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Samsung Announces Galaxy Book 2, a 2-in-1 Windows 10 S Hybrid With Gigabit LTE and 20-Hour Battery Life (venturebeat.com)
At an event in New York City today, the Seoul, South Korea electronics giant took the wraps off of the Galaxy Book 2, a Windows ultraportable powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 850 chip. From a report: The only catch? It runs Windows 10 S, a slimmed-down version of Microsoft's operating system that can only run applications from the Windows Store -- specifically Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps and Win32 apps that Microsoft has explicitly approved (including, but not limited to, Microsoft Office). You can upgrade to Windows 10 for free, of course, but it's an emulated experience. But if that doesn't bother you, you'll be able to pick up a Book 2 at AT&T, Microsoft, and Samsung stores online for $999.99 starting November 2, 2018. It'll hit brick and mortar at AT&T, Sprint and Verizon later in the month.
The Book2 -- which measures 11.32 x 7.89 x 30 inches and weighs in at 1.75 pounds -- looks sort of like Microsoft's Surface. Its gorgeous 12-inch 2,160 by 1,440-pixel AMOLED display (216 pixels per inch) is fully compatible with Samsung's S Pen stylus, which comes bundled in the box (along with a detachable keyboard that attaches magnetically to the bottom bezel), allowing you to scribble notes and mark up documents easily. The screen's paired with stereo speakers tuned by Samsung subsidiary AKG Acoustic with support for Dolby Atmos, a premium audio format for multichannel surround sound setups, and there's two cameras onboard: a front-facing 5-megapixel camera on tap and an 8-megapixel camera on the rear. Under the hood is the aforementioned Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 system-on-chip paired with 4GB of RAM, comprising four high-performance processor cores running at 2.96 GHz and four power-efficient cores clocked at 1.7 GHz.
The Book2 -- which measures 11.32 x 7.89 x 30 inches and weighs in at 1.75 pounds -- looks sort of like Microsoft's Surface. Its gorgeous 12-inch 2,160 by 1,440-pixel AMOLED display (216 pixels per inch) is fully compatible with Samsung's S Pen stylus, which comes bundled in the box (along with a detachable keyboard that attaches magnetically to the bottom bezel), allowing you to scribble notes and mark up documents easily. The screen's paired with stereo speakers tuned by Samsung subsidiary AKG Acoustic with support for Dolby Atmos, a premium audio format for multichannel surround sound setups, and there's two cameras onboard: a front-facing 5-megapixel camera on tap and an 8-megapixel camera on the rear. Under the hood is the aforementioned Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 system-on-chip paired with 4GB of RAM, comprising four high-performance processor cores running at 2.96 GHz and four power-efficient cores clocked at 1.7 GHz.
Windows? Samsung, how could you?
I don't see any part of this machine that looks 30 inches long. What, and how, were they measuring?
I have one and they are really good tablet/pc for light work or surfing the web. Why get the samsung knock off when the MS one is the origional.
Gonna be kinda hard to fit on the tray table on the red eye.
It's called an ultra-portable, but they report the size as 11 x 7 x 30 inches? That's enormous. Two shoeboxes? It's got to be an error, we're just copy/pasting around now.
The specs listed are enough to run Win 10 and nothing else.
Bonus, its runs an ARM chips so the software available for it is very limited.
http://progressquest.com/spoltog.php?name=Son+Of+Son+Of+DarkRookie
As Someone who bought the Surface 2 RT, I'm kind of torn about whether or not Windows on ARM will ever pan out. One of the big reasons for going with Windows is that it supports so much software. This new thing will have much better support because of x86 emulation, and it looks like they aren't locking it down like they did with Windows RT, but it still won't be good as having a true x86 machine.
On the other hand, having used Windows RT, I have to say it has a lot of advantages over Android and iOS, and having Windows 10 would give even more advantages. Having a real windowed operating system that can display N applications on the screen at the same time is a huge plus. Being able to mount a network drive and having any application be able to access that data without any special programming is a huge plus. Being able to go to a command line and run batch files when you need to is a big plus. There's not even a menu option for viewing the source code of a web page in Android, and you don't get all the web development tools on Android either. Android and iOS have a long way to come before they can say they truly work as an alternative to Windows, Linux, or MacOS.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
From the featured article: "You can upgrade to Windows 10 for free, of course, but it’s an emulated experience."
In fact, you need to upgrade to Windows 10 for an emulated experience. The Microsoft Store Policies ban emulators that play retro games: "10.13.10 Apps that emulate a game system are not allowed on any device family."
My guess that it is lower OEM costs. If I was samsung id print instructions how to switch out of s mode on the box so people can install their real apps right away.
...instead of reading in the headline "Samsung announces Galaxy Book", " I read "Samsung announces Galaxy Boom".
Fooo!
Honestly in a day in age when pretty much any 'ultraportable' device could easily run a full power OS why in the fuck cripple it by locking it to a stripped down version of the OS? Well obviously to fool the stupid into just accepting the idea that the only way to get applications is by buying it through a walled garden application store.
run Linux?
Automatic fail. I'm not looking forward to members of my extended family buying these things. They're going to want support, and I'm not going to want to touch them. But I'll have to, won't I?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
My major (really my only) use for a tablet is for my sheet music. I used to have all kinds of books and paper in stacks and spent all kinds of time digging for something that I wanted to play (and half of the time not finding it). I tried making a database of the pieces and that helped only to the extent that I managed to keep my piles in order (and that never happened either).
A while back I got a Galaxy Tab S2 and it was truly life changing. I use the "Document Viewer" app from F-Droid for my music and my entire library is right there, organized and at my fingertips. And the 9.7" screen is just the right size to be readable.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
You can upgrade to Windows 10 for free, of course,
You can get full Windows 10 FOR FREE. Locked to a stripped down version of the OS? Hardly.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
... on the Hardware Front. Prices going down, fast, and battery time going up. Big time. Nice.
Got meself a Chromebook R13 for 400 Euros with a battery time of 9+hours. Very nice.
Now if the Linux kernel would catch up with power management and perhaps some FOSS GUI project would grasp touch in a feasible way, that would be even more awesome.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
From the rest of that sentence in TFS:
but it's an emulated experience.
"emulated experience" != full OS, k?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Why is it limited to 4 GB of RAM? Even Snapdragon 845 development kits come with 6 GB of RAM. And why did Samsung use the 850 instead of the upcoming 8180?
edit: looks like the 850 is a "Windows-only" alternative to the 845. Since there's a full Win10S stack for the chip, it's logical that eventually Linux will support it as well. So these might be fun toys for Linux installation.
Still, so little RAM makes it a non-starter.
It says it's emulated tho.
You left out this part of ya quote
"You can upgrade to Windows 10 for free, of course, but it's an emulated experience."
A crippled Windows 10 machine?
DO NOT WANT.
What are they thinking?
Let me correct you, the CPU is fine (if you can find ARM64 builds of stuff) but even if it isn't it's not something I care about that much. Whether CPU is loaded at 1%, 2% or 3% between key presses is inconsequential. But Windows 10 64bit with 4GB RAM? This makes it a low end laptop for $1000. 8GB RAM would work but with stylish fixed and unfixable hardware for $1000, I would want 16GB.
For $1000 you can about get an x86 with luddite keyboard, touchpad and ethernet, luddite display and bump it to 32GB.
$1000 for THAT?
Has Samsung gone completely insane?
All tests about those ARM-Books were crushingly horrible. Their compability is lacking, their speed slacking... do they really expect to get that piece of mediocrity at the price of a mid range gaming notebook?
Are they aware there are Lenovo solutions based on Goldmont which beat this weirdo at everything at a price of 300 Euro?
LOL
"Life is short and in most cases it ends with death." Sir Sinclair
Windows 10 for ARM is the full, proper, Windows.
The only emulation is when running legacy x86 programs because of a chicken and egg scenario where a software vendor hasn't yet checked a box in Visual Studio to compile for ARM64.
For the same reason anyone wants a game console: it's harder for a user to screw up.
The only emulation is when running legacy x86 programs because of a chicken and egg scenario where a software vendor hasn't yet checked a box in Visual Studio to compile for ARM64.
Or when a developer is using a compiler that doesn't even have that checkbox yet, such as the Delphi compiler used to build the BGB emulator.
(Before you ask: BGB's maintainer claims that it won't build in Lazarus because Lazarus doesn't include the GUI libraries on which BGB depends.)
Until all devices with 2 GB or less RAM are retired, 32-bit code still has advantages. First, a 32-bit OS doesn't need to keep both 32-bit and 64-bit system libraries loaded all the time, making applications less likely to spill their state from main memory to swap space. Second, even though x86-64 spills registers to data cache less often, the smaller pointers of 32-bit code are less likely to overflow the data cache and spill to slower main memory.[1] For this reason, developers of applications that do not require 4 GB or more RAM have tended to continue to ship 32-bit executables, even if they do ship 64-bit executables.
[1] The x32 ABI, which combines 32-bit pointers with the rest of x86-64's advantages, was intended to solve this but never became popular. In particular, unless all software that you use is free software, x32 requires three sets of system libraries: x86, x86-64, and x32.
why would a software developer port their windows app to UWP but not android?
Desktop Bridge allows a developer to continue using Win32 API (or other libraries that wrap Win32) instead of UWP, so long as the application isn't in a category excluded by Microsoft Store Policies.
Or a developer may have licensed the PC rights in a particular work, invention, or mark, but not the mobile rights. For example, last I checked, EA ported the game Tetris to iOS, Android, and other mobile platforms, and another company handled the PC version.
Can't see getting Microsoft's locked down, underpowered, feature limited product over a Chromebook.
And the article you linked describes the alternative as "locked down, highly secure Chrome OS machines".
A Windows 10 S device can be upgraded to Windows 10 without charge. This makes it arguably less "locked down [and] feature limited" than a Chromebook that can run only web applications. This will remain true until 75 percent of new Chromebooks ship with support for Crostini, the container to run X11/Linux applications.