Can you format and do a fresh install on a Windows Tablet?

[zod96]

If were to get the Dell Venue Pro 8 tablet with windows 8.1 on it. Could I in theory, use a flash drive with windows 8.1 on it, and do a fresh install just like I would on a desktop or laptop computer?

 

[paperwastage]

yep. i did that once on my Asus T100

however, you might have to find/install the drivers manually (from dell's website). I don't remember the OS automatically activated or not... back then (end of oct during launch), asus's website was missing the drivers, so I didn't play around much, ended up restoring the default OS

there wasn't much bloatware on my T100 anyways... just the asus utilities, auto-update and netflix icon in metro

 

[zod96]

Aw OK cool. Next question. How well does Windows 8.1 usually run on these tablets? I mean you get an ATOM CPU and 2GB of ram. On a desktop computer that would be running like a slide show really.

 

[trmiv]

My wife's T100ta works great. She uses it mainly for Web browsing and writing with word 2013. I've always thought it felt pretty snappy when I've tried it.

 

[MarkizSchnitzel]

I have a T100. it works and runs admirably.

There are of course limits to it. For example I can not run 2 browsers with dozens of tabs, dreamweaver, torrent and Civ4 at the same time.

That being said, me being mostly consumer, I am yet to find a task I failed at and had to fall back to my desktop. Basically, desktop is now only for gaming and "serious" work (work part mostly because of the screen real estate).

All the day to day things and most of the work related tasks are done from the comfort of my coffee table.

 

[ControlD]

Aw OK cool. Next question. How well does Windows 8.1 usually run on these tablets? I mean you get an ATOM CPU and 2GB of ram. On a desktop computer that would be running like a slide show really.

I have the Dell Venue 8 Pro myself. Windows 8.1 runs quite well on the device. You have to remember that the new Atom processors are actually quite capable and Windows 8.1 is much less resource hungry than previous versions. The only real slowdowns I have seen are in the time it can take to install large applications (comparing to my desktop Haswell, but that isn't really fair).

 

[bearxor]

The new Atom processors are significant improvements over the previous ones. I do wish they had 4GB of RAM though.

I've installed 8.1 64-bit on the Venue 11 5130 I have here. Worked well.

 

[sweenish]

Windows 8 has a fresh install setting built-in.

All you want to do is "refresh" it.