Slashdot Mirror
Ubuntu Tablet Now Available For Pre-Order
prisoninmate writes: During last month's MWC 2016 event, Canonical had the BQ Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Edition tablet on display at their huge booth, along with the superb Meizu PRO 5 Ubuntu Edition smartphone, and the Sony Xperia Z1 and OnePlus One Ubuntu Phones. The company teased users last week with the availability for pre-order of the first ever Ubuntu tablet for March 28, and that day has arrived. Probably the most important aspect of the BQ Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Edition tablet, which interested many users, was the price, and we can tell you now that it costs €289.90 for the Full HD version, and €249.90 for the HD model. It can be pre-ordered now from BQ's online store.
The perfect accessory for my Firefox phone! Sign me up for this overpriced underpowered slab of junk.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I can get an nVidia Shield K1 tablet for 199 USD. It's a much better piece of hardware and is great for everything from work to gaming. We never even got to the Year of Linux on the Desktop, and that's putting a free OS onto existing hardware. Why do they think anyone would actually pay money for this?
The only way i can see this taking off is in a business sense... and even then it needs to be tightly tied to an Ubuntu ecosystem.
Apple went the consumer route with the iPad and made it a media consumption device. Youtube, email, facebook, etc... Microsoft went the professional route with the Surface, enabling professional artists to have a digital sketchbook, or architects to view that 3d model. Both MS and Apple have nice integration with their mainstream OS/Server solutions. If Ubuntu wants to stay relevant, they need to up the ante and provide something their competitors don't. I could see these being used for a collaborative meeting where every person can write to a display, or view/take notes on slides. Video Teleconference with a team across the ocean, etc...
If they don't give something new for the money, then Archiebunker is completely right.
I have Ubuntu 15.10 on my Lenovo Thinkpad X that has a multi-touch display and can be converted to a tablet.
However I rarely ever do this because Ubuntu touch display defaults in general suck. I am not apt to change from the defaults because most of the time I want to use it like a desktop, this model is too old (big and bulky) to really be used as a tablet. However Ubuntu at its current state just sucked on tablet mode.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Can we wipe Ubuntu off of it and put a real Linux distro on it? Still wouldn't want it, 10inch doesn't fit in the pocket, small 8inch tablet good enough when on the go.
Despite Ubuntu, we're still waiting for a proper Linux distro for a phone, and tablet. I'm getting really sick of Google/Android, it's increasingly becoming like Microsoft, taking control away from users.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
I want one of these. It's plenty capable enough as a lightweight laptop replacement and companion device to a real desktop. And the price is low enough that I don't feel worried about wasting my money.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Really, nobody cares what O/S anything runs, any more (and probably never did - unless it was a Windows tablet). What matters is what apps, security, price, speed and bugginess/bloatware it sports.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Seriously, what a waste of time and money for the project. Nobody wants this. There is absolutely no sizeable market for an underpowered tablet running what amounts to beta software.
BQ? No thanks... already had my share of problems trying to make them uphold warranty laws.
Thanks for your time and consideration.
BQ Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Edition ?
Sounds like something the Volvo naming department would come up with after their cat vomitted up a pile of scrabble tiles.
You guys are all too rich. This will be the one and only device for many young would be programmers.
Quad-core, lame GPU, pathetic uSD support (only 64GB? phones do 128GB, lames) and most ridiculously, only 2GB RAM. That's asstacular. That's minimally OK for Android, but it should have 4GB minimum for running Ubuntu, and I don't want to use Linux on less than 8GB any more, that being about the point at which I don't feel I need swap.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Nobody never announced the official "Year of Linux on the smartphone", but it just kind of happened as Android phone adoption became more popular and overtook iOS and Blackberry device market share around 2012.
Now Google is the established player in the mobile space along with Apple, and everyone else is an also ran. Like you, I'm not sure why someone else would enter this space when the market was already matured.
Can we have a phone with a subscription-paid upgradeable software?
Because what I've been asking since ages ago, a Linux phone, won't happen (because, duh, makers want exactly the opposite: that I throw away my perfectly working phone...)
But with a subscription phone, they might have an incentive to allow a standard Linux on it with the standard (and much better/faster) updates and upgrades (security ones included) that Linux enables.
The way Android is we have a somewhat Windows-like obsolescence cycle with unnecessary spending and overuse of conflict minerals.
If I pay a monthly/annual fee, I would not avoid the costs -- but we could avoid the damaging short life cycle and with the reuse of not so old hardware, we could also do something about CO2 levels. I believe we should strive for a 7-year life cycle using that idea.
What about it? Any shortcomings?
This Ubuntu tablet has 2 UI modes.
The first is the normal tablet mode, if no bluetooth mouse or keypad connected.
As soon as either is connected, it goes into windowing mode like a normal desktop to use it like a normal desktop.
That is exactly what I want - most of the time, I want to attach a real mouse and keyboard and type
on a physical keyboard. Its faster. And I want to move around from numerous applications copy, pasting,
and running tasks. It also has a micro HDMI port to connect to a big HDMI screen if needed.
With 2GB RAM, the windowing of applications is likely to be fast and not as drawn out as with
1GB RAM tablets.
Hats off to Ubuntu developers for recognizing this is what we the Ubuntu users want,
and BQ to bringing this all into one place.
I pre-ordered one, hopefully it is the long awaited bundle of joy I have been looking forward to for a long time.
Installed Ubuntu on my Surface Pro 2.
Canonical is dumbing down and generally screwing up its desktop offering for the sake of a strategy in the mobile world, where they are even more insignificant than on the desktop. I do not understand these guys. I mean, your average Joe is not likely to buy Ubuntu PCs or laptops, unless Ubuntu is preinstalled by default - which happens very seldom. Only a Linux-committed individual will jump through the hoops. However, most of those Linux-committed individuals are (more or less) technically savvy - and they tend to resent the my-way-or-the-highway character of the desktop, aimed at rookie, non-technical users, that Canonical is pushing. Ergo, not only is Canonical not getting much in the way of new desktop customers but it is also losing whatever customers it had. And, in the process, Canonical's presence in the mobile world stays irrelevant, and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Way to go, Canonical.
Android isn't really Linux. Certainly not Linuxy enough for me.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I seem to remember that the tablet's bios would be non-free, but I can't find the link.
Anyone know where I can find some information?
I am going to be spied on by Canonical from now on.
> Android isn't really Linux. Certainly not Linuxy enough for me.
Linux is the kernel and it is the same kernel in Android as in Red Hat or Ubuntu. Android really is Linux based.
What Android does not have as standard is GNU, Gnome, KDE or other desktop UI, it has its own libraries and UI - as it should because of the different needs of small, mobile computer/phones.
It has a load of crap that I can neither change nor remove. That's not the case with something like Fedora, Debian etc.
Kernel schmernel already.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Android is Linux after Linux has been pulled into Google's basement and given a vivisection. - Some Slashdotter not too many months ago but I forget which one. I'm inclined to agree with them. Even if it is the kernel, it's a far stretch to call it Linux and you sure as hell can't call it free. You can make it more free, with the loss of some functionality, if you want. At that point, you might just as well buy a dumb phone.
But, who am I to talk? I'm still awaiting a Lubuntu phone and I currently use a Windows phone. I'll get the tablet but this phone only piques my interest as a curio. I might pick one up but it's unlikely. I'll be pre-ordering the tablet as soon as I'm done reading this thread and scroll back to the top. That much I know... I'll give that a shot but the phone is not, yet, on my "must have list."
I really want the phone to run Lubuntu - with LXDE and not LXQt. Hmm... I bet... Yeah, I bet I can get LXDE installed on it. I might have to find all the dependencies and recompile 'em but I've got ample underused hardware that can crunch all that in short order. I can probably even automate it so I can keep up with updates and security fixes. I will have to look into that and maybe make it publicly available - if it works well enough.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Proper Baytrail support would open Ubuntu, derivatives and Linux in general to a bunch of cheap, plentiful Intel powered tablets, that cost a fraction of what this does.
And yes, I know you can get some distros to run, however they usually lack a bunch of drivers, wifi and touchscreen are a particular problem, as is battery life.
At least on the high end Lumia 950 (but not the budget models, yet), WP10 is supposed to have a feature that switches when docked, giving you an ARM desktop experience. I'm not sure what the limitations are in terms of supported APIs and naturally x86 won't run.
If they could run any Win32 application compiled for ARM they might have a contender. But if it's as restricted as Win RT, maybe not.
Canonical calls their competing technology Convergence and will run anything from LibreOffice to GIMP.
I'm just happy 16.04 has native 32 bit EFI support, something all of us with Bay Trail Atom tablets have been waiting for a long time.
Well for a start, you're a generation behind - Cherry Trail was all the rage in 2015 in products such as Surface 3. A Surface 4 with a Willow Trail SoC will be released in time for Christmas, no doubt.
I looked at these Bay Trail tablets when the supermarkets here had them on sale. I decided even for $AU99 they were trouble. :(
It has a load of crap that I can neither change nor remove. That's not the case with something like Fedora, Debian etc.
Kernel schmernel already.
That is not Linux's fault, more or less similar to how Linux can't be blamed for not getting the support from hardware vendors that Windows gets.
I have an iPad, a MS Surface and a Motorola Xoom tablet. I'm good for now with all the tablets. BTW the Motorola Xoom is pretty much already a Linux Tablet and the iPad is basically BSD at it's core. So why do I need an Ubuntu tablet in my life? If I need a new tablet I can get a current version of Samsung's tablet used on eBay for between 100 and 150 dollars and that would be like for the 32gb model.
Paul E. Bahre
For the average user, that is what is needed, and it is why Android is such a popular Linux port, also this is the reason Ubuntu is so popular. If you want to get down into the weeds like that, you need to root the phone, then you have full access to the underlying configuration files, so you can break your phone any way you please.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
It's Ubuntu, it's a tablet... This would have been great a few years ago. Glad I'm not on the hook for this one. Someone will lose a bunch of money.