Anyone else not impressed by tablets?

[Ichinisan]

The newest generations of ultrabooks (including Macbook Air) and Windows 8 tablets (especially convertible ones) are going to start eating iPad sales by year's end.

Greater functionality and power (which is what most netbooks lacked) in addition to lightweight portability are attractive selling points to people who need to work on the go, or who want higher end gaming than the iPad or Android tablets can deliver.

I want a Zenbook or the new Samsung Series 9 so bad. There's a healthy amount of competition in the ultrabook category early this year, and I'm hoping prices continue to drop from just below $1,000 to below $800. I wouldn't even consider a tablet at that point.

Do these REALLY have better gaming capability than an iPad? Most mobile computers have crappy GPUs. The graphics capability of original iPad and iPhone 4 are very impressive compared to most laptops (even high-end ones).

 

[theeedude]

Well if you don't want to enjoy an ipad why not tear it apart?

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPad-3-4G-Teardown/8277/1

These guys did, peacefully, as it still works. (I think)

Well if not those guys that like to shoot things will take interest...

That die is absolutely enormous.

 

[bfdd]

Do these REALLY have better gaming capability than an iPad? Most mobile computers have crappy GPUs. The graphics capability of original iPad and iPhone 4 are very impressive compared to most laptops (even high-end ones).

gaming on a tablet is a joke, yay for hands being in the way. should throw a track pad on the back if they want to make it a gaming device.

 

[Todd33]

Laptop + Vita, why be general when specialized components are 10x better?

Laptop: Has keyboard and useful apps, along with Steam for gaming.

Vita: PSP library, plus new games that look and play like console counterparts.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Poor little man. So inesecure. Frankly, I'm embarrased for you. What's the matter, 1" penis? Women laugh at it?

I could go buy 10 iPads today if I felt like it. But I don't so I won't. But believe whatever you want spanky, your whole identity is clearly tied up in Apple. What a sad pathetic life you lead.

Cool hungover today, enjoy...

And you really don't know me

 

[Red Storm]

Laptop + Vita, why be general when specialized components are 10x better?

Laptop: Has keyboard and useful apps, along with Steam for gaming.

Vita: PSP library, plus new games that look and play like console counterparts.

If PC and PSP games are important you, then you wouldn't be considering a tablet to begin with.

Aside from "serious" gaming, tablets actually do a pretty damn good job of replacing computers for everyday uses that people buy computers for.

 

[rh71]

have an ipad and smartphone... they are only good for quick lookups or watching Netflix in bed. Browsing on either of them gets so incredibly tiring on the eyes. And it's ridiculously slow. Everytime a login page pops up, I think - fvck - hope I get it right the first time cause I don't want to type it again with this shitty keyboard. Takes like a whole minute to login as opposed to 5-10 seconds on a desktop/laptop.

 

[SlitheryDee]

Laptop + Vita, why be general when specialized components are 10x better?

Laptop: Has keyboard and useful apps, along with Steam for gaming.

Vita: PSP library, plus new games that look and play like console counterparts.

I used to think the same thing about phones and media players. I thought it was always better to have a regular phone for phone calls and an ipod or other device for media playing. Still, somehow when I got my first android phone, my ipods started going unused. That's one case where a generalized device supplanted two specialized ones in my experience.

 

[Rubycon]

Why do they assume that they need all that extra power for the CPU and GPU? I'd think the screen upgrade requires more power usage than either of those other two upgrades.

Not sure, it's a TFT LCD. LED efficiacy (for the backlight) has improved as well. GPU definitely is going to be working harder to make it responsive with that native resolution unless everything is running lower and just upsampled. :biggrin:

 

[ElFenix]

LED efficiency has improved by all those pixels (and the hardware to make them work), means you need more LEDs to get the same brightness. not to mention all those pixels almost assuredly consume more power switching than a smaller number of pixels.

 

[Rubycon]

After using a superAMOLED+ device with higher PPI I'd rather have one of those displays. 90% of my use is in near total darkness and having true blacks makes for a better readability especially with charts, etc. Not sure about battery life, don't really care. If it lasts 2 hours that's fine with me. :awe:

 

[BoberFett]

Cool hungover today, enjoy...

And you really don't know me

Ditto :wub:

 

[Puddle Jumper]

Do these REALLY have better gaming capability than an iPad? Most mobile computers have crappy GPUs. The graphics capability of original iPad and iPhone 4 are very impressive compared to most laptops (even high-end ones).

The gpu in the iPhone 4 and iPad 1 was actually used in some netbooks branded as the Intel GMA 500. It was basically terrible for any sort of gaming and was even worse than the ancient GMA 950 although it did at least use less power. Any Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge ultrabook would easily the floor with the SGX 543MP4 in the iPad 3. If you throw in high end laptops it would get to the point of being completely absurd. Sure the iPad has quad core graphics but thats pretty pathetic when you consider that a AMD 6970m has 960 "cores"

 

[MaxFusion16]

The gpu in the iPhone 4 and iPad 1 was actually used in some netbooks branded as the Intel GMA 500. It was basically terrible for any sort of gaming and was even worse than the ancient GMA 950 although it did at least use less power. Any Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge ultrabook would easily the floor with the SGX 543MP4 in the iPad 3. If you throw in high end laptops it would get to the point of being completely absurd. Sure the iPad has quad core graphics but thats pretty pathetic when you consider that a AMD 6970m has 960 "cores"

you've no idea what you are talking about, the gma500 was superior to the gma950 on paper, only thing holding it back was poor driver support.

gma500 supports flash hardware acceleration whereas gma950 does not.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

you've no idea what you are talking about, the gma500 was superior to the gma950 on paper, only thing holding it back was poor driver support.

gma500 supports flash hardware acceleration whereas gma950 does not.

Hardware acceleration is irrelevant to a discussion about gaming performance. I would have taken the GMA 500 over the 950 if I was buying a netbook due to the better power consumption and HW accelerated video playback but it was not a more powerful solution for gaming. Besides even if it did equal the GMA 950 thats a pretty hollow victory as the 950 was utter crap and completely useless for gaming.

The simple fact is all of the iPads have crap gpus compared to pcs.

 

[Crono]

Do these REALLY have better gaming capability than an iPad? Most mobile computers have crappy GPUs. The graphics capability of original iPad and iPhone 4 are very impressive compared to most laptops (even high-end ones).

The GPUs in most ultrabooks right now aren't very impressive (all are limited to integrated graphics) compared to mainstream desktop cards. You can't run titles like Skyrim on high, for instance.

But the fact that you have a full desktop OS means you can run many more games, including older PC games that can run on high or maximum settings.
The new iPad might have a fairly decent GPU for a tablet, but you still are limited to whatever games (mostly casual, low graphics) are made specifically for iOS.

 

[JD50]

Pliablemoose, you came off as a gigantic condescending asshole in this thread.

 

[Ichinisan]

have an ipad and smartphone... they are only good for quick lookups or watching Netflix in bed. Browsing on either of them gets so incredibly tiring on the eyes. And it's ridiculously slow. Everytime a login page pops up, I think - fvck - hope I get it right the first time cause I don't want to type it again with this shitty keyboard. Takes like a whole minute to login as opposed to 5-10 seconds on a desktop/laptop.

With iOS 5 on iPad, you can pull the keyboard apart to split it and make it more thumb-friendly. Works pretty well.

 

[Mike Gayner]

Pliablemoose, you came off as a gigantic condescending asshole in life.

:thumbsup:

 

[Mike Gayner]

With iOS 5 on iPad, you can pull the keyboard apart to split it and make it more thumb-friendly. Works pretty well.

Woah woah woah woah woah. How do I do this?

edit: OK just figured it out. How did I not know about this? I was just bitching to my brother the other day about how I wish this existed. Doesn't look anywhere near as nice as the Windows 8 split keyboard, but still a SHIT load better than the stupidly unusable standard landscape keyboard.

edit: OK after about one minute using this I take it back. The split keyboard sucks. The keys are too small and for some reason they're right in the middle of the screen which is moronic. Failure Apple. Failure.

 

[CZroe]

FWIW, 5 of 100 people (1 in 20) are 95th percentile and because the lower percentile would be excluded from our roster, MORE than 1 in every twenty users here would be in the 95th percentile. There are a lot more than 20 users here, and 1 in 20 isn't something "ZOMG UNBELIEVABELZ!"

 

[bearxor]

Woah woah woah woah woah. How do I do this?

edit: OK just figured it out. How did I not know about this? I was just bitching to my brother the other day about how I wish this existed. Doesn't look anywhere near as nice as the Windows 8 split keyboard, but still a SHIT load better than the stupidly unusable standard landscape keyboard.

edit: OK after about one minute using this I take it back. The split keyboard sucks. The keys are too small and for some reason they're right in the middle of the screen which is moronic. Failure Apple. Failure.

You should be able to grab the button that brings up and down the keyboard and move the split keyboard to the bottom of the screen.

I find the best way to type is to just not pay attention to what I'm typing until I'm done. I'll just type what I'm thinking and look over it afterwards. If I try to look at it while I'm typing, I'll see the typos and go back and correct them before moving on. If I just breeze through them the software almost always corrects what I'm punching in to what I actually wanted to say. Heck, I've even noticed that sometimes I'll spell words that are technically correct but not what I actually meant in the context of my sentence and it'll even change those to what I meant to say. Smart.

The biggest problem I seem to have is starting a new word with a b in a sentence. I fat finger it a lot and it thinks I hit the space bar twice.

 

[RockinZ28]

gaming on a tablet is a joke, yay for hands being in the way. should throw a track pad on the back if they want to make it a gaming device.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imbHiCXgY8A

I think gaming will get a lot better on tablets. Actually had a blast playing that Shadowgun with the touchscreen, think I could aim better with it too.

 

[CZroe]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imbHiCXgY8A

I think gaming will get a lot better on tablets. Actually had a blast playing that Shadowgun with the touchscreen, think I could aim better with it too.

Indeed. I played it quite well on a tablet but couldn't do a damn thing with the dual-analog approximated controls on my Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY 4G (R800at; "Playstation Phone").

 

[gmaster456]

In my opinion, they should be used as crutches until you get to a proper machine with a keyboard. That's what I use mine for. They are NOT meant to replace computers.