Finally - a Win 7 tablet with good specs!

[AnitaPeterson]

http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/11/acers-windows-powered-iconia-w500-up-for-pre-order-for-549-sh/

Feast your eyes on this, folks... The W500 has a 10.1-inch (1280 x 800) display, HDMI-out dual cameras, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, AMD Radeon HD 6250 graphics, and a 1GHz Ontario (C-50) AMD Fusion APU.

The $550 price is none too shabby, when compared to the Eee Slate (Core i3, but Intel video)

 

[Genx87]

Looks tempting. Any slots for SD cards?

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Good question - the specs on B&H indicate a "2-in1" card slot, see here: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...00_Tablet.html

In any case, it has two USB ports, so a reader should be easy to attach

 

[dougp]

I'm still interested to see how the C-50 performs. 512kb L2 is still really low by today's standards.

 

[tdawg]

Very interesting. Full Windows 7 means full desktop browser and complete access to Netflix and Hulu. The interface worries me though; I've tried those HP Touch all-in-ones at Best Buy and even on that large screen it kind of sucks to get around in Windows 7 with a finger.

 

[radioouman]

2 gb of RAM for Windows 7?

 

[CurseTheSky]

2 gb of RAM for Windows 7?

Should be perfectly fine. Vista was a problem with less than 2GB, but even 1GB would work in a pinch. Windows 7 is LESS of a resource hog than Vista, so 2GB should be ok.

This intrigues me. My Envy 14 isn't the biggest or heaviest notebook out there (roughly the size of a MBP 15), but it does get to be a bit cumbersome to lug around from time to time. I've been toying with the idea of picking up a tablet for a while, but have always been afraid that Android or iOS will be too limited to really let me get a lot done. Windows 7 would be much nicer, and especially if this thing has USB ports, it'll allow many more possibilities.

So basically, this or the ASUS Transformer. Hmmm...

 

[smartpatrol]

Yup, 2GB is PLENTY for Windows 7. I installed Windows 7 64-bit on an old laptop with 2GB RAM and a 1.4 GHz Core 2 Duo, and it runs just fine.

I haven't seen it go over 1.5 GB of memory in use.

 

[theeedude]

Ventilation port = FAIL.

 

[chin311]

looks good.kind of a hybrid more than a "tablet". for 549$ looks like a good unit. especially since the keyboard is included.

 

[dougp]

Ventilation port = FAIL.

I'd wait for a review, primarily because a lot of the items used are low-power and ventilation might not be screwed.

 

[Deeko]

Surprisingly powerful for the price. Impressed, but we'll see how it actually performs.

 

[s44]

Still TN, it looks like.

 

[theeedude]

I'd wait for a review, primarily because a lot of the items used are low-power and ventilation might not be screwed.

The fact that it burns enough power that it needs ventilation at all = FAIL for a mobile device.
If it burns so much power that it needs to be actively cooled, that indicates that:
-battery life sucks relative to battery size
-it's heavier to carry more battery to make battery life suck less and power the fans
-it's heavier and thicker to carry the extra cooling heatpipes and fans.

That is why if you can't passively cool a mobile device, it is FAIL.

 

[runawayprisoner]

3-cell battery spells "short life".

We'll see how it stacks up in reviews, but C-50 is notoriously bad on battery life in some reviews.

 

[SunnyD]

Too much bezel.

 

[IntelUser2000]

3-cell battery spells "short life".

We'll see how it stacks up in reviews, but C-50 is notoriously bad on battery life in some reviews.

They are aiming for 6 hours of battery life on a 36WHr capacity.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Too much bezel.

That's not a bad thing. You have to have something to hold on to, too.

They are aiming for 6 hours of battery life on a 36WHr capacity.

6W of power per hour in that case? I guess... that's possible if the device isn't running anything at all, all radios off, and the screen is off as well.

 

[theeedude]

The other thing to consider is whether it is any good as a tablet. Adding touch control overlay to a keyboard and mouse OS does not make it a tablet OS, IMO. I've played with touch screen Windows desktops at Microcenter, and the touch functionality is basically a gimmick that sort of kind of works sometimes.

 

[IntelUser2000]

6W of power per hour in that case? I guess... that's possible if the device isn't running anything at all, all radios off, and the screen is off as well.

That's fairly realistic: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4218/amds-brazo-e350-msi-x370-sony-vaio-yb/7

The Sony Vaio YB has comparable screen size and battery life. So 6 hours doing nothing and 4-5 hours in watching videos and internet surfing. I guess it'll be lower if you do something more intensive, but that's expected.

 

[runawayprisoner]

The other thing to consider is whether it is any good as a tablet. Adding touch control overlay to a keyboard and mouse OS does not make it a tablet OS, IMO. I've played with touch screen Windows desktops at Microcenter, and the touch functionality is basically a gimmick that sort of kind of works sometimes.

You can get it to work reasonably well and mask off the imperfections nicely for the most part. I think... where the OS is concerned, you can do enough tweaks to Windows 7 to pull it off one way or another.

The big concern, in my opinions, would be long-term growth for this Win 7 tablet fork. Obviously, even though one can mask off the OS, the applications still remain the same. Not all applications are as modifiable, and not all of them are touch-friendly, or even touch-enabled. Most if not all of them are made with mouse and keyboard in mind, and mostly because touchscreen isn't even remotely a standard in Win 7 world. So I'd argue that one can only go so far with Windows 7 before a keyboard and mouse combo is necessary, and then the novelty of the touchscreen wears off.

Edit:

That's fairly realistic: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4218/amds-brazo-e350-msi-x370-sony-vaio-yb/7

The Sony Vaio YB has comparable screen size and battery life. So 6 hours doing nothing and 4-5 hours in watching videos and internet surfing. I guess it'll be lower if you do something more intensive, but that's expected.

Well, when you compare that against something like the iPad or Motorola XOOM, that's not a favorable figure at all. Considering the reason of having Win 7 is to be able to do more intensive things than on those tablets, a more intensive usage model is to be expected most of the time.

 

[SunnyD]

That's not a bad thing. You have to have something to hold on to, too.

So you like big ladies too? :wub:

I kid I kid. But seriously, a bezel about HALF as wide would be more than plenty.

 

[runawayprisoner]

So you like big ladies too? :wub:

I kid I kid. But seriously, a bezel about HALF as wide would be more than plenty.

I do like big ladies. There is nothing unlikeable about them.

And honestly, I guess it wouldn't really matter when the device is really thick, and something as thick as the iPad 1 definitely could use a thinner bezel since it was easy to rely on the backside.

But... I now have an iPad 2, and even with the "large" bezel, I find myself hitting the screen more often than I'd like to. It's just too thin.

 

[MrX8503]

The only thing that I see that this tablet has got goin for it is that its $550. Everything else IMO is a fail.

I'm still not convinced that Windows 7 is not the answer for a tablet. Expect this tablet to be heavy, thick, noisy, hot, poor battery life, and very poor finger ui navigation. The OS may possibly be laggy as well.

The specs are impressive, but specs alone isn't going to make this tablet successful. Maybe after its failure they'll see their mistakes.

Weight, efficiency, battery life, portability, speed, cost, and intuitive touch UI are some of the things that makes a tablet successful, not how much horsepower its packing.

 

[dguy6789]

Has potential but will have to wait and see. The biggest problem with current tablets is they don't run real programs where real work can get done like you can on a laptop, they run very simple(by comparison) phone apps. A well done tablet that ran Windows would be really nice. We might have to wait for Windows 8 for that however.