Slashdot Mirror
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?
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?
apparently these days cheap is all that matters - quality doesn't
Because the business model of a number of tablet makers is giving you little on-device storage so that you start using their cloud storage service, which gives them an opportunity to sell you an additional service or sell your data to advertisers, duh.
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 :/
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
Seriously, I work in I.T. for a company with a highly mobile workforce, and we're both Mac and Windows friendly on top of that. So our environment is mixed, with a lot of emphasis on trying out various portable options and cloud offerings, while still supporting some traditional server "back end" for our financial system and shared network drives.
Long ago, we switched all of our users from desktop systems to laptops, and we had a policy of issuing corporate iPads ever since the iPad 2 came along. (For a long time, we had a division of our company doing iOS software development - so it made sense to issue hardware to run the stuff we made.)
Right now, we're starting to issue the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 to new hires who request a Windows PC instead of a Mac. And that brings up the question of whether its time to stop issuing iPads - if the Surface Pro is supposed to double as a tablet.
What we're seeing though is that generally no, the "one solution fits all" model is a big compromise and doesn't really work that well. Out of all of the different computers we've issued over the years, from HP Elitebooks to various Dell machines to different Macbooks -- the only one that's held up over the years as the "gold standard" that users really liked AND worked reliably was the Macbook Air 13". It's light and thin enough so people can throw it in a backpack or whatnot and take it with them without a care. Battery life is great. It's about half the price of the high end Macbook Pro laptops. The basic look stayed the same from the first year of production through current models - meaning there's no stigma about someone pulling out and opening an older 2011 or 2012 model in a meeting with clients. And repairs are pretty reasonably priced. (With Apple doing a "flat rate" repair program on them, you can have one with 5 or 6 things wrong with it and it's still cost effective to have it serviced rather than trash it.)
With the Surface Pro 4, by contrast? Yes, people think things like the pencil are cool, and it's a very capable machine when plugged into a dock and used like a desktop. But as soon as you take it with you to use like an iPad, you run into a lot of downsides. Battery life NOT so great, for starters. And because it runs a full Windows 10 OS, it has the inherent problems that come with a full blown, more complex OS. Issues not always waking from sleep properly, for example -- leading to a long wait to reboot the whole thing, or apps that aren't designed for the hi-res 4K display so fonts display so tiny, they're unreadable. The keyboard cover is too flimsy to allow typing on it like laptop if you actually have to use it in your lap. (It's designed assuming you have a solid surface like a table underneath the whole thing.) Lastly, I think it's a big omission that you can't buy a Surface Pro 4 with a built-in LTE cellular modem like you can an iPad. Having a cellular data plan on the devices goes a LONG way towards feeling "always connected" and ensuring your cloud-based data or apps are always available "on the go".
The really good tablets come with keyboards attached...
I don't see what sexual orientation has to do with this.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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.