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Lenovo Halts Sales of Small-Screen Windows 8.1 Tablets Due To "Lack of Interest"
DroidJason1 writes Microsoft has attempted to compete in the small-screen tablet market with Windows 8.1 and Windows RT, but it looks like the growing adoption of small-screen Android tablets are just too much for Lenovo to handle. Lenovo has slammed the brakes on sales of small screen Windows tablets in the United States, citing a lack of interest from consumers. In fact, Lenovo has stopped selling the 8-inch ThinkPad 8 and the 8-inch Miix 2. Fortunately, these small-screen Windows tablets have seen some success in Brazil, China, and Japan, so Lenovo will focus on efforts there. Microsoft also recently scrapped plans for the rumored Surface Mini.
I halted buying of Windows 8x machines through lack of interest as well. That and disgust at how diabolical the UI is.
No way to touch the little boxes on the desktop so no way to use one of those with a typical made-for-desktop+mouse program. Dell has an 8 with a stylus. It should COME with a stylus. Period. It only then could be used. But these are on-the-cheap and Dell can make a nice profit on upselling you a stylus ($1 to make and $40 to buy).
The reason why I don't have one is because of the processor. I'm still clinging to my 5 year old x200T despite the fact that it runs hot, is heavy, and has a 35w TDP processor (more than modern mobile GPU/CPU/APUs use combined) because when push comes to shove, content creation on an atom processor is a joke.
They could have been the cheap alternative to a cintaq, or the road-warrior-note-taker's dream, but I wouldn't try to run any scripts or plugins. I wonder if it'll even run the latest version of onenote smoothly. (not that you would want to use the current version's tragedy of an interface)
That's not even getting into the fact that windows 8 officially dropped digitizer/pen support (I tried to find the press release to this, but I think they pulled it when they announced the surface, this is the best I could find) microsoft.com
A gimped device, with half-assed pen support, of course they don't sell.
That those less usable tablets have had "some success in Brazil, China, and Japan"? Do you hate the Brazilians, the Chinese, the Japanese?
With Surface, it seems Microsoft is a bigger threat to Lenovo than Dell, HP, IBM, etc.
With that in mind, I can't imagine why they'd support any Windows platforms.
It seems that adding Metro UI to Windows 8 has resulted in their tablets and phones going from 1% to 2%. Was the whole exercise worth it?
I just do not think Windows was a small screen OS. Yea, the 10 inch or bigger is OK but I think any of the smaller tablets are worthless. I had a Nexus 7 which I thought was too small to really be a media consumption device. I got pretty frustrated with it fast. I bought a Surface RT for my wife which I thought was too small for running on the classic desktop side with Office. It was pretty hard using touch screen and using menus and opening and closing Windows. I thought to myself that Microsoft should have skipped Classic desktop altogether for the Surface. I think a lot of what PC makers were doing is trying to compete on price with Android tablets. So making smaller devices was the end result of that. For me, I could easily survive with a decent notebook in the 13 to 14" range and have my smartphone for any mobile needs. I really doubt today I would buy a tablet and if I did it would be a 2 in 1 notebook/tablet or a bigger tablet that could replace a notebook/laptop. The Surface Pro 3 is interesting but rather pricey.
Perhaps people don't trust lenovo? http://www.geek.com/chips/spy-agencies-shun-lenovo-finding-backdoors-built-into-the-hardware-1563801/
How well do they run Linux and when will they be selling them at 80% off?
Yeah, the second MS announced their Surface devices, the first thing I thought of was "well, that's every single PC maker now in competition with MS, and MS doesn't play well with others if history is anything to go by" Got a Dell Venue Pro when it first came out cheap, to have a play. And after a few bios upgrades, 8.1 upgrade, constant windows updates, driver upgrades, it's almost workable. Pick it up, let it install the updates, and in 10minutes or so after powering up and eventually locking onto the local network signal (that the very last update seemed to fix), it's good to go! And then... Even skipping the horrendous UI, that's clunky on the small screen, it simply doesn't feel as 'quality' as the Nexus7 I also use. Windows, use it on the laptops/desktops/servers, it works and works well, but for tablets, it's still stuck in that odd twilight of functionality that means it's not perfect for anything. Ok, there's going to be some sales for people who want to access MS Office files on a tablet? No, I don't think there really will be that many. And if you DID want that functionality, the 'safe' choice is going to be a MS laptop/Surface device. So I totally get why Win tablet sales are next to non-existent, and why makers of these devices are going to flee the platform and follow the rush to the bottom of other Android maker devices.
Waiting for an amusing sig.
I think some of the smaller Miix and similar devices are less useful for some clear reasons:
I think Windows tablet / hybrids or 10, 11 or 12 sizes are far more viable, particularly for people who have to actually do work on the go but appreciate being able to flip their sideways and use them as a tablet for some mindless browsing or whatever.
The Surface line is no threat. I'm typing this on an Asus Vivobook S200E ultraportable (i3-3217U, 4GB, 11.6", aluminum chassis, USB 3.0, $430 new + $80 more for a nice SATA-III SSD to upgrade with; basically what I call a "better MacBook Air than a MacBook Air") that makes a Surface Pro look like total garbage and is almost the same physical size. Laptops continue to be the king of "I actually have work to get done" portable computing larger than a smartphone. Tablets trying to be laptops are just plain junk, especially when you drop the "Pro" and just get a Surface that can't run anything useful at all other than a browser.
I'm waiting for the Surface thing to fade away. I'm surprised it sticks around at all; it's about time for an HP TouchPad-style fire sale. *stares at watch*
Windows 8 is a flaming piece of excrement. Even Microsoft sort of admits it by the rumor that support for Windows 7 ends in six months. That's to try to push people to upgrade to Windows 8. It's gonna be egg on their faces because this is now at least 4 times MS has done this to a user community.
And I've seen the sneak shots for Windows 9. The Start button is back bitches!
Chinese makers offer the same tablets for half the price.
From one of the linked articles: "But it was also riddled with charging, screen, connectivity and battery issues." Yes, I also have a lack of interest in those.
My company's VPN was incompatible with Android and I didn't want to spend much on a piece of gear for work, so I picked up the Lenovo Miix 2 for about $200 this year. Paired with a bluetooth keyboard, it's been an awesome companion - I gave up my bulky company laptop months ago and haven't looked back. (My primary workstation is the typical multi-monitor dev monster; I just remote in to that from the Miix.)
Your own argument about western culture arriving slightly delayed in the developing world should have caused you to conclude that the developing would would think something like:
1. If westerners aren't buying this Windows 8 crap, then why are they sending it to us?
2. If westerners are using non-Windows tablets, then we should be too (but perhaps just a bit delayed)
Yes, it's hammer time. For Microsoft. And it's about time.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Yeah, I'm actually kind of surprised that companies like Lenovo, Dell, and HP haven't made any kind of overt move toward doing what Apple does-- taking a FOSS OS and building their own distro/OS off of it, customized to their marketing needs. If I were running one of these companies, the announcement of the Surface would have been a real shot-across-the-bow that would have me rethinking my whole relationship with Microsoft.
Luckily the Surface was kind of a flop too. If it were not a flop, though, I would expect Microsoft to eventually move toward making laptop/desktop models, as they saw a marketing opportunity, and maybe network/server hardware. With Microsoft producing the Surface and buying Nokia, also selling the XBox, it's looking increasingly like Microsoft wants to go the Apple route of selling integrated hardware/software solutions instead of selling a commodity OS to run on other vendors' hardware.
A couple years ago, I actually predicted that we'd see something like a Dell/Microsoft merger within 10 years, which would then have a vertical market containing everything that businesses need for computing. Between those two companies, you have phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, switches, routers, servers, and the software to run it all. We've seen no movement toward that, and I personally think it's a bad idea, but I think that's where Microsoft wants to go.
Speaking from personal experience in a smallish IT shop, non-RT Windows 8 tablets suck. Mainly this is because Microsoft hasn't figured out how to make updates really easy like on Android and iOS - it's basically the same updating experience as on a Win8 desktop, so every Patch Tuesday you've got several individual patches to download and install. Contrast this to how Android and iOS do it: downloading and installing one big update in the background and then prompting the user to reboot.
The problem is that our users don't install the updates. For example, I have three with Win8 tablets (only 3, thank $DEITY) purchased about a year ago. To modernize them, I had to download and install about 130 updates, reboot, go to the Store and tell it to install the upgrade to 8.1, reboot, install another 36 updates, reboot, and then upgrade a few desktop-type programs individually, reboot, and then I'm finally done. Yes, these tablets are on Active Directory, and no, I don't know why they're not getting updates from our WSUS server; my guess is that the tablets are used just a few hours a month for several minutes at a time. Anyway, the point is that keeping Windows 8 updated on a tablet is far more tedious and annoying than on a proper tablet OS.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Not to mention it's $200 more expensive than the Dell Venue 8 Pro, it's not a Surface competitor so it needs to be targeted at the price range of the Venue and the 7-8" Android tablets, not at the ipad mini.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
The biggest problem with Windows 8.1 tablets is the total lack of decent apps. Not "applications", which they have plenty of, but "apps" that make content consumption easier.
I've got a Surface Pro 2. It's a pretty good ultrabook, even if the keyboard is a bit flimsy for that application, but it's a complete failure as a tablet. For casual browsing on the couch, it's miserable. There are no decent apps, and the desktop versions of most applications don't appreciate being occasionally resized for a keyboard. Even the professionally-backed apps, like the Kindle App, is miserably bad.
Developers make apps for Apple because there's an established user base, even if there's a barrier to entry (Apple Developer Program.) Hobbyists make reasonably good one-off apps for Android to scratch their individual itch because there's almost no barrier to entry. Windows apps aren't made, because there's no user base, and the barrier to entry for Windows Metro App development is still unreasonably high.
Microsoft needs to revive it's "Developers, Developers, Developers" chant.
The closest thing to concrete data about that whole situation could accurately describe:
-Agency plugs in lenovo laptop with preload intact
-Agency notes that a TCP SYN packet was sent to China, but not allowed to actually get there.
-Agency says 'screw it' and bans it without further analysis
This could be nefarious or it could be checking for firmware or driver updates. There's no way to guess what really happened without details of any investigation coming to light.
Keep in mind that it was likely an activity driven by some agenda. Notably, these agencies start from a perspective of 'distrust china' and consider it their job to prevent that vendor selling into agencies. So they seek the flimsiest reason to hold up to impose a ban, which no one really objects too hard to since it's politically better to not source from China anyway. The agencies may not have detected a real threat, but they likely presume a real threat is a significant possibility that they have no way of practically detecting, so they run with this.
If there was an unambiguous backdoor seen, you bet your ass the agencies would be shouting from the rooftops. Instead, they are doing enough to keep it away from sensitive areas, but not so much to invite much scrutiny.
Finally, if China *really* wants backdoors, they don't need to actually have even slight ownership of the company. All the big companies gleefully hand over pretty much full control of their manufacturing and much of their hardware design, software, and firmware development to China anyway. The nationality of the CEO means approximately nothing in the scheme of state sponsored espionage.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
It's neither fish nor fowl. It's too small to use for more than 5 minutes and it's too big to be easily portable unless you're a woman with a handbag. The only plausible good use to put to an 8" tablet is an industry or business specific app designed for a single purpose. Think, ticket sales, restaurant management, TSA security checks, mobile cash register, that sort of thing. Where the app is designed to one thing.
They should send them to the cast of 'under the dome', that's the only place where you see people using them.
Easy. Because they all still have big businesses selling Windows desktops and laptops - and don't dare piss Microsoft off too much. That plus the fact that Linux lacks 3rd party app support - but so does the Mac to some extent. Essentially, though, there's not a big enough market for such a thing - certainly not big enough to invest in the capability to offer phone support. Between Windows desktops/laptops, Macs, iPhones/iPads, Android phones and tablets and Chromebooks, there's a lot of competition out there for a new platform. And they can still sell their hardware to Linux fans. Unfortunately, that means Linux fans still have to pay the Microsoft tax.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Macbook display quality is about a thousand times better, and there's literally no comparison in the trackpads and keyboards either. What you have is a vastly inferior Macbook Air,, but at a great price. I'm sure for the money it's a great little laptop, but the Air is a far superior machine.
> And they can still sell their hardware to Linux fans. Unfortunately, that means Linux fans still have to pay the Microsoft tax.
Sorry to disagree. Someone (source not included) even bothered to warn Linux fellows that the same notebook model offered with Windows and Linux had two different minor hardware details which made the Windows version crippled if used with Linux (props to him for being considerate toward others instead of being selfish).
Though I certainly can tweak hardware to work with Linux, whenever possible, at my age I have other things to worry myself. I only buy Linux pre-installed hardware. I can even pay someone to build a machine which works perfectly with Linux. I even can afford the Microsoft tax; I won't pay:
a) out of principle;
b) to avoid helping them sustaining a vicious monopoly and, primarily,
c) to avoid any intentional compatibility problem.
That said, I'm in the market for two things (running Linux from factory):
a) a tablet 7" to 10", with at least 1280x800 and/or
b) a light notebook (1Kg max), 12" minimum, 1280x800 minimum (preferably 1920x1080).
Both things could be done with time and dedication, starting from a Windows-loaded product. I don't have the time nor the patience.
Tweaking KDE already occupies my entire day. 8-)
I kinda like the tablet PCs that run Windows 8.1. Decent battery life, I can use Gimp and OpenOffice.org.
At least other tablet PCs are available. I might buy a Microsoft Surface but it is a bit pricy. Come to think of it, the Android tablets are slightly cheaper than tablet PCs running Windows 8.
Because they all still have big businesses selling Windows desktops and laptops - and don't dare piss Microsoft off too much.
Yeah, that's kind of my point. They've spent decades being Microsoft's bitch, afraid to piss Microsoft off. And then finally Microsoft starts competing with them directly? If I were in their shoes, I'd be looking for some kind of leverage to balance the power out again. I'd grab Shuttleworth and some of the CEOs of my competitors, saying, "we need to collaborate on a viable alternative before we're totally fucked."
Especially as FOSS has grown and more applications have been pushed to the web, the 3rd party app lock-in isn't what it once was.
Between Windows desktops/laptops, Macs, iPhones/iPads, Android phones and tablets and Chromebooks, there's a lot of competition out there for a new platform.
And among that "competition", you also have Linux clients with the potential for some level of compatibility. If you count Chromebooks as a success story, then you can't say that Linux is doomed to fail because of a lack of 3rd party apps.
That's very funny. Tell me about your Air and its Ethernet port, multiple USB ports, and cheaply available replacement parts for when the screen that certainly isn't too thin happens to break. What's that? All those things are missing? Well, at least you have a nice status symbol.
Why fortunately? Is this a Microsoft press release? Windows tablets are crap. I've played with one recently, and Windows without a keyboard is indescribably awkward: all use cases I was trying (starting notepad, type something in it, browsing apps, looking for the configuration screens/system info) go forward in snail speed. That's less than turtle. Even the salesperson standing next to me had nothing to say in defense.
I wasn't aware that the screens were breaking so much on *any* traditional clamshell laptop. Or are you just making that up to console yourself with that genuinely horrible screen, mediocre battery life, and hard to find power adapters?
>> That plus the fact that Linux lacks 3rd party app support
No.
3rd party apps lack linux support.
aaaaaaa
My anecdotal evidence, as silly as that is. We only have 4 Macbooks a couple are Airs and about 300 HP/Lenovo/Dell laptops and a few other brands. We have had seven repairs on Apples laptop screen and five for non Apple in the past 4 years. Cracks and dead pixels mainly.
Now I don't know anything about the Asus, but according to their specs it has a Res of 1366x768. The Macbook Air has a screen res of 1366x768, I haven't actually looked up the manufacture of either screen. I'm sure the Macbook does have better colour, but that is really up the the user to see if they care, some of our people care, most can't tell the difference when we hand out equipment.
http://www.asus.com/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/ASUS_VivoBook_S200E/specifications/
https://www.apple.com/macbook-air/specs.html
Now I really want to like Macs. I used to love them long ago.
I was looking forward to buy the Lenovo Miix 2 8" with 64 GB and WWAN.
But Lenovo decided that people in my market (Germany) don't need it.
So I bought a Dell Venue 8 Pro 64GB/WWAN.
To those who say that the modern UI sucks: On laptops and desktops, I absolutely agree with you. But on a device with real touch support it works, if you're willing to give it a chance. It doesn't work if you immediately start installing desktop apps.
To those that say 8" is a bad size: I disagree. In my opinion, a 10" or 11" tablet is too close to laptop size to make sense, but 8" are about half way between a 4" smartphone and a 12"/13" laptop.
They have a big hole in the ground app for just this purpose.
Do the dome people have internet? What is allowed through, under the dome, and what isnt?
I bought my Dell Venue 8 Pro for one reason only, to act as a shim when i get roadblocked by something 'on mobile'. Its a full x86 machine that presents as a regular computer to the web. If not for that i would have NEVER bought it.
Good-bye
Modern UI sucks on the Venue 8 pro as well. The main problem is that desktop apps dont talk to metro apps. So clicking OneNote in desktop is different than clicking OneNote on Metro. They act as if they are 2 separate apps glued together by OneDrive. ON a single system that is plain retarded. Metro is pointless and uselss. Even on the 8" screen i would rather deal with KNOWN desktop apps with the pen than shitty metro apps with my finger..
Good-bye
Well, I for one operate a PC repair shop that sees plenty of Airs come in with busted screens. The things are too damned thin; there's just not enough aluminum to hold it together when something stresses it. Since the whole top half is a glued-together disaster and the front glass tends to break as well as the LCD panel, not to mention that the aluminum is sometimes warped, the repair involves replacing the entire top half. If you have an old Air, you might get away with a $200 used part, but newer Airs? LOL, yeah, hope you have $500 for that replacement part. That's what happens in the pursuit of ever-decreasing thinness. Structural support just is not there.
I'm not sure about the Macbook Air (the 11" model at least) having better color. The LCD panel in this Asus is much better than I'd have expected in a ~$450 ultraportable laptop. I wouldn't be surprised if the Air uses the exact same panel and the exact same quality. Another thing to consider about the S200E (and its near-twin, the X202E) is that it's an older release than the most 2014 Haswell Macbook Air, so comparing those isn't exactly apples-to-apples (no pun intended) in the first place. I found it interesting that the latest Air incarnation offers a sub-$999 model though; that's a step in the right direction, but they're still too thin and they still lack a network socket or HDMI, two things that are very important to me in a laptop. No, Thunderbolt isn't an acceptable substitute for HDMI, but thanks.
I have to disagree about the Atom part, at least. I (briefly) had a Win8.1 tablet from Asus that had one of the later (but not the latest) Atom processors. It ran surprisingly well. I wouldn't have tried any video production on it, but for running Office-like software and games of Hearthstone it did fine. Also surprising: the Metro interface (which I thought I'd like on a tablet although I avoid it like the plague on a desktop) was okay at best. Still, I was getting used to it.
The only reason I sent it back was half the time it would refuse to come out of deep sleep without a reboot, and three times it went into endless crash/recovery cycles after those reboots that required a complete factory reset to solve. It was a refurb model so maybe it wasn't refurbed very well. Either way, my next tablet will probably be another Android.
I have to agree. I have the same tablet (minus the WWAN, WiFi only) and I love it. The apps (not the desktop applications, but the windows 8.1 store "apps") are lacking when compared to other tablets, but having a tablet that can also run any x86 Windows app and gets decent battery life rocks. The price was great and the baytrail atom processor keeps up with most light duty web/office work without issue. I was kind of shocked how well it works considering the price point for them.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
From what I have gathered when talking with people the big point of getting a x86 tablet is to be able to connect peripherals and devices when you need them but avoid the space when you don't.
Some people I know prefer to use better external small keyboards and don't want to lug around on a laptop keyboard they don't use. The "keyboard covers" that have been offered are worse than most laptop keyboards.
People also want to connect devices such as their DSLR camera for doing some light image editing on the go, and that requires also a good pointing device such as a mouse or light-pen.
The x86 tablets from Microsoft have only one single USB port making the use of non-bluetooth peripherals difficult. The 8" Lenovo tablets have no USB ports on the tablets themselves. The Miix 2 has one only on the keyboard dock which is not made to be carrying around.
And no 8" windows tablet that I have seen so far has had a digitizer pen included - on the form factor where it makes the most sense, as evidenced by the popularity of the Samsung Galaxy Note.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Macbook display quality is about a thousand times better...
The Reality Distortion Field is strong in this one.
I'm typing this on an Asus Vivobook S200E ultraportable (i3-3217U, 4GB, 11.6", aluminum chassis, USB 3.0, $430 new + $80 more for a nice SATA-III SSD to upgrade with; basically what I call a "better MacBook Air than a MacBook Air")
I only took a quick glance, but it looks like the MacBook Air is half the weight, has a better CPU, better graphics, more USB 3.0 ports, much better battery life, lots of useful built-in apps, etc.
Exactly how did you compute that your Asus Vivobook S200E "ultraportable" is a "better MacBook Air than a MacBook Air"?
Lenovo is NOT backing out of the small-screen Windows 8.1 tablet business. They have clarified their stance today. See here: http://www.winbeta.org/news/le...
i agree about the keyboard and trackpad.
apple keyboards are horrid, and all trackpads suck so it doesnt matter.
These tablets are trying to get into the same market that netbooks once occupied. We all know what happened to those...
Yeah, they were gone in 2013, but in 2014, Microsoft's OEM partners brought them back when it wanted to paint Chromebook users as having been Scroogled.
You're looking at the Early 2014 Haswell 11" Macbook Air. The S200E has been out for over a year now; you're not even comparing apples to apples. I'm going to roll with the mid-2013 Air even though that's still newer than the S200E and thus is still not quite fair.
How is my S200E better than a mid-2013 Macbook Air?
Price: $510 ($430 for the S200E + $80 for a 120GB SSD) vs. $899 = I paid $389 less. I can buy another S200E base unit for that price today.
Physical attributes: S200E is thicker and heavier than the Air but is still a solid aluminum chassis (other than the rubberized bottom) that doesn't tweak, crack, and break as easily as the Air; the rubberized bottom also makes the unit much less slippery overall. Servicing the S200E is also very easy. The Air might be a little lighter, but in a backpack full of other stuff, why complain about an extra half a pound, especially when it means a much sturdier unit?
CPU: The Air is a Haswell i5-4250U; the S200E is an Ivy Bridge i3-3217U; this obviously makes the Air's CPU more powerful (PassMark: 3419) than the S200E's CPU (Passmark: 2292). However, my purchase was partly based on picking a low power consumption laptop to attach to a set of solar panels, not on maximum CPU performance; that i5 is 15W TDP while the i3 is 10W TDP (1/3 lower). I don't feel bad about paying $389 less for the slower CPU though.
Storage: The S200E came with a 7mm 500GB hard drive. I upgraded it to a 120GB SATA-III SSD. My final price includes the part cost for that SSD. Its 8GB less than the Air's 128GB PCIe SSD and the performance between the two in real-world usage is probably identical (though the PCIe SSD shows better raw read speeds in simple benchmarks). Ultimately, the SSD differences are insignificant. The S200E comes with a portable slim USB 2.0 DVD-RW drive; the Air doesn't have an optical drive at all.
Ports: Both have SD card slots. Air has 2x USB 3.0 ports and I wouldn't mind having that on my S200E, but the S200E has 3 total USB ports, so I can plug in my mouse and USB 2.0 microphone and still have my USB 3.0 port free for my USB 3.0 external hard drive or flash drive when needed. Other than having more USB 3.0 ports, the Air clearly loses on ports vs. the S200E: no HDMI, no ethernet, no VGA, one less USB port. Sure, it has Thunderbolt, but Thunderbolt is useless without expensive stuff to plug into it (remember that $389 I saved? Tack on a $29 Thunderbolt network adapter add-on to that if you like.) My HDTV and 28" monitor have HDMI; does your HDTV have Thunderbolt? Nope. Does your sub-$300 28" monitor have Thunderbolt? Nope.
Input: ah, yes, Mac users love their trackpads...I hate to tell you this, but it's just a Synaptics ClickPad. The S200E has an ElanTech version of the exact same thing, and guess what? It works just as well. It detects when you're pushing to click and doesn't go haywire and move your pointer while clicking (as early PC ClickPads tended to do), it has a heap of multi-touch gestures from the factory and those gestures are all configurable, and it tracks wonderfully. The keyboard has great tactile response and even looks like it was taken directly from a Macbook Air, save the lack of cloverleaf and apple keys. The two computers are on equal footing regarding input devices. The S200E has a touchscreen as well, but fuck touchscreens.
Display: The panels in use are apparently identical; I doubt there are many choices for a thin glossy 11.6" LED LCD at 1366x768.
Conclusion: I paid $389 less. I sacrificed 1/3 of the CPU power but got 1/3 the CPU wattage back in exchange. I only got one USB 3.0 port but
The S200E power adapter is easily found. Replacement adapters are $10 or less on eBay. The rest of your statements are subjective and/or workload-dependent and therefore irrelevant.
come under $400? windows 8 should pay me $400 to use the thing.
I halted buying of Windows 8x machines through lack of interest as well. That and disgust at how diabolical the UI is.
I bought a Windows 8 laptop as well - a rather large Dell Inspiron 17. One w/ a Core i7, 8GB of RAM, 1TB of hard disk. Installed Classic shell & tried it out. Problem was that even when I went into the desktop and was working on an application there, the Charms bar would just pop out of nowhere. Also, despite being the latest & greatest, from the Metro screen, there was no way of starting multiple desktops, each w/ 1-2 apps, so that I could avoid clutter. Oh, and also, the trackpad was getting in my way.
Finally, I took the trouble of trying to Install PC-BSD. At first, the UEFI kept ensuring that it kept going to Windows only, so finally I hit F2 and disabled UEFI. The first few times, the PC-BSD seemed to be in a permanent loop, but after hitting F12 to select the boot from device and selecting the DVD, the installation happened. Unfortunately, it failed to recognize the Wi-Fi, so I had to keep it connected to the router w/ the ethernet cable. Also, adding another user was tricky, and PC-BSD doesn't install root as a loggable user, despite prompting one to create a root password during install. So addition of another user had to be done via the CLI.
Finally, I had the thing completely set up w/ PC-BSD. It does what I need, so I'm liking it. Yeah, it has some rough edges, but nowhere near as ugly as Windows 8. Also, I'm using Lumina - KDE still has Akonadi running in the background, and sometimes KLaunch doesn't work, whereby the Logout doesn't work.
So for now, PC-BSD and Lumina is it for me.
I don't quite get you. I've used Windows 8 in 2 environments - a Lumia and the laptop that I described above. In fact, I used the phone first. The experience of the 2 was totally different.
I had a Lumia 520, which I loved. OneNote alone demonstrated to me how handy that phone was - I could make shopping lists that I never forgot, or travel plans. Nokia's HERE was perfect for finding places. Above all, the typing experience on a Lumia was superior to both that of an iPhone as well as an Android. I currently have an iPhone and a Kindle - a Verizon deal that I got that included both - and while I like both of them, the typing on them ain't as smooth as the Lumia was. Also, Lumia's touch experience was fantastic - the entire phone seemed to vibrate when you touched it. Anyway, those 2, plus a few more apps - things like unit converters, currency converters and some other utilities really made that phone handy. I gave that as a gift to my neice before my job brought me back to the US.
Now, as I described above, I bought a new Dell Inspiron 17. It had a keyboard wide enough like the old classic keyboards, complete w/ a backlit numeric keypad. The trackpad is huge. As described above, I started using it out of the box. The first thing that I saw ticked me off. Unlike in Windows 7 or XP or 95, it forced me to either log into a Microsoft account (Hotmail/Live/Outlook) or create one - something I never had to do previously. Since I already had my Live account from my phone, I just used that and got in.
That was just the beginning. The Windows Start button threw up a lot of icons, and I used a few which I had used on the phone, like Contacts. Do these morons really think that everybody will use their laptops to make calls? One only has Skype sessions when needed. Otherwise, if I want to see my relatives, I use FaceTime. Even the other apps - like the news - has preselected channels, and doesn't let you exclude all and just use the websites you like. My other grudge.
I then decided to play about w/ their App Store. I downloaded their version of FreeCiv, one of my favorite games. Boy, does it suck - the native Windows 8 version! Yeah, yeah, I know, the Android version on my tablet sucked as well, which is why I deleted it, and I did the same w/ the one I got from the Windows 8 store, instead going to the FreeCiv website and downloading it. Then played w/ it a bit.
However, both when I was playing, as well as when I was working, the charms bar would sometimes appear w/o warning, sometimes threatening to totally disrupt my work. I had had enough. I painstakingly sat down one weekend, put in the PC-BSD disk and finally, deleted the Windows 8 partition from the laptop. I was done.
In short, Windows Phone 8.1 is great. Only shortcoming - a market one - is the lack of apps like the Apple or the Play Store. But aside from that, if you don't have to have the latest & greatest games, then Windows Phone 8.1 is great. However, even if you have that experience w/ the phone and go to a PC/laptop, w/ experiences of both Windows 7 in the past, and Windows Phone 8.1, you'll find that Windows 8.1 still sucks. (Granted, I had a non-touch screen, but guess what? When I pay $800 for a toy, I really don't want to smidge the screen. My kindle already looks pretty bad, despite having a screenguard.)
On a tablet, I suppose Windows 8.1 could be okay, if you are not forced to deal w/ crippled apps from the store, but manage to use original applications written for Windows 7 and installed via disk or zipped files.
Eh. The System76 Darter Ultratouch is a better Macbook Air than the Macbook Air. About the same size, weight, but the Darter has a touch screen, is more powerful, and is cheaper.
Macbook display quality is about a thousand times better
not to mention a bazillion percent* more awesome!
*will not be quantified in any way
Ok so just to clarify here, your statement about it being better is subject to a fairly specific set of requirements: You're more often than not carrying around a backpack full of stuff such that half a pound isn't noticable, you need a low-powered laptop that can be powered by solar panels rather than computing power, you don't mind a hub for multiple USB3.0 devices but deplor dongles and/or wireless for other connections and you don't want to run OSX.
So clearly it's not that the S200E is better than the Macbook Air, it's that the Macbook Air is the wrong device for your use case. Statements like yours are just so obviously wrong it's mind numbing to think about why you even write it, the Air is what it is, if you think something is better than it at being what it is then you're probably using it for a different purpose and you are wrong to even consider it.
Especially as FOSS has grown and more applications have been pushed to the web, the 3rd party app lock-in isn't what it once was.
But that's why people care less and less about what operating system they run, it doesn't matter that much anymore, just look at the surge in Chromebook popularity. The other thing is the FOSS apps are - by their nature - portable to closed proprietary platforms like OS X and Windows meaning if vendors did make a move to a free operating system and an investment in FOSS programs then they're just shutting out their customers from the proprietary software vendors. People don't buy a computer and then go "ok now what can I do with it" - at least not anymore - they get them to run programs. If it's web-based then the OS doesn't matter, if it's FOSS then in most cases it doesn't either (Blender, GIMP, Ardour, etc...) and if it's proprietary applications (most prevalent is probably content creation) then you probably need OS X or Windows.
The free (or even some proprietary alternative) OS has no added value to the customer, sure you could have yet another Linux distribution but what would that achieve? We already have plenty that are dead simple to install. If you want desktop programs then Windows or OS X is still your best bet and if you can live with predominantly web-based applications then a Chromebook, an Android tablet or an iPad will probably do.
sure you could have yet another Linux distribution but what would that achieve?
Just to have something pre-installed on the computer that the manufacturer has enough control over to make sure there are drivers for whatever hardware is attached. You're right that people care less and less about the OS itself, but there still needs to be an OS.
And again, it doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense to say, "Suggesting that people use Linux is dumb. They can just use Android or buy a Chromebook!" That's still Linux. If I want all the functionality of Chrome OS and a couple other more conventional applications (e.g. GIMP, LibreOffice), then it makes more sense to just install something more like Ubuntu. So the point is, it would be trivial for a company like HP to take Ubuntu, include drivers for their own hardware, and brand it however they want. If they buyer doesn't care about applications available exclusively for OSX/Windows, then it'll probably do everything they need.
If I want all the functionality of Chrome OS and a couple other more conventional applications (e.g. GIMP, LibreOffice), then it makes more sense to just install something more like Ubuntu.
I guess I'm thinking that there aren't many people like that, they either want to run their specific OS X or Windows applications or - as you said - the applications they need have been pushed to the web like Google Docs/Office365 and Pixlr Editor.
And again, it doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense to say, "Suggesting that people use Linux is dumb. They can just use Android or buy a Chromebook!" That's still Linux. If I want all the functionality of Chrome OS and a couple other more conventional applications (e.g. GIMP, LibreOffice), then it makes more sense to just install something more like Ubuntu.
Yeah that's why I didn't say that. We've had decades of being able to install other linux distros but ultimately there is no compelling reason to do so for the general populace because even when Windows changes Linux distros are still an unfamiliar environment but they don't run all your programs, if you have to adapt to a new environment it might as well be a compatible one.
So the point is, it would be trivial for a company like HP to take Ubuntu, include drivers for their own hardware, and brand it however they want.
I agree, and maybe you're right that they will do something like that but personally I don't see a switch from the incumbent desktop operating systems except to a web-based one if that fits the bill.
We've had decades of being able to install other linux distros but ultimately there is no compelling reason to do so for the general populace because even when Windows changes Linux distros are still an unfamiliar environment but they don't run all your programs...
Which is a problem that isn't at all solved by using ChromeOS or Android.
This truly is a better MacBook Air than a MacBook Air.
But you just outlined how a MacBook Air doesn't suit your needs, so for that reason you went with something different that explicitly is not a MacBook Air because a MacBook Air is by definition not what you want. Doesn't your statement apply equally to pretty much every single product that isn't an S200E? Unless of course you understood the MacBook Air to be something other than what it actually is.
Right so the people who don't need application compatibility will go ChromeOS or Android or iOS and those who do will stick with Windows or OS X. Those who want a system with a pre-installed desktop Linux distro (that isn't ChromeOS) will remain the tiny niche segment that they currently are.
I don't know why you have this weird agenda of insisting that any Linux on the desktop (that isn't ChromeOS) needs to remain a niche. You yourself cited FOSS desktop applications as something that people use, and that it doesn't matter what OS they use. It seems like either you're emotionally invested in being anti-Linux or you're just being difficult for the sake of it.
You have GIMP, LibreOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, Pidgin, Skype, Dropbox, VLC, Spotify, and an ever-increasing number of games offered through Steam. People who use those applications are not a 'niche'.
I don't know what your damage is, but you should get over yourself.
You can't call on the "different use cases matter" argument and then claim that the opinion derived from a specific use case is "so obviously wrong." Pick one.
Because of your statements, I must ask you: what is a MacBook Air?
Hey, that's an interesting unit. Thanks for bringing it up. It's not quite as thin as an Air but damn if it doesn't tear the Air apart in almost every respect.
I don't know why you have this weird agenda of insisting that any Linux on the desktop (that isn't ChromeOS) needs to remain a niche.
It doesn't have to remain niche, but people won't change just for the sake of it, it needs to give people a reason to change.
You yourself cited FOSS desktop applications as something that people use, and that it doesn't matter what OS they use.
Right, but why would somebody switch from the incumbent operating systems?
It seems like either you're emotionally invested in being anti-Linux or you're just being difficult for the sake of it.
No, I'm not anti-Linux at all, you seem to not understand that you supplant an incumbent by differentiating in some way that consumers are going to say "wow that's so much better than what I have now". For example the iPhone vs Blackberry or the iPad vs the old Windows tablets. I'm a realist, I can see that that is what is missing in desktop Linux and that is the reason it hasn't supplanted Windows or OS X, it doesn't have a killer feature.
You have GIMP, LibreOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, Pidgin, Skype, Dropbox, VLC, Spotify, and an ever-increasing number of games offered through Steam. People who use those applications are not a 'niche'.
Agreed, but they all run on Windows and OS X too, so why switch to Linux? What's the killer feature?
Because of your statements, I must ask you: what is a MacBook Air?
This is a MacBook Air.
of course i can, a macbook air doesnt fit your use case you proved that so obviously a macbook air is the wrong choice but you seem to love apple or the macbook air name or something so much that you want to call your asus a macbook air.
the macbook air is about being thin, light, powerful and running OSX but what you want is something that sacrifices thinness and lightness for ruggedness, power for low power consumption and it doesnt need to run OSX, what you want is the asus s200e why do you want to call it a macbook air? im sure you'll stick apple stickers over the asus branding anyway but the asus is a great machine, you dont have to feel ashamed of it, call it what it is.
Uh, it has multiple ethernet ports? I have a usb ethernet adapter that I bought, like an idiot apparently, because I've never used it. And it's a 2010 that still works perfectly. I keep hoping it will break because I want to buy a new one with a backlit keyboard but the damn thing just wont quit. It literally looks like the day I bought the damn thing. Just upgraded to mavericks and it runs like a champ.
Actually Apple is the only company that makes a trackpad that isn't garbage. Nothing else is even close. And apple keyboards are great. And this is from a guy who uses a RealForce topre keyboard at home and a Cherry (Brand) with red switches at work. I type in the 120-130 wpm range and as far as laptop keyboards go, Apple makes a really great keyboard for a 13" laptop. The key travel and rebound is great, and the keys are pretty accepting off off center strikes.