yourself who embraces new technological gimmicks without thought. The tablet isn't "the new PC", yet. It has seen barely a year of proving ground and so far hasn't been exactly the major success the uber-geek insists it is. There are, meanwhile, still people who purchase towers. My room mate is steadily convincing a friend to buy a laptop instead of a tower, but the friend still lives in the 90's and doesn't understand that the laptop is about as customizable as, realistically speaking, his beloved tower.

Re:Meh-be

[Jmc23]

So basically your above post was garbage because you left out the most important part which is the ability to burn cds. Something which no tablet has and so your rant about microsofts tablet is stupid to say the least, because they do have external storage and don't have that thing that no other tablet has.

Ok, so you're one of those people that lets their agenda get ahead of the truth. Nice to know.

Bye Windows RT

[ErichTheRed]

Hmmm, with mainstream Intel platforms approaching the power savings of SoCs, maybe Microsoft should drop the other shoe and kill off RT. If standard Windows will run acceptably on these devices, there's no reason to keep RT going!

Here's Your Cup Of STFU!

[Anonymous Coward]

Really now? Show me a netbook with an IPS screen and 4 cores that sells for less than $349. What? Can't find one? Whoops...!

See Samsung Galaxy Tab 3, S4, etc.

Re:Here's Your Cup Of STFU!

[gl4ss]

Really now? Show me a netbook with an IPS screen and 4 cores that sells for less than $349. What? Can't find one? Whoops...!

See Samsung Galaxy Tab 3, S4, etc.

tab 3 is first of all arm(people wouldn't call it a netbook.. ), keyboard costs extra and it's base price is 400 and it's also just dual core at that and with just 1 gig of ram...

galaxy S4 on the other hand is definitely not a netbook and it's off contract price is somewhere around 580.

if they can get this to shops for 350 it's a steal.

Re:Here's Your Cup Of STFU!

[Jmc23]

Well, someone has a problem distinguishing tablets, transformers, phones, and netbooks.

This is what the Surface RT should have been

[emblemparade]

I'll repeat my title: this is what the Surface RT should have been. I would be happy to trade in my netbook + Nexus 10 tablet for one of these. And the price is very right, especially as it includes basic MS Office capability.

The Windows 8 interface is perfectly fine for a tablet. Worse in some ways than Android, better than others. The real advantage over Android is that you have a full web browser, none of those dumbed-down mobile versions that can't handle standard web sites. If you're really wedded to the Android app-world it's probably not so good for you, but remember that there's so much free Windows software that would do the job just fine. Android has been wanting full VLC and smoothly working Flash for years...

And as a netbook, it's the real deal. You can install *any* Windows software on it, unlike the Surface RT. And Bay Trail makes it that much more capable that the netbooks of old, that cost about the same, couldn't turn into tablets, etc.

People complaining about this being "slashvertisement" need to chill. This is news for nerds: a new category of consumer device that could really shake things up.

Re:This is what the Surface RT should have been

[93 Escort Wagon]

I'll repeat my title: this is what the Surface RT should have been. I would be happy to trade in my netbook + Nexus 10 tablet for one of these. And the price is very right, especially as it includes basic MS Office capability.

We've already seen how small the market for netbooks is.

Re:This is what the Surface RT should have been

[bemymonkey]

The Windows 8 interface is perfectly fine for a tablet. Worse in some ways than Android, better than others. The real advantage over Android is that you have a full web browser, none of those dumbed-down mobile versions that can't handle standard web sites. If you're really wedded to the Android app-world it's probably not so good for you, but remember that there's so much free Windows software that would do the job just fine. Android has been wanting full VLC and smoothly working Flash for years...

While this is all true, mentioning the full web browser in the same paragraph as the "perfectly fine for a tablet" interface is very misleading. I own a Windows 8 tablet, and while it runs Firefox and Chrome just fine in their full desktop versions, both these browsers are pretty much unusable for browsing via touch. Chrome spazzes out often, sometimes no longer accepting touch input on certain controls (pen and mouse continue to work in these cases, but forget closing a tab or accessing the location bar with your finger), and Firefox does things like selecting text when you're actually trying to scroll...

IE in Metro mode is surprisingly decent, but very very very feature-limited (Chrome on Android or even the stock Android browser both have many more features and settings) and doesn't seem to offer proper adblocking (the best I've found is an add-on that blocks about half of the ads ABP blocks)...

Re:This is what the Surface RT should have been

[emblemparade]

Yes, good point. But at least but they still render web sites properly, not something I can say about mobile Chrome. I would add a caveat, though, that browsing with touch is often a pain even with Android and iOS. So when I say "perfectly fine" I really mean "comparable," I'm looking forward to Metro support for Firefox coming soon, hopefully it won't be too dumbed down. I *need* AdBlock plus! Even mobile Firefox has a nice AdBlock add-on.

Re:This is what the Surface RT should have been

[Anonymous Coward]

FWIW, VLC currently does exist on Android...albeit currently beta: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-android.html

Re:This is what the Surface RT should have been

[Compuser]

Exactly. I posted before that Surface is 4X overpriced. I got a lot of flak. But here is a counterexample.
They do need to bump up resolution to 1080p and put in a Wacom stylus but with that exception this is what I was hoping for with Surface (features and price-wise).

Re:This is what the Surface RT should have been

[Compuser]

Did not want to reply to myself but...
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2048511/hands-on-with-bay-trail-intels-latest-best-hope-for-tablet-relevance.html
This says that prices are likely to drop even lower. With a projected price floor of $200, there is no reason a $300 device would not have a Wacom stylus.
Microsoft horrendously mis-priced Surface Pro.

Re:This is what the Surface RT should have been

[sharklasers]

This is news for nerds: a new category of consumer device that could really shake things up.

Nerds have been burnt by promises of new devices that were set to make an impact and failed badly. It's not a surprise the response is lackluster - it's a reflex to avoid becoming enthusiastic and investing in something which is probably going to fail anyway. If it works out, THEN we'll become interested.

A step in the right direction

[erp_consultant]

Finally someone has figured out how to build and sell a Windows 8 tablet. I think that $349 is a very attractive price point. Especially when you consider that it comes with Office, a physical keyboard, and an SD card slot for storage expansion. Ok, so the screen isn't going to set the world on fire but it's very usable. I could see something like this as a good note taking device for school/meetings. Maybe some light internet browsing or Netflix viewing.

The big mistake Microsoft has made is trying to compete head to head with Apple on price. The iPad is seen as a premium product. And the Surface? Well, it's a Microsoft product. If they would drop the price, like Asus has done, they could see a ton of them. Windows 8 on a tablet is actually not a bad OS.

Re:A step in the right direction

[xombo]

It's even more attractive if you can put Ubuntu on it.

However, I won't buy a tablet without LTE.

Re:A step in the right direction

[erp_consultant]

Maybe someone will figure out how to boot from the SD card, like you can do on a Nook.

Thats great but...

[JustNiz]

windows sucks....

Android/Chromebook?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm thinking this would make a great Android/Chromebook device.

Upgrade?

[Anonymous Coward]

But can it be upgraded to Windows 7?

Yes but this isn't Windows RT

[Anonymous Coward]

As I understand it, this is a Win8.1 x86 device, so the obnoxiousnesses you and others mention about RT do not apply.

Re:Yes but this isn't Windows RT

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Exactly, that's the 'linux' angle on the 'Intel finally delivering chips that should finish nailing the coffin shut on Windows RT' story.

There obviously isn't much stopping Microsoft from having another try at iOS-envy and mandatory app stores on x86 (the implementation on ARM, using UEFI secureboot and a restrictive SRP in the windows image, would be 100% doable on x86); but as previously implemented, that was a major distinction: Wintels would be more or less as they have always been, Win-ARM would be walled garden dystopia. Hence the general enthusiasm for the demise of the same.

Not that I'd pay the MS tax

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

By "convertible", I assume you mean I can convert it to Android?

With the Bay Trail..

[nhat11]

It's definitely more worth getting on around that price (could be a little lower) but still a lot better than the old crappy atom architecture we have now that needed an update for a long time.

Storage space?

[yoda-dono]

How are Windows 8 AND Office supposed to fit comfortably (and be usable) on 64GB of storage, much less 32GB?

Re:Storage space?

[UneducatedSixpack]

Wrong question. Win8 and Office will fit just fine. Where would you put your files?

Getting closer to what I want

[Anonymous Coward]

This is almost exactly what I want. It's only missing a few things. 1.) Better Screen Res and drop the 16:9 aspect ratio it sucks. Go back to 16:10. 2.) Add a Wacom digitizer 3.) Add a battery in the dock. 4.) Remove Office from the package I don't want it and I know it's costing me extra 5.) Make sure I can install whatever OS I want on it. Even better sell it with no OS at all that way I can pick the OS.

They do all that and get it in under $650 with the dock and I'll be all over it.

secureboot locked?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not an ARM device so secureboot should be unlockable per the windows 8 certification standards right? (Or is 8.1 changing the rules?)

How much ram does it have.

[ralphaostrander]

Is it soldered to the board. This is the x501a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06-HlMu7DCY the x502a you cant even do.

You're still losing, Microsoft.

[atari2600a]

My chromebook cost $200 + just under $20 in tax. The extra 4GB of RAM was another $30 & the cheapest 7mm 2.5" SATA I could drop in was $50 at 320GB. So, I've made a laptop that maybe specs a little lower on the processing side in just $300 & I expect it to last me well into & past the 2.5 years one of these overly-integrated Microsoft Phabtops are expected to last. Google's point-of-entry is still lower & really seems to be picking up steam, especially when only half the top sellers on Amazon don't pay royalties to 'the man'.

Re:You're still losing, Microsoft.

[Shirley Marquez]

It will have much better battery life than your Chromebook and it has a touch screen. So it's a bit of apples and oranges.

I'm typing this on a Samsung Chromebook and I love it. (I chose it over the inexpensive Intel-based Chromebooks because of its better keyboard and longer battery life. A new generation of Haswell-based Chromebooks is on the way; they should close the battery life gap.) But it's not for everybody. If you need to run software from the Windows world, one of the upcoming Bay Trail systems might be just what you need.

Locked bootloaders

[tepples]

How long will people think that x86 and/or x64 instruction set compatibility is a selling point?

That depends on how long Hollywood and the game industry insist on a proprietary software business model, and how long ARM remains correlated with cryptographically locked bootloaders that the user either can't unlock or can't unlock without wiping the device.

Gen 1 Nomad had 64 MB

[tepples]

That depends on how big of an SD card you have plugged into your EverDrive plugged into your Nomad. As for the other Nomad, it started out with only 64 MB of flash memory.

Re:Gen 1 Nomad had 64 MB

[Anonymous Coward]

Still better than my first MP3 player

Yes, people let me install Classic Shell

[tepples]

So every time you use a Windows 8 PC at work, or while traveling

While traveling, I'm more likely to use my laptop.

or at a friend's house, you're going to download new start menu software and install it on their PC to make it work something like it should have worked to begin with?

Yes. Here's how it typically goes in my experience: "Are you sick of the Start Screen covering everything up when you want to start a program? I am too. That's why I installed Classic Shell on my aunt's PC and my PC at work. It makes Windows 8 look like Windows again. Want it? OK, put in the admin password and I'll install it for you. If you want to get back to Metro, you can always Shift-click the Start button."

Classic Shell is all the upgrade I needed

[tepples]

Even if it turns out that this tablet can't run Windows 7 well due to driver issues, you can still install a reasonable facsimile of Windows 7's UI inside Windows 8. Google classic shell and your Start menu will be back to how you remember it.

Almost...

[Shirley Marquez]

It should have had 4GB of RAM. 2GB really isn't enough to run Windows well. Aside from that it looks like a decent value.

drop the windoze and the price by $100 and

[Anonymous Coward]

you got a deal