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Would You Use a Smartphone-Style Laptop With a Three-Day Battery Life? (king5.com)
An anonymous reader quotes USA Today:
"Always connected personal computers" -- or ACPCs -- refer to a new breed of Windows laptops with three key features: a battery that can last multiple days; instant-on access when you open the lid or touch a key; and an optional high-speed cellular connection, to avoid hunting for a Wi-Fi hotspot to get online. In other words, your laptop is going to behave a lot more like your smartphone...
In fact, with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, ASUS is claiming battery life of up to 22 hours of continuous video playback, and up to 30 days on standby. At $799, the ASUS NovaGo (model # TP370) will also be the first always-connected PC with a 360-degree flip hinge -- making it a "2-in-1" that can convert from laptop mode to a tablet by bending back the 13.3-inch screen -- and the first with Gigabit LTE speeds, for an always on, always connected experience.
ASUS's media relations director touts the high-speed cellular connections -- which consumers pay for separately -- as 3 to 7 times faster than broadband. "It allows you to download a 2-hour movie in about 10 seconds."
And Qualcomm's senior director of product management says there's more ways that it's like a smartphone. "Even when the screen is off, it's still connected, so when I open the lid, it does facial recognition, and I'm in."
In fact, with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, ASUS is claiming battery life of up to 22 hours of continuous video playback, and up to 30 days on standby. At $799, the ASUS NovaGo (model # TP370) will also be the first always-connected PC with a 360-degree flip hinge -- making it a "2-in-1" that can convert from laptop mode to a tablet by bending back the 13.3-inch screen -- and the first with Gigabit LTE speeds, for an always on, always connected experience.
ASUS's media relations director touts the high-speed cellular connections -- which consumers pay for separately -- as 3 to 7 times faster than broadband. "It allows you to download a 2-hour movie in about 10 seconds."
And Qualcomm's senior director of product management says there's more ways that it's like a smartphone. "Even when the screen is off, it's still connected, so when I open the lid, it does facial recognition, and I'm in."
netbook?
#DeleteChrome
Phone with a big screen and decent keyboard? Sounds great.
Based on the frequency of my auto-correct based typos you can probably tell that I post from my phone a lot already.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Do not want under any circumstances. *I* decide when *MY* devices connect.
Do you want to use an Intel Atom notebook for 800 bucks? Cause that is what is actually asked.
If it's anything like the last ASUS I owned (a TF101 Transformer) the keyboard will be shit (half the keys will stop working within 12 months) and there'll be a half-dozen dead pixels that, with microscopic examination, turn out to be grass seeds under the glass. How the fuck do grass seeds get inside a screen at the factory?
Sounds a lot like the Psion I carried for years when I was a working consultant -- actually a series 3 and then a series 5. liquid crystal display, SSDs for storage and a very usable but tiny keyboard. A pity they never got traction this side of the pond. And ran on AA batteries for weeks -- a very practical pocket computer, something I miss when using my smartphone. With wireless connectivity (still many years in the future) it would have been perfect. Nokia and Microsoft made sure it died... but they still make industrial stuff.
My Tandy 102 has over a week of battery life.
My "feature phone" cellphone I used to use before I had to get an android for work e-mails, lasted almost a WEEK with constant use.
If it were up to me, I'd have a shitty feature phone that ALSO had a hotspot support, and then I'd just use my laptop whenever I want.
Touchscreens are complete shit and the antithesis of productivity. I'm not writing comments online with a freakin' touch keyboard, it's a PITA--let alone anything productive on a cellphone. Other than checking e-mails, phone calls, and texts, there is nothing productive that comes from my phone. It's just dinking off viewing social media when I should be taking a shit.
"always-connected PC" -- for your own benefits of features speed!
(no thanks, google/fb/etc... all snoop on me already, I don't need my hardware to do that too)
Isn't this the ARM that is susceptible to both Meltdown AND Spectre?
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
convenience of a phone coupled with the usability of a laptop, but only when desired. i think they were a better idea.
Yes if I can install Linux on it. I love the concept of very lightweight, long battery life and still a full OS with a keyboard.
I've got a Lenovo MIIx, which I like, but never managed to get Linux running on it properly as it needs 64 bit UEfi but the processor (atom) is limited to 32 bit. I managed to get multiarch Debian on it but it would freeze within minutes after boot. It's probably my only device with just Windows on it and I now hardly ever use it.
A device that can run for days, and has a full desktop OS on it definitely has purpose for me, I just prefer that to be Linux.
Btw this link has much more info on the device
---
I will wait to make judgment on these upcoming ARM Windows notebooks. Until I see some real reviews with using them. I suspect they may be better then a Atom CPU netbook but less powerful then a core M Intel. If they could get to a similar core M3 CPU performance wise and really get 3 days of battery which I am very skeptical of right now. I would consider one for use, although it does appear they will focus more on the battery life then performance. Also I like a notebook at least 13 if not 15 inch screen. Not the least interested in a 11 inch or smaller screen.
Well you can buzzword my buzzword with a buzzword. "Faster than broadband". "Facial recognition and I'm in"
Who is letting these summaries get through and have they ever read "slashdot"?
windows.
make it a linux laptop and you have a deal.
Would You Use a Smartphone-Style Laptop With a Three-Day Battery Life?
Just reading that headline made me think of a tiny smartphone sized laptop, but on further inspection they seem to be talking about a regular old 13.3 inch laptop with a built in mobile network chip, lots of batteries and 360 degree hinges so you can use it as tablet. I will never say no to more battery capacity and I like the idea of a mobile network chip built straight into the laptop. My dad had a similar device from ASUS and quite frankly I was not impressed with their service or the robustness of the hinge system and Asus' battery life claims were extremely optimistic. The thing also died after a few months of light use and had to be replaced, but I am going to assume that is not the rule with Asus devices since I have not used enough of their gadgets to judge. Finally, I would probably want to run something other than Windows but that is a personal preference.
Does'ntworkGo.
1) It comes with a matte screen
2) It comes without a touch screen
3) It has no Video Camera
4) It has no Microphone
5) It has no Fingerprint or other biometric scanners
1. it runs Linux, I mean the manufacturer (e.g. Qualcomm) is committed to integrate and support Linux
2. The manufacturer is committed to enable the most efficient powersaving with Linux
3. Specs are not limited or crippled in some way (like netbooks in the past)
Otherwise I'd move along...
I have a Lenovo Yoga Tab 3 pro that does this, add a bluetooth keyboard - and you have that laptop you're talking about.
The key to long battery time, is to DISABLE WIFI. Bluetooth is okay, it uses a fleafart's energy of power, but WIFI is another beast, it sucks the batteries dry within hours of any device.
When I disable wifi, it's not uncommon for me to have the device on for a whole week, and still able to just within seconds turn on wifi and go on about my business as nothing happened.
The always-connected isn't really needed, and if it is - you'll be recharging it anyway.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
but hell no. I despise the smartphone I have now and that's just texting (which I also despise) and such, why the fuck would I want a laptop like that? I don't and wouldn't buy it. It took my family much badgering just to switch to a smartphone. I'll not make that mistake again.
If so then probably. I've been waiting for good modern non-x86 laptops.
Because it's not about running time, it's about "hey buy our new cool allways-connected-to-the-mothership-so-we-can-track-and-sell-your-data-to-the-advertisment-mob-operating-system".
Sounds like junk. Not a real computer.
I like the battery life, but they're definitely laptops, not phones or tablets. It's not that Microsoft can extend Windows downwards onto the phones this way. Battery life isn't the issue that stops them.
WIMP style interfaces aren't good for touch or stylus.
1) In effect you're sectioning up the screen for each app, this is what window placement is. It's a section of the screen allocated to a task or app.
2) The sectioning involves *drag* operations, a drag on touch/stylus interface is a bad operation. Drag to move, drag to resize.
2a) On a mouse the press action is against the mouse, and the drag part if with the palm of the hand, two *separate* things and its very easy to do. It's easy to drag and easy to hold the button and the two things don't clash.
2b) On a touch screen, the pressure and drag are both applied with the wrist and keeping strong pressure for the drag to continue, and weak enough pressure so as not to make the drag hard are contradictory things. Too weak and the drag ends, too hard and the style/finger is digging into the screen.
2c) On touch screens with a hinge, the hinge flexes making drags even harder.
3d) On tablet formats the stylus applies a lever force that varies with position, making it hard to keep constant.
3) Incomplete drags problems are a common item on touch/stylus things.
3a) Stubby fingers often try to drag *inside* the window on the app, and end up dragging the window border instead.... once you've setup the windows to be usable why would you want to keep resizing them???
For a tablet you should simply say run x, run y and z and the computer should sensibly divide up the screen based on the apps needs, letting you adjust it if desired, (and if you adjust it, dividing the screen in the same way next time for that combination of apps). The work for sectioning the screen *should* be done by the tablet not the user. Drags should be avoided if possible. WIMP interfaces are not good on these devices.
Windows is a wimp interface and really screams for a mouse.
Android designers do not really understand the problems, on Android users are supposed to divide up the screen.... lots of work, then run apps in the new empty portion of the screen. How are they supposed to know how much space the app needs? Guess. The apps are supposed to magically use up whatever space the user gives them, with some sort of magic interface that works in all dimensions while somehow being consistent to the user..... i.e. magic thinking from the SharkJump GooglePlex. Most of the major apps stick to Phone interfaces and skip tablets. This is because Google designers appear to be clueless.
Chrome OS, a bad copy of Windows, with the same 'apps must be resizeable to be in windows' poor thinking.
So sure, Microsoft has taken Windows down to the tablet, where it will compete well against Android easily, battery life is the main issue, but I don't think they can take it lower than that without an interface overhawl.
On the other hand, I'm confident ChromeOS is DOA. and so Pichai will hopefully leave, giving a chance for someone to actually address Android's shortcoming on tablets and push it upwards at the high end.
I want my computer to automate my work away, and fit *me* like a glove. Aka a *personal* *computer*.
With any consumer OS, I can't do that.
They focus on the smallest subset common to everybody, deeming configuration and customization, let scripting/programming "too complicated", and hence are not personal,
and they dumb things it down to average idiot levels, and lock it sown until they, to the user, are not computers anymore either.
Linux, BSD, and even the underpinnings of Android or macOS are OK, ... hell, even PowerShell is a sign of good will.
But the GUIs of all OS I know, (including Gnome/Plasma/XFCE/Enlightenment/etc) and especially mobile OSes, are insulting, slow, and cumbersome to the extend of painfulness.
The biggest problems seem to be, that ... and so have to be treated that way ... until they actually are. Kids are even raised like that. Because being smart or even wise is soo uncool and stupid anyway and such people must be hated. --.--
1. people somehow got it into their heads, that GUIs can't be powerful and CLIs can't be accessible. In reality, we need a no-compromise best-of-both solution. And that
2. people are completely retarded
So ... can't we just ... not do that? And have a real OS?
And a firewall too.
I mean my cheap Chinese phone allows actually switching the hardware parts off via the Android pull-down menu ... because they don't have this obsession with Apple-lile control freakery, and because it was easier to implement.
And I have OpenVPN and AFWall+ on stock Android 7. (Don't want 8 really.)
So that thing should definitely be able to do that, if it wants to call itself a laptop.
I have a Chromebook, so I already have a lot of this. I'd like my Chromebook to have more battery life, but it's already really good, and I don't want to carry the extra battery weight.
I don't want to pay a monthly for connectivity for my laptop. If I really need connectivity, I'll tether the phone.
This is too much money to lug around. I like my laptops to be cheap enough to lose/get crushed without me getting upset.
But the real show-stopper for this ASUS thing is that it's Windows. Why in heavens name would I want ANYTHING Windows?
Certainly not if it was locked into a ms os.
We already had these years ago. Why won't product managers study the recent history of their own field?
Any recent high-end Chinese phone has the power and the ability to connect a keyboard, usb hub, screen, whatever, and some already make installing Linux easy.
They currently do to the smartphone market what happened to the IBM PC, bck in the days: Competition and diversity in people competing, looking for their own markets, gives us all the wishes we want.
My phone happily suvives getting thrown at a wall and then put through a full washing machine cycle, and the manufacturer himself uploaded a complete disassembly and reassembly video, making it easy for anyone with a brain, to replace parts (like the battery or speaker) with new ones found on e-bay.
Plus it has a hardware feature that makes it completely unbrickable. Even if you mess up ALL the firmware.
So now you can start by imagining what you want, and have a good chance of actuall finding it, even if you dream big, and think it is unrealistic.
12" - 13" ARM Linux Laptop, thin, made of direct recycled plastic.
Point in case: I have a cheapo 11" Chromebook based on ARM. It has the smallest and shittiest battery you can imagine but still runs approx. 6 hours on a single charge. I'd love to have a decent portable rasberry pi style laptop with 30+hrs runtime. I'd prefer that over some overpowered Apple thingie. Especially for us programmers the prospect of a lightweight 30+ hour linux laptop is particularly enticing.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I like laptops with larger screens and keyboards. A smartphone/tablet doesn't replace the functionality of a laptop.
We call them "Gewittertierchen" (thunderstorm animalets) here in Germany. Because you always see them during thunderstorms.
They like being in tight flat spaces, it seems. Like acrylic sign plates with paper in between ... or flat screens ... etc.
I forgot how to get rid of them, but I known there is an easy method.
The don't do any harm though, apart from being slightly annoying.
Maybe it's a Canadian thing but I wouldn't consider this until I could get an unlimited bandwidth plan.
I'd only use the browser minimally except when I had WiFi access which means I would use it the same as any other laptop.
Maybe Google or Microsoft could take on the bit providers here in Canada (Bell, Rogers & Telus) and open up the market(s) for this type of device.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
No, I'm not paying for another fucking cellular connection. I don't require a device which is connected everywhere I go, I already pay for a cell plan, and I see no value in this whatsoever.
Sorry, but I'll connect my devices to the internet where and how I see fit. Building in a required cellular data connection which I need to pay for simply isn't going to fucking happen.
I'm sure some people will see value in this, but I see it as a completely pointless thing.
I get you point, but Nokia really tried. Shortly before Microsoft murdered and impersonated Nokia with its Elop mole tentacle, they released the glorious N900 and N950. ... and because MS fucking good things up yet again, as is their destiny.
And PsionOS, which was renamed to Symbian, was simply too outdated in its architecture. It couldn't even do real threads. So they replaced it with Linux.
All wonderful ideal-wold decisions in theory.
In practice, the projects got starved to death, both thanks to morons running behind the retarded turd that is iProducts because being a dick made Apple so much more money that managers became flexible/floppy dicks too.
Today, the best you can do, is find a good Chinese phone that plays nice with customization, and get a good attachable bluetooth keyboard. (There even are slide-out ones!)
The attachable keyboards ususally only fit poppular models tough, understandably but sadly.
Nice job hanging a bullshit frame on this.
There are a lot more who want unconnected devices, these are the people who don't buy these products. Problem is you only measure who do and only consider them as relevant, ignoring everyone else by labeling them as irrelevant.
Your logic is like a bullshit market study.
The article specifically talks about a device with a cellular connection. If you think wifi uses a lot of power, you are going to have a very nasty surprise with cellular radio on! ;)
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
" a battery that can last multiple days; "
Who needs that? Unless you live in Kentucky and have to watch the moonshine still for a couple days and watch porn in the sticks.
If I lived somewhere with actual telecom competition and a government willing to enforce it, then yeah, I could see it being somewhat useful.
Since I live in a rural part of Canada and I'm not rich, good 'ol wifi and a 12-hour battery life suits me just fine and I'll keep my cellular devices to the bare minimum.
Log in or piss off.
"Even when the screen is off, it's still connected, so when I open the lid, it does facial recognition, and I'm in."
No. Nononono. Nope. NO.
Smartphone? No. I need more of an OS than Android. I tried traveling with just an android tablet for 3 weeks and it was terrible. Android fails at remote connectivity for my needs.
Have a Nokia N800 internet tablet from 2008. Runs a debian-based Linux. There were issues, but I traveled South America and Asia with just it and a bluetooth keyboard for months.
The battery life sucked. Nokia's power port broke within about 6 months.
The video quality sucked, 240p. Anything higher with normal fps just didn't play.
What I really want is a "phablet" for my bag with remote connections to a display (watch, screen, projector) and input devices (keyboard, mouse, pad, audio) to control the phone and audio player and GPS/tracking. The phablet should be 8inch and 1080p resolution or better. In needs to run a real OS, not Android. A debian-based Linux desktop would be good, but with all the typical smartphone capabilities. I miss the PalmPilot tiny contact management.
I've had 10inch tablets. They are too big.
I have a 13 inch, 1080p, 4G chromebook running Ubuntu. It is just about perfect. Great battery life, under 3lbs, but the keyboards on 3 of these chromebooks have worn out. They are all lacking sufficient RAM for my needs. My next netbook will be 1080p and have 8G of RAM, 256G of storage, and a tested, 10yr keyboard. Chromebook keyboards are just too cheap. They wear out.
It's called an iPad Air with a keyboard case. Already connected to Wifi and Cellular, and I can do all my basic connectivity with it that I can on my PC. Only thing lacking is ability to really program on it effectively.
...magsafe...
because it has all the other ports one may need:
- USB 3.1 (2x)
- HDMI
- Headphone/mic-in jack
and even a MicroSD card reader (up to 256GB)
The only reason I ever touch Windows is for games... everything I do with work, social media, etc is on iOS or a Mac. If these machines wonâ(TM)t run steam and subsequent games unmodified theyâ(TM)re a non-starter.
There is no WAY I'd touch it;
One fine, bright day my Asus WiFi router suddenly went off the air. Hit the power switch to reboot. No lights. Did the wall wart fail? No, good voltage at the connector. Just for giggles, I opened up and bypassed the mechanical power switch. Here it is back on the air! Yea!!!! Wait, no one touch that switch. It was in a closet. WTF!?
Asus ROG G750JW: At least twice a month I have to re-seat drives. It's a 17 inch unit and there enough "flex" so that handling (lifting to my lap) causes the drives to have a poor connection and fail the system
You don't EVEN want to know about the RAM under the keyboard that requires complete disassembly to get at.
"22 hours of continuous video playback"
"It allows you to download a 2-hour movie in about 10 seconds."
"Movies"? Is this all people use computers for these days?
I don't respond to AC's.
and again,no
Or was that a stupid question?
No.
Your Christians stole this so-called holiday from my pagan ancestors, then LIED about it for centuries.
Sure, if it ran Ubuntu, I'd consider buying it. But honestly, I'm very happy with my Dell XPS13, so it's going to need to work well.
First, you will not be getting any 3 days of active use battery life. That is impossible. The screen alone will drain a 60wh battery in less than 8 hours on a 13 incher if you use it with anymuch comfortable brightness levels
Stop involving yourself in pleb society and start working on congregating that 0.1 percent towards the tech we want, and the society we believe we can attain.
We fucked recruiting the plebs into our lives and convincing them to use computers. Now is the time to remedy part of that by pooling our intellect and moving ourselves beyond them, while retaining privacy, anonymity, and control which they are willing to give up.
The time to rebel as a member of society has passed, the time to rebel and leave this society has come.
Android 4 was a clusterfuck release, and on my phone, which didn't have 3d (as well as many 3d phones which didn't have fast enough 3d, or lacked the 2d acceleration it assumed came with the 3d...) it would be dog slow with exactly the sort of lag you talked about.
It didn't affect me since I tended to use my device strictly as a phone, with a few apps for entertainment (and it worked fine with certain apps once they were loaded and the jit was optimizing them) but it was a complete hosejob otherwise.
Everything since 1GB has been semi-ok, although lower end devices do show lag, but most of those changes were google's fault, rather than the vendors and if you wanted the newer application support or the security updates (especially for that media library exploit!) you had to have the updates.
An always connected Windoze netbook...like a Chrimebook? Nah. Nope. No. Hell no. Fuck no.
Always on and connected is the way things are headed and one reason providers don't want net neutrality and their data plans regulated under utilities rules. Sure, the ASUS NovaGo is $799, but using it, your annual data plan costs are sure to be higher than that.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
You mean lik my ASUS C302 Flip that I have been using for YEARS?
Oh, yeah, I might... maybe.
The main thing I hate about it is that the Skylake chipset it has is very poorly supported by Linux. So instead of spending most of my time in a proper Linux distro, I end up using the Chrome spyware most of the time. :( Linux open-source, once a tech leader, seems to be in massive trouble.
There comes a time when real work needs must be done, and modern OSes (including many Linux Distributions) seem to be thwarting people in this regard. Sure, have a simple GUI for consumers, but what about an advanced GUI for power users, and access to full command line for experts who want to communicate precisely with their computers (oops, I mean "devices"; we're not supposed to say "computer" anymore).
Years ago when WiFi was less prevalent I was using a Sony-Ericsson PCMCIA card in my laptops for Internet connectivity "everywhere". Later I moved on to tethering my Blackberry, it took just a little bit of technical knowledge and cost was quite low. Nowadays though with ubiquitous WiFi it's not clear the idea will serve more than a niche market. Or nostalgia.
Thank god. Windows notebooks whose battery life isn't sapped by power-hungry Intel processors. Linux is nice, but only on the server, it's a shit desktop OS, always will be. As a real developer, I need something that can run VS properly. Anything I need from Linux I can get by SSHing into my Linux servers.
If this device can be completely turned-off and not auto-magically get turned on again, yes. I've thought for awhile the convergence of Smartphone technology and laptop would happen in a real way ... eventually.
What I think will happen? This will go over well and I bet I see this floating around soon ... if the price is right.
If I can't run photoshop, won't have it. I use it almost every day. Plus, I have a lot of business specific programs that I have to run, that probably won't work like I want. Good for some, but at that price, I'll take a laptop instead.
Just switch on airplane mode. Make the battery lasts even longer.
The device would either have that mode, or be banned on planes. Would be fun to watch if the device cannot login when offline though.
Oliver.
if that WiFi is getting data from the Internet then it's using some form of paid service too.
But with a two orders of magnitude higher monthly cap (1000 GB/mo instead of 10 GB/mo), and shareable with another member of your household without an additional fee per device.
you can set them up as a personal hotspot for your laptop or other device with no stress.
Does "Add the personal hotspot feature to your plan for only $xx more a month" count as "no stress" to you?
When you get it for "free" by placing a smartphone chip in a laptop format, why the heck not?
I imagine that the expectation of using cellular Internet may make users more willing to accept application lockdown, with the excuse "you can always SSH/X11/VNC/RDP to your home PC or to a cloud server in order to run apps that the OS publisher hasn't approved." A lot of iPad users have fed me that line when I mentioned that a locked-down device wouldn't be suitable for the lightweight hobby coding work that I did on a Dell netbook.
Youd have the option to subscribe to cellular internet.
How much would "subscrib[ing] to cellular internet" cost over the course of this laptop's expected service life? Add it to the sticker price. Or would you instead recommend that people cancel home Internet to make room in the budget for cellular Internet?
Or you could opt to rely on using wifi
Provided Wi-Fi is available. When I'm riding the city bus between home and work, it isn't, as the bus passes by each individual hotspot too quickly for my device to associate. Thus I need a device whose applications support being offline for up to an hour at a time.
(which could even be by tethering ti an existing cell)
Which in turn becomes cost-prohibitive when your cell carrier charges $359.84 per year plus taxes and surcharges for the privilege of "tethering ti an existing cell". (Source)
I'm still using one of the first T100s [...] Never given me any grief.
Last I checked, GNU/Linux on a T100 was missing a whole bunch of stuff. In particular, backlight brightness cannot be controlled, the camera is not detected, and suspend causes a full freeze.
with ubiquitous WiFi
Depends on the city. Some cities' public transit systems provide Wi-Fi to riders; other cities' do not. Citilink in Fort Wayne, Indiana, does not.
My answer to the question in the headline is a BIG NO.... I have my cellphone that are using 4G all the time, and that is good enough for me. If I want to use a real computer, then I can wait untill I get home.
One step closer to finally being able to get thru that backlog of porn.
See Subject
Just give me a ~13" laptop, with a good quality screen (ie. a good TN panel, or preferably IPS, 1080p), fanless, decent build quality, a good keyboard and a good touchpad, and 15+ hours of battery life.
So in other words, give me my old Acer Chromebook 13, but replace the horribly low-performance Nvidia Tegra K1 for something with actual usable desktop performance, upgrade the battery and ditch ChromeOS for actual Linux. As a bonus, give me a dock connector, or at least full docking (USB+Displayport+charging) over USB-C.
Eat the rich.
How would they know I am tethering?
Windows, macOS, Chrome OS, Debian (or anything else with apt), and Fedora (or anything else with yum/dnf) all phone home to check for system software updates. Your ISP can see what hostnames your device is accessing through DNS requests and the Server Name Indication field of TLS ClientHello. If these include some desktop operating system's software update repository, or Google Play Store while the SIM is in an iPhone, or Apple App Store while the SIM is in an Android phone, you're tethering. Or if these include substantial traffic to sites relying on Flash Player, such as Newgrounds, Albino Blacksheep, Dagobah, Kongregate, or the like, you're tethering. If popular sites that use an m. hostname consistently fail to redirect you to the m. hostname, you're tethering. If you're consistently connecting on ports used by a desktop application not ported to mobile, you're tethering.
Qualcomm TMN, always has proprietary firmware & cellular hardware closely linked to user CPU. It will be secure as a fire hydrant. Required windows is not needed to eliminate user data security.
I would not use it due to qualcomm. I would not use it due to windows.