Ask Slashdot: Why Do Most Tablet Specs Suck?

Slashdot reader Qbertino describes himself as a "happy tablet user," moving from an old HTC Flyer to his Yoga 2. But he notes that most other tablets "have laughable battery times," and "I've yet to find a tablet that does not give me storage or memory problems in some way or other, lasts for a day or two in power and doesn't feel chintzy and like it won't stand a month of regular everyday use and carrying around..." He asks why none of the manufacturers seem willing to offer more than one gigabyte of RAM -- and why they're so stingy with storage. "Where is the rugged 16GB RAM / 1TB Storage / 20-hour battery tablet?"

So leave your educated opinions in the comments. What are your thoughts on the current tablet market? And are they the ultimate all-purpose "convergence" device that Apple and Ubuntu seem to think they are?

Comments

My Recommendation...

[EmeraldBot]

Try checking out the Memopad 572c. 2 GB RAM, a fantastic screen, supports SD cards, and a really high performing chip with ~ 10 hour battery life, all for less than $199. It's not made anymore, can only get up to Android 5 at the moment, and won't take on the full size ipad, but for what you get it's a fantastic deal, if you can still find it. A decent $199 tablet seems to be a lost art these days :/

"Where is the rugged 16GB RAM ... tablet"?

[Nutria]

In fairy land with the unicorns and super-dense LiPo batteries that don't explode when you sneeze really hard.

Because what do you need in order to power 16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD??? Lots of power. Which don't exist in batteries with the density required at prices that are affordable.

Re:"Where is the rugged 16GB RAM ... tablet"?

[thegarbz]

This is the dumbest comment on Slashdot today. There's almost no difference in power consumption between small and large SSDs, likewise with the additional RAM. For example: standby power difference between a 120GB 850 pro and a 500GB 850 pro is in the order of 5mW. For those that don't understand what five milliwatts is let me put it for you in an example:

An iPad has a 43Wh battery in it. The power difference between the SSDs would drain the battery in 8600 hours, or to put it in numbers that are easier to understand, if you iPad currently lasts 10hours, with the upgraded SSD the iPad would last 9h 59m 18s.

During write these numbers are worse but the standard tablet usage scenario does not include continuous writing.

Here:

[bill_mcgonigle]

Here.

Not even a LMGTFY.

The form factor sucks

[Dracos]

I have yet to come up with a reason why I would want a tablet.

Tablets are meant for consumption, not production. Touchscreens are a regression in human interfaces: sloppy, imprecise, immediately unintuitive kludges for meta input. Tablets are one side of a power grab by the industry because PCs offer too much freedom, privacy and repairability; the other side is app markets and cloud services. Tablets are too convenient; to achieve that they must sacrifice any spec based on volume: battery capacity, storage, RAM, cooling, etc. Except screen size... gotta keep packing more pixels.

Re:people want cheap

[Gondola]

We have three tablets for the two of us. One in the kitchen for recipes, and a personal one for us to use around the house.

I often hang out on the couch and listen to music while I read e-comics, browse Reddit or Imgur, or use the tablet to look up IMDB entries. A laptop is just cumbersome and hot in those circumstances. An 8" tablet like my Samsung (1600p, beautiful display) is perfect, easy to read -- easier to read than a 4" phone screen. Laptop too big, phone too small.

Also works fine in the bathroom. Easier to read than a phone.

I have a crappy Nook HD for recipes and music selection in the kitchen -- it's a lot more portable than a laptop, fits everywhere, lasts a week or more on a charge just sitting there, and I don't have to worry about getting anything in a keyboard or using a mouse or crappy touch pad. Laptop too big, phone too small.

I was skeptical about getting a tablet, but for us they've worked out great in these scenarios.

Everyone has different needs.

re: complaints relatively incorrect?

[King_TJ]

I have to disagree that "all of my complaints are relatively incorrect". I'm glad you haven't experienced issues typing on the MS keyboard cover, but it's a fact that many of our users have. The Surface Pro is designed so it props upright along the edge of the cover, and the cover is a plastic and fabric combo that's slightly flexible. That means if you're sitting on a train or other form of public transportation and it's vibrating/bouncing around, the Surface Pro 4 can't really be held still by the keyboard portion - unlike a laptop with a traditional hinged lid firmly attached to the bottom half of the shell. That doesn't even begin to discuss such questions as why MS feels the need to sell the keyboard cover as an *option* for over $100 on a computer this expensive? Seems to me it should be included, as I've never met anyone who bought a Surface Pro 4 and decided to skip the keyboard cover.

As for the font scaling? Try any of a number of older apps developed using Java 6.... It's typically not compiled to be "scaling aware" (even if Java 6 technically did offer the option to compile source that way). Our Fonality VoIP "HUD" control panel is one such example. On a Surface Pro 4, if you launch it - you can't even see the phone extensions you're trying to click on because it draws them so tiny. There's no way to get Windows 10 to tell the app to draw it larger in proportion to everything else. All you can do is drag it onto a regular (non 4K) external display where it will display properly.