HP Kills Windows 7 tablet...

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TheWart

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Dec 17, 2000
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MrX8503

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Oct 23, 2005
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Wow, color me not surprised.

I wonder who's bright idea it was to stick a Desktop OS on a tablet and thought it would be functional. Not only is the OS bloated, its not made to be a touch interface.

Since HP just bought Palm, I'm thinking they're gonna try to put WebOS on their tablet. I don't see this being successful either because just as the iPad is a giant iPhone, this would make the HP Slate a giant Palm Pre. Not only that, apps for WebOS are non existent.

The only viable option that I can see is using the Android OS. Unfortunately, I foresee the Apple iPad having a few years under its belt before HP has anything to show for it. First it was the iPod, then the iPhone, now the iPad, I feel like with every new Apple device release, a PC variant is no where to be seen.
 
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TheWart

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Dec 17, 2000
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I guess HP is serious about using WebOS...which is a good thing IMO.

I guess it isn't good for all the people who want a 'full OS' on a tablet device though...
 
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MrX8503

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Oct 23, 2005
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I think WebOs is a really bad idea, it has no where near the support like Android or iPhone OS. I suspect another failure from HP.

What needs to be done is that the tablet needs robust hardware coupled with a Touch OS with great battery life. Not a desktop OS, or some stupid mobile OS. Currently the only sensible option is to use a mobile OS.

Maybe this is why tablets have always failed.
 
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TheWart

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Dec 17, 2000
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MrX8503 said:
I think WebOs is a really bad idea, it has no where near the support like Android or iPhone OS. I suspect another failure from HP.

What needs to be done is that the tablet needs robust hardware coupled with a Touch OS with great battery life. Not a desktop OS, or some stupid mobile OS. Currently the only sensible option is to use a mobile OS.

Maybe this is why tablets have always failed.
Click to expand...

I am a little confused, you say that tablets shouldn't use a desktop or mobile os, but rather something in between?
 
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MrX8503

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Oct 23, 2005
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What I'm saying is that there should be a dedicated Touch OS, since there isn't one, the only thing we can use for now is a mobile OS.

A Desktop OS is definitely not ideal because its bloat, drains battery life, and was made for a mouse.

I think Anand touched on this predicament when he reviewed the iPad.
 
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randomlinh

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Oct 9, 1999
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MrX8503 said:
I think WebOs is a really bad idea, it has no where near the support like Android or iPhone OS. I suspect another failure from HP.

What needs to be done is that the tablet needs robust hardware coupled with a Touch OS with great battery life. Not a desktop OS, or some stupid mobile OS. Currently the only sensible option is to use a mobile OS.

Maybe this is why tablets have always failed.
Click to expand...

WebOS is a great OS though, it seems like it could really shine on a tablet. As it stands now as an internet device, I think it's perfect (though, it'd have to be priced somewhere around $300... which could be the break it deal).

Sadly, the track record for HP isn't exactly promising, but I'm still hoping they can bring something to the table with WebOS.
 
Pliablemoose

Pliablemoose

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Oct 11, 1999
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SunnyD said:
Meh, Win7 is an EXCELLENT Tablet OS. In fact a lot of the changes they made were to facilitate touch input. Unfortunately, most applications people commonly use are not. Don't blame Microsoft for this one.
Click to expand...

Um, no, it's not. Hp has been making Windows OS tablets for quite a while, and they perform like crap. Maybe in 5 years with seriously advanced hardware it'll work, but not with today's technology.
 
Gooberlx2

Gooberlx2

Lifer
May 4, 2001
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Makes sense. They just spent (or are about to) $1.2B on a solid mobile OS designed for ARM processors.

I think WebOS's linux roots will make it much more flexible and suited for adaptation to a tablet device...at least compared to the current super-sized iPhone OS on the iPad.
 
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Fox5

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Jan 31, 2005
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MrX8503 said:
What I'm saying is that there should be a dedicated Touch OS, since there isn't one, the only thing we can use for now is a mobile OS.

A Desktop OS is definitely not ideal because its bloat, drains battery life, and was made for a mouse.

I think Anand touched on this predicament when he reviewed the iPad.
Click to expand...

A modified Ubuntu Netbook Remix could possibly handle it decently well.

The Moblin concepts are also promising for a tablet form factor. It was, after all, designed for the UMPC form factor.

And the more powerful phone OS's could probably handle a tablet well. The current iphone os isn't that well suited, but I'd argue webos and android are, or could be easily made to.

Nokia's Maemo was originally made for tablets, so it's pretty well suited, other than lacking polish. Nokia basically invented the category. Maemo is actually being integrated into moblin, so I expect intel/nokia will be able to make a good tablet os, they've both been working at it for a few years.
 
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MrX8503

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Oct 23, 2005
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SunnyD said:
Meh, Win7 is an EXCELLENT Tablet OS. In fact a lot of the changes they made were to facilitate touch input. Unfortunately, most applications people commonly use are not. Don't blame Microsoft for this one.
Click to expand...

Win 7 is not an excellent Tablet OS. Do you know why? Because it was made for the Desktop, not a Tablet. I'm not blaming MS for this, they made a great Desktop OS, but that doesn't mean it'll work for a Tablet.

Speed, battery life, productivity, Touch interface. All of these are necessary to make a killer tablet, as far as Win7, I would say it has only "productivity", and that is hindered by not having a touch interface.

As far as I'm concerned, the iPad has...Speed, Battery Life, and a Touch interface. Looks like Apple got 3 of the four and guess what? Like it or not they're selling millions.
 
zerocool84

zerocool84

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Nov 11, 2004
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MrX8503 said:
Win 7 is not an excellent Tablet OS. Do you know why? Because it was made for the Desktop, not a Tablet. I'm not blaming MS for this, they made a great Desktop OS, but that doesn't mean it'll work for a Tablet.

Speed, battery life, productivity, Touch interface. All of these are necessary to make a killer tablet, as far as Win7, I would say it has only "productivity", and that is hindered by not having a touch interface.

As far as I'm concerned, the iPad has...Speed, Battery Life, and a Touch interface. Looks like Apple got 3 of the four and guess what? Like it or not they're selling millions.
Click to expand...

And that's where WebOS fits in. The best mobile OS out there by a mile. If HP makes good hardware for it, it'll be killer.
 
SunnyD

SunnyD

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Jan 2, 2001
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Pliablemoose said:
Um, no, it's not. Hp has been making Windows OS tablets for quite a while, and they perform like crap. Maybe in 5 years with seriously advanced hardware it'll work, but not with today's technology.
Click to expand...

MrX8503 said:
Win 7 is not an excellent Tablet OS. Do you know why? Because it was made for the Desktop, not a Tablet. I'm not blaming MS for this, they made a great Desktop OS, but that doesn't mean it'll work for a Tablet.

Speed, battery life, productivity, Touch interface. All of these are necessary to make a killer tablet, as far as Win7, I would say it has only "productivity", and that is hindered by not having a touch interface.

As far as I'm concerned, the iPad has...Speed, Battery Life, and a Touch interface. Looks like Apple got 3 of the four and guess what? Like it or not they're selling millions.
Click to expand...

Wow. Have you two even used an actual Win7-based tablet?

MrX - as I said... a LOT of the Win7 UI enhancements were about integrating in touch capability, if you bothered to even read what I previously wrote you would have seen that I said that. The main problem is that APPLICATIONS were not designed with touch capabilities in mind.

As far as speed and battery life, that's what you make of it. A proper Win7 tablet will have quite acceptable speed, and battery life in Win7 on a decent sized tablet is more than adequate for most people. I doubt even the iPad will get the battery life it sounds you'd be looking for.

Again, from experience, I can say Win7 is far and away one of the best tablet OS's I've had the pleasure of using, and I've used a lot. It's the supporting applications that leave a lot to be desired.
 
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dguy6789

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Dec 9, 2002
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My first thought was that they were doing this because WebOS makes for a much better tablet OS than Windows. Web OS is a fantastic OS, the only problem with the Palm Pre is the slow hardware, but the OS is great. Make a fast, long battery life tablet that runs WebOS and you'll have a winner.
 
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Pliablemoose

Pliablemoose

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Oct 11, 1999
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SunnyD said:
Wow. Have you two even used an actual Win7-based tablet?

MrX - as I said... a LOT of the Win7 UI enhancements were about integrating in touch capability, if you bothered to even read what I previously wrote you would have seen that I said that. The main problem is that APPLICATIONS were not designed with touch capabilities in mind.

As far as speed and battery life, that's what you make of it. A proper Win7 tablet will have quite acceptable speed, and battery life in Win7 on a decent sized tablet is more than adequate for most people. I doubt even the iPad will get the battery life it sounds you'd be looking for.

Again, from experience, I can say Win7 is far and away one of the best tablet OS's I've had the pleasure of using, and I've used a lot. It's the supporting applications that leave a lot to be desired.
Click to expand...

Yes I've actually owned a W7 based tablet, and I sold it on eBay in 2 months, it was the shortest time I've owned any PC, and it was the worst PC I have ever owned. When I realized I was just using it as a notebook, rather than a tablet, it went on eBay.

I don't know of that many tablet OS's, which ones are you talking about?
 
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MrX8503

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Oct 23, 2005
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SunnyD said:
Wow. Have you two even used an actual Win7-based tablet?

MrX - as I said... a LOT of the Win7 UI enhancements were about integrating in touch capability, if you bothered to even read what I previously wrote you would have seen that I said that. The main problem is that APPLICATIONS were not designed with touch capabilities in mind.
Click to expand...

If Win7 was an excellent tablet OS, is that why HP slate became vaporware? I'm aware of Win7's touch elements, but its a pitiful attempt at anything a full fledged touch OS would provide.

SunnyD said:
As far as speed and battery life, that's what you make of it. A proper Win7 tablet will have quite acceptable speed, and battery life in Win7 on a decent sized tablet is more than adequate for most people. I doubt even the iPad will get the battery life it sounds you'd be looking for.
Click to expand...

You think 5hrs of battery life in a tablet is impressive/acceptable? Well its not, check this out.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3640/apples-ipad-the-anandtech-review/18

Try 13hrs playing 720p video on the iPad. Like I said before, speed, productivity, battery life, and a touch interface. A Win7 tablet does almost none of these things, and the things it does do, it doesn't even do them well. Ontop of that, the Win7 tablets look like the overweight kid at the playground.

The proof is in the pudding. The HP slate, vaporware, the Courier, vaporware. Obviously it isn't easy to make a successful tablet, and the Win7 formula doesn't work in a tablet world. I say look at WebOS or Android OS.
 
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randomlinh

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
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MrX8503 said:
The proof is in the pudding. The HP slate, vaporware, the Courier, vaporware. Obviously it isn't easy to make a successful tablet, and the Win7 formula doesn't work in a tablet world. I say look at WebOS or Android OS.
Click to expand...

To be fair, was Courier even suppose to be based on Windows 7 as it stands now, or something completely built ground up? It certainly was an awesome concept, but actually implementing it seemed very difficult.
 
oogabooga

oogabooga

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Jan 14, 2003
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This is bad news for me - I really wanted a slate. I could deal with slightly slower performance - I was looking into it as a notebook replacement in situations where I wouldn't be typing - ie on the couch.

I know - get an iPad, but Flash is important to me since a couple of streaming sites I use run in flash only (or through downloaded programs) and none have iphone apps, and the HDMI output that the slate would have had would have been nice.

I guess I save my money and just replace my notebook with something better.
 
Deeko

Deeko

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Jun 16, 2000
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This is not entirely surprising. HP just spent $1.2 billion on a company whose most valuable asset is a mobile OS.

I could have seen HP putting out Slate, since they already invested in it, and later making a WebOS tablet....but, it also doesn't really surprise me that they canceled it. Call it a vote of confidence to their shareholders in the Palm deal.
 
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Brian Stirling

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Feb 7, 2010
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Desktop/laptop OS's have for a very long time been bloatware programmed by committee. Why the hell does a typical Windows load run to nearly 1GB -- we landed men on the Moon with a computer that had less than 100KB! If desktop/laptop OS's were written in assembler or at least important parts of it we could see the load size shrink to well under 100MB and if you then stripped away the stuff you don't need for a tablet you could well be under 30MB.

Overtime we will see 32 core uP's at 15nm for desktops, 16-24 core uP's for laptops, 8 core uP's for tablets and home servers, and 4-8 core uP's for cell phones. You will have the power of todays i7's in your cell phone within 6 years!


Brian
 
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