It's a bit of an E-Ink problem, because the E-Ink devices are all single-purpose devices - that significantly reduces the size of their target audience and will therefore keep devs away. Take Adobe - do they have PDF reader software for E-Ink devices? Because Android has an official Adobe Reader app that renders complex PDFs more or less perfectly...
That's just an example though - what if a new format for, say, technical books, shows up in the next year or so? On Android, you can be sure you'll have an app that can display the format within half a year or so, and after about a year you'll be able to pick and choose according to app quality, rendering quality and so on.
If you're lugging a tablet around already, which works perfectly fine for eBooks, are the E-Ink advantages really worth carrying around a whole additional device?
The thing is: Most people don't want to lug around a separate device that can't be used for *anything* other than reading text, especially when the devices are reliant on proprietary (i.e. device specific) software, restricting the available input formats and causing rendering problems on more complicated PDFs and such. I've heard many a complaint about eBook readers' PDF rendering - they don't seem to be suitable for anything much other than reading fully reflowable text.
A tablet, on the other hand, will display PDFs (and other formats) exactly as they were intended, because apps are available to do so, and if they aren't, you could write one yourself. Also, being able to do everything from a single device is great... especially for people who don't need a laptop with them when they've got a tablet - add an E-Ink reader to that and you more or less double their load.
Also: Backlights are great for reading if you don't set them on full blast like an idiot (basically Apple's default "Fucking blind me!!!!" auto-backlight settings), and in the dark, when you don't want to keep the SO awake.
Then why not just use one of the already available Kindles or the other E-Ink based competitors? It's not like they're going to phase out E-Ink completely in favor of LCD... they're just adding an LCD-based device to their portfolio... no harm in that.:)
Actually, handwriting recognition on Windows 7 is awesome. Yes, it sucked on Windows Mobile, Palm OS and so on, but a tablet PC with Windows 7 is a great tool these days.
The problem is, IMO, that they changed the keyboard shortcuts along with the menus - ALT + letter + letter now has other letter combos for doing the same thing as before...
If all we're talking about is the actual graphical part of the interface, then yeah... clear winner with the Ribbon.
Sucks for Southpaws, yes, but having a trackpad on the side instead of down front and center is great for your wrists when you're using the device on your lap. Since the marketing paints this device as the first gaming laptop, it makes sense that they would try to improve the ergonomics for this kind of use...
I always get cramps when using a touchpad with the laptop on my lap... trackpoint, not so much, because it's at home-row height. I'm assuming this touchpad would be similar...
That may be true, but even with all their crapware, low-end Android devices are mostly faster than the N900, have a better selection of apps, require less end user knowledge of Linux and have a touchscreen that works in the way people expect it to ("Like the Eyefone!")...
Not sure what your comment is supposed to contribute, really... I like my guitars, and my bed, and my pants... oh and lasagna!
I had a G2 Postville in my laptop for a while, and just swapped it back out for a Spinpoint M8. With 8GB of RAM and Superfetch, the difference is definitely noticeable, but IMHO not worth the hit in storage capacity and price. Being able to have more than a barebones operating system with me (I can't really fit much more than Win7 x64 and my applications on an 80gig SSD) is currently worth more to me than the speed boost of an SSD, and 300+GB SSDs (what I'd realistically need to not have to plug in an external hard drive *all the time*) are just too frackin expensive.
Also, SSD is a hassle. Always thinking, "Oooooh, I have limited write cycles, better not use hibernate even though it's nice and fast on an SSD, and better not write too much stuff to disk with app XXXXX and better move the cache from other app XXXXX to a platter drive and so on and so forth...". I think I might be too paranoid for SSDs:P
I dunno, my Android devices (1st gen Snapdragon and a Ti OMAP 800MHz) are pretty slow at rendering big scientific documents. My 300-page EE PDFs take ages to load and scrolling farther than half a page per second gives me blank spaces that take a few seconds to load up...
"Some tools just don't cut the mustard no matter how much enthusiastic wishful thinking you might try to apply to the situation."
But that depends on what you're trying to do with the tool. Many office workers don't do much more on their work PCs than you and I probably do in half an hour of free time each evening - read and write a few e-mails, add a few stats to a spreadsheet, edit a few presentation slides... If they don't need any more horsepower or screen estate, why force them to use a PC?
You're right about not forcing solutions on people - but that goes for the PC too.
Have you tried out an Android tablet with an active digitizer, like the HTC Flyer, or the upcoming Thinkpad tablet? I'm also a Tablet PC user (Thinkpads), and I'm thinking of moving over to a pure tablet with a stylus. On the hardware front, they seem to be more or less capable of the same things as our tablet PCs, with styli sensitive enough for drawing small, detailed diagrams and writing small text...
The reason is that I'm already lugging around an Ultraportable (Thinkpad X200 right now) in addition to the Tablet PC, because I usually need a keyboard and the stylus at the same time... with Synergy, I can type "on the tablet" without flipping over the display. This combination is, however, quite heavy - I'm thinking a 7-10" Android tablet with an active digitizer could be a better fit.
Still waiting on a software suite similar to OneNote though.
I'm not going to argue that spreadsheets are at all easy on an iPad compared to a computer.
Depending on the size and complexity of the spreadsheet (barring any file format compatibility issues, of course), you might argue that it's just as easy on the iPad. Hell, keyboard navigation or even mouse + keyboard navigation on a traditional (non-Trackpoint) setup is awful in spreadsheet programs. Being able to select the cell with your finger is quite nice...
But only a blind Apple Hater would ignore that drawing on an iPad is FAR nicer than on a computer with a mouse. It's only when you have a computer with a tablet that drawing becomes better than on an iPad, and even there it's kind of a tossup unless you have a really advanced tablet because it's so much nicer to draw directly on an image instead of being one step removed as per a tablet. I had a Wacom Cintiq for a short time basically an external monitor you can draw on), and while it was nice I found I preferred the iPad for drawing so I got rid of the Cintiq (you should see the rats nets of cables required to hook it up!).
Of course drawing on the iPad is nicer and easier than on a PC with a mouse, but who the hell does that, especially in a work environment? Those people will *all* have WACOM tablets and better.
As for your comments regarding the Cintiq, well... I'm detecting a faint undercurrent of fanboyism. If you really preferred the iPad, you must not be doing any serious work in regards to drawing - I'd call that doodling.
"First: The iPad is generally a media consumption machine. I thought we'd already agreed on that."
Which makes the question: How many work users in a corporate environment actually need to *create* anything other than text documents, spreadsheets or the occasional presentation? Maybe a few e-mails here and there, and the ability to look something up on the web... hell, give 'em an iPad or even an Android tablet.
Obviously anyone who uses their PC as an actual content creation machine (graphics, software development, web development and so on) won't be using an iPad to do it. But why not give all the other E-Mail + Office people a tablet and a desktop dock (with keyboard and mouse) and be done with it?
Also it is easy to find current socket 1155/1156/1136 coolers that can handle more than that. Arctic Cooling, my preferred brand of aftermarket coolers, makes one rated to 300 watts. They've made ones rated to 200 watts for years now.
Up to 300W... before melting? Before critical mass? Before the PC lifts off?
WTF are you cooling? There are ovens that use less power than that...
Actually, he's right in that Motorola is the one big Android device manufacturer that's had such insanely locked down phones, and is the one device manufacturer whose devices were nearly ALL locked (pretty much everything after the original Droid, wasn't it?)...
Can't say I've noticed much latency. Even tethered surfing (with Flashblock, NoScript and AdBlock Plus, of course) isn't really worse than flaky 3G (like on the train)... sure, Slashdot takes 20 times longer to load than at home, but when you're out in the boonies with nothing to do, 10 seconds to load the page of comments that you're going to spend 10 minutes reading isn't too bad;)
"I already know, but that's got nothing to do with bandwidth, it's all latency."
So all your applications are so small that they're loaded into RAM instantly just as soon as the access time (I'm assuming that's the latency you're talking about) has elapsed?
I dunno, when I load $BigProgram, my laptop sure seems to read a lot of stuff off of the hard drive and write it into RAM...;)
Seriously... I have a quartett of spare EL34 tubes on my desk, a 12AX7 in the modelling guitar preamp next to me, and a whole bunch of EL84, EL34 and 12AX7 in the amps behind me.
I guess this means I'll have about 15 PCs in my office in a few years?
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It's a bit of an E-Ink problem, because the E-Ink devices are all single-purpose devices - that significantly reduces the size of their target audience and will therefore keep devs away. Take Adobe - do they have PDF reader software for E-Ink devices? Because Android has an official Adobe Reader app that renders complex PDFs more or less perfectly...
That's just an example though - what if a new format for, say, technical books, shows up in the next year or so? On Android, you can be sure you'll have an app that can display the format within half a year or so, and after about a year you'll be able to pick and choose according to app quality, rendering quality and so on.
If you're lugging a tablet around already, which works perfectly fine for eBooks, are the E-Ink advantages really worth carrying around a whole additional device?
The thing is: Most people don't want to lug around a separate device that can't be used for *anything* other than reading text, especially when the devices are reliant on proprietary (i.e. device specific) software, restricting the available input formats and causing rendering problems on more complicated PDFs and such. I've heard many a complaint about eBook readers' PDF rendering - they don't seem to be suitable for anything much other than reading fully reflowable text.
A tablet, on the other hand, will display PDFs (and other formats) exactly as they were intended, because apps are available to do so, and if they aren't, you could write one yourself. Also, being able to do everything from a single device is great... especially for people who don't need a laptop with them when they've got a tablet - add an E-Ink reader to that and you more or less double their load.
Also: Backlights are great for reading if you don't set them on full blast like an idiot (basically Apple's default "Fucking blind me!!!!" auto-backlight settings), and in the dark, when you don't want to keep the SO awake.
Then why not just use one of the already available Kindles or the other E-Ink based competitors? It's not like they're going to phase out E-Ink completely in favor of LCD... they're just adding an LCD-based device to their portfolio... no harm in that. :)
Oh God no. I have enough people touching my computer screens as is...
Actually, handwriting recognition on Windows 7 is awesome. Yes, it sucked on Windows Mobile, Palm OS and so on, but a tablet PC with Windows 7 is a great tool these days.
The problem is, IMO, that they changed the keyboard shortcuts along with the menus - ALT + letter + letter now has other letter combos for doing the same thing as before...
If all we're talking about is the actual graphical part of the interface, then yeah... clear winner with the Ribbon.
Thanks for making me feel better about my crappy Android devices. :) :P
Text reflow works, but the keyboards are just as shitty ;)
Do you own a gaming laptop or a gaming desktop replacement? There's a pretty big difference...
This Razer looks like a black MBP 17" with different controls, and looks pretty comfy to use too.
Sucks for Southpaws, yes, but having a trackpad on the side instead of down front and center is great for your wrists when you're using the device on your lap. Since the marketing paints this device as the first gaming laptop, it makes sense that they would try to improve the ergonomics for this kind of use...
I always get cramps when using a touchpad with the laptop on my lap... trackpoint, not so much, because it's at home-row height. I'm assuming this touchpad would be similar...
That may be true, but even with all their crapware, low-end Android devices are mostly faster than the N900, have a better selection of apps, require less end user knowledge of Linux and have a touchscreen that works in the way people expect it to ("Like the Eyefone!")...
Not sure what your comment is supposed to contribute, really... I like my guitars, and my bed, and my pants... oh and lasagna!
Hmmm, sounds perfect for people as neurotic as me, thanks for the tip :D
I had a G2 Postville in my laptop for a while, and just swapped it back out for a Spinpoint M8. With 8GB of RAM and Superfetch, the difference is definitely noticeable, but IMHO not worth the hit in storage capacity and price. Being able to have more than a barebones operating system with me (I can't really fit much more than Win7 x64 and my applications on an 80gig SSD) is currently worth more to me than the speed boost of an SSD, and 300+GB SSDs (what I'd realistically need to not have to plug in an external hard drive *all the time*) are just too frackin expensive.
Also, SSD is a hassle. Always thinking, "Oooooh, I have limited write cycles, better not use hibernate even though it's nice and fast on an SSD, and better not write too much stuff to disk with app XXXXX and better move the cache from other app XXXXX to a platter drive and so on and so forth...". I think I might be too paranoid for SSDs :P
I dunno, my Android devices (1st gen Snapdragon and a Ti OMAP 800MHz) are pretty slow at rendering big scientific documents. My 300-page EE PDFs take ages to load and scrolling farther than half a page per second gives me blank spaces that take a few seconds to load up...
"Some tools just don't cut the mustard no matter how much enthusiastic wishful thinking you might try to apply to the situation."
But that depends on what you're trying to do with the tool. Many office workers don't do much more on their work PCs than you and I probably do in half an hour of free time each evening - read and write a few e-mails, add a few stats to a spreadsheet, edit a few presentation slides... If they don't need any more horsepower or screen estate, why force them to use a PC?
You're right about not forcing solutions on people - but that goes for the PC too.
Have you tried out an Android tablet with an active digitizer, like the HTC Flyer, or the upcoming Thinkpad tablet? I'm also a Tablet PC user (Thinkpads), and I'm thinking of moving over to a pure tablet with a stylus. On the hardware front, they seem to be more or less capable of the same things as our tablet PCs, with styli sensitive enough for drawing small, detailed diagrams and writing small text...
The reason is that I'm already lugging around an Ultraportable (Thinkpad X200 right now) in addition to the Tablet PC, because I usually need a keyboard and the stylus at the same time... with Synergy, I can type "on the tablet" without flipping over the display. This combination is, however, quite heavy - I'm thinking a 7-10" Android tablet with an active digitizer could be a better fit.
Still waiting on a software suite similar to OneNote though.
I'm not going to argue that spreadsheets are at all easy on an iPad compared to a computer.
Depending on the size and complexity of the spreadsheet (barring any file format compatibility issues, of course), you might argue that it's just as easy on the iPad. Hell, keyboard navigation or even mouse + keyboard navigation on a traditional (non-Trackpoint) setup is awful in spreadsheet programs. Being able to select the cell with your finger is quite nice...
But only a blind Apple Hater would ignore that drawing on an iPad is FAR nicer than on a computer with a mouse. It's only when you have a computer with a tablet that drawing becomes better than on an iPad, and even there it's kind of a tossup unless you have a really advanced tablet because it's so much nicer to draw directly on an image instead of being one step removed as per a tablet. I had a Wacom Cintiq for a short time basically an external monitor you can draw on), and while it was nice I found I preferred the iPad for drawing so I got rid of the Cintiq (you should see the rats nets of cables required to hook it up!).
Of course drawing on the iPad is nicer and easier than on a PC with a mouse, but who the hell does that, especially in a work environment? Those people will *all* have WACOM tablets and better.
As for your comments regarding the Cintiq, well... I'm detecting a faint undercurrent of fanboyism. If you really preferred the iPad, you must not be doing any serious work in regards to drawing - I'd call that doodling.
"First: The iPad is generally a media consumption machine. I thought we'd already agreed on that."
Which makes the question: How many work users in a corporate environment actually need to *create* anything other than text documents, spreadsheets or the occasional presentation? Maybe a few e-mails here and there, and the ability to look something up on the web... hell, give 'em an iPad or even an Android tablet.
Obviously anyone who uses their PC as an actual content creation machine (graphics, software development, web development and so on) won't be using an iPad to do it. But why not give all the other E-Mail + Office people a tablet and a desktop dock (with keyboard and mouse) and be done with it?
And Android tablets are for creators? Bullshit.
Also it is easy to find current socket 1155/1156/1136 coolers that can handle more than that. Arctic Cooling, my preferred brand of aftermarket coolers, makes one rated to 300 watts. They've made ones rated to 200 watts for years now.
Up to 300W... before melting? Before critical mass? Before the PC lifts off?
WTF are you cooling? There are ovens that use less power than that...
Actually, he's right in that Motorola is the one big Android device manufacturer that's had such insanely locked down phones, and is the one device manufacturer whose devices were nearly ALL locked (pretty much everything after the original Droid, wasn't it?)...
So when you load a 500MB application from disk, whether it's loaded in under 1 second or in 5 seconds is irrelevant?
Can't say I've noticed much latency. Even tethered surfing (with Flashblock, NoScript and AdBlock Plus, of course) isn't really worse than flaky 3G (like on the train)... sure, Slashdot takes 20 times longer to load than at home, but when you're out in the boonies with nothing to do, 10 seconds to load the page of comments that you're going to spend 10 minutes reading isn't too bad ;)
"I already know, but that's got nothing to do with bandwidth, it's all latency."
So all your applications are so small that they're loaded into RAM instantly just as soon as the access time (I'm assuming that's the latency you're talking about) has elapsed?
I dunno, when I load $BigProgram, my laptop sure seems to read a lot of stuff off of the hard drive and write it into RAM... ;)
GPRS is fine for e-mail, IM and such. Better than nothing when you're out in the wilderness (i.e. 30km beyond city limits :p)...
Seriously... I have a quartett of spare EL34 tubes on my desk, a 12AX7 in the modelling guitar preamp next to me, and a whole bunch of EL84, EL34 and 12AX7 in the amps behind me.
I guess this means I'll have about 15 PCs in my office in a few years?