What it will to take to make a holdout like me buy a tablet.

[Fingolfin269]

It couldn't possibly be that people have other uses for tablets than Apple envisioned with the iPad.

What are those (practical) uses?

 

[poofyhairguy]

I think there is a big point being missed here:

This new Tablet craze isn't completely fueled by tablet specific OSes. Part of the reason the market exists is because ARM CPUs have finally gotten to useful speeds.

What OP really wanted, when you get down to it, is an x86 CPU that is as efficient as an ARM CPU- that is the only way to get equivalent form factors and battery life. The problem is that Intel DID try to give OP what is wanted with Atom, and Intel failed at that task. Atom was supposed to be Intel's best shot at an efficient mobile CPU, and it still uses magnitudes more power than ARM thanks to old x86 compatibility. All that cruft that has kept computers compatible with each other for over a decade act like dead weight in the mobile space. If anything the Atom project shows that in 20 years x86 might be practically dead for those reasons.

As others have pointed out, Windows 8 will have an ARM (aka Tablet) version of the OS. But then OP's complaint will be that this new Windows 8 tablet he bought won't run his (x86) Windows applications. No matter what OP needs to understand that his/her dream is a pipedream, and that the "make x86 computers into tablets" idea is pretty much what killed the tablet market for 5 years.

With that said, I did not link to an Ubuntu port flippantly. Thanks to the open source nature of Ubuntu, an ARM port can be made easily and the entire software ecosystem can be recompiled to work on that new instruction set. If OP was an Ubuntu fan he/she would find that one day his/her dream is a reality and almost every Ubuntu program he/she loves can be used on a tablet within one generation. Being an Ubuntu fan myself, THAT is when I will buy a "real" tablet (to replace my Nook Color)- when one can run Ubuntu at acceptable speeds.

What OP is dealing with is the fact that OP's favorite OS and OP's favorite x86 programs are dinosaurs thanks to a dependance on the x86 CPU. The ARM meteor has already hit and these dinosaurs are dying, and OP is standing there chiding them for not evolving fast enough in the face of danger.

The real truth is that OP will have his/her "real" programs on a Tablets one day, but it will be years from now when ARM processors are powerful enough to virtualize x86 Windows on them. At that point every program the OP loves will have been replaced by a tablet version, and the ability to run the old x86 programs will be equivalent of a netbook today running DOSbox- you do it only for kicks.

If anything Apple has proven what OSX and Linux on computers could never prove- that most people are willing to leave their programs behind if they are given a reason to. In this case the reason is uber-thinness and crazy battery life. Most people don't really care about MS Word or Adobe Photoshop- they want to edit a document and a picture. An iPad can do that without all the old baggage, and people are buying them at a rate that shows that the old way's days are numbered.

So not only is what the OP wants impossible (thanks to x86 cruft), but OP is missing the important point of tablets- they are a reboot of the computer industry. Tablets are the way for the tech industry to finally relieve itself from that Wintel model that dominated for years. Sure they might not be full featured today, but they soon will be (Honeycomb is closer already). Yet this eventual "full featured" tablet will never run the programs OP wants, because those programs are already fossils from the age of dinosaurs.

 

[dguy6789]

I am simply making the observation that the OP is stuck in the past.

I don't think it's unreasonable to want a tablet that is more than a play thing.

 

[theeedude]

What are those (practical) uses?

Read the OP. He wants to run Windows 7 smoothly.

 

[Patranus]

I don't think it's unreasonable to want a tablet that is more than a play thing.

The current tablets *are* more than a play thing.

In fact, they offer a much higher rate of productivity compared to current tablets running Windows 7 precisely because of service side computer and "web 2.0" application.

 

[v8envy]

It *IS* unreasonable. Tablets are designed to be terminals and thin clients, not servers. Computing power costs energy, and batteries are heavy. The market for a 5+ pound tablet is virtually non-existent.

I'm fine with Linux on a tablet. All of my home machines are windows free, and nobody there misses windows. Hell, my 80 year old mother uses Linux now after her last malware infection. More and more of the services people need are out in the cloud, and get this -- backing up your data (or failing to) is no longer an issue.

Very few people WANT a huge, power sucking behemoth permanently installed on a desk. The day is not far off when the Atrix will be exactly what the mainstream expects in a computer. Portable, and just throw it into a dock for a bigger screen & full size keyboard. Little to no local storage because it's simply no longer necessary to install hundreds of gigabytes worth of crap to send email, watch movies and send IMs.

 

[aceO07]

Wait for 2 months, get the Thinkpad x220t tablet. That's the closest you'll get to real power, usb ports, etc. It will cost you over $1300 though

It would help if you quit gaming since tablets aren't for serious gaming unless you count the iPad/Android tablets has having serious gaming..

 

[RobertPters77]

@poofyhairguy

I don't believe tablets are a reboot of the computer industry. More like a niche direction, To me they are nothing more than toys. Until Microsoft, Google, or Apple release a tablet that can fully replace a notebook my money stays in my wallet.

I don't see why you're using the ole Unix/Mac Rallying Cry 'Wintel Monopoly.' Did you forget that the so called 'Wintel Monopoly' only became this way because x86 offered best IGP per clock compared to PPC and ARM. Even apple had to go the intel route because IBM couldn't compete clock for clock with intel much less amd. And Windows could be installed on any computer unlike macintosh which was limited to one manufacturer.

 

[Patranus]

@poofyhairguy

I don't believe tablets are a reboot of the computer industry. More like a niche direction, To me they are nothing more than toys. Until Microsoft, Google, or Apple release a tablet that can fully replace a notebook my money stays in my wallet.

I don't see why you're using the ole Unix/Mac Rallying Cry 'Wintel Monopoly.' Did you forget that the so called 'Wintel Monopoly' only became this way because x86 offered best IGP per clock compared to PPC and ARM. Even apple had to go the intel route because IBM couldn't compete clock for clock with intel much less amd. And Windows could be installed on any computer unlike macintosh which was limited to one manufacturer.

Current generation tablets *are* replacing notebooks.

 

[NaOH]

How are you going to play games made for keyboard and mouse on a touch screen?

 

[poofyhairguy]

I don't believe tablets are a reboot of the computer industry. More like a niche direction, To me they are nothing more than toys.

I do believe Tablets are a paradigm shift in the computer industry. Workstations and servers won't be replaced soon but already many people are trading in laptops for Tablets. Now most of that is in the personal computer industry, but as soon as a player makes a decent business friendly tablet (RIM, HP?) laptop budgets at business will shift towards tablets quickly.

Will laptops die? No. BUT

Can Tablets take half of the laptop market-share without running x86 Windows? I say yes, and time will tell.

You are correct that the iPad's "walled garden" approach prevents it from being a full computer, but they are not the entire industry. Honeycomb gets closer to offering a desktop metaphor for the Tablet, and maybe's HP's tablet will go all the way.

Until Microsoft, Google, or Apple release a tablet that can fully replace a notebook my money stays in my wallet.

In the long run its about the capabilities. A Tablet is a netbook in the right case. If the Tablet can complete every task you use a laptop for then it can replace a laptop.

For you, if you care about things such as playing specific PC games or using the REAL Ms Office, Tablets might never fit your needs. But for the majority of the market (say 50+%) that use their laptops to check email/Facebook/Farmville/favorite TV show/Twitter/etc. and bang out a random document or presentation, today a Tablet fits their needs.

I don't see why you're using the ole Unix/Mac Rallying Cry 'Wintel Monopoly.'

Because they rose together, and they might fall together. The same legacies that keep x86 and Windows tied at the hip are liabilities in the next decade.

Did you forget that the so called 'Wintel Monopoly' only became this way because x86 offered best IGP per clock compared to PPC and ARM.

Who cares about per-clock IGP? We are talking Tablets, where the only thing that matters is performance per watt. On that metric ARM kills x86. That is why you will never get your dream Tablet- old x86 is not fit for the form factor.

Even apple had to go the intel route because IBM couldn't compete clock for clock with intel much less amd.

Thanks for the history lesson, but again power isn't everything. If it was then the iPad would have a Atom in it (and three hours battery life), while instead it has a custom Apple ARM CPU.

Apple makes its own ARM chips for a reason- they know that such chips are the future and they hate being locked into CPUs from other companies because of such experiences as their PowerPC-Intel switch.

And Windows could be installed on any computer unlike macintosh which was limited to one manufacturer.

Already happening in the Tablet market. Open source systems like Android and Ubuntu can be installed on almost every device. Even the iPhone has been hacked to run Android. You just don't accept it because you don't consider either to be a "real" OS. Which is fine, you enjoy your laptop and the rest of us will enjoy getting the same general tasks done on our tablets.

 

[poofyhairguy]

How are you going to play games made for keyboard and mouse on a touch screen?

Get a keyboard and a mouse. All that separates Tablets from netbooks is the case you use:

http://www.zagg.com/accessories/zaggmate-ipad-case

 

[v8envy]

I don't see why you're using the ole Unix/Mac Rallying Cry 'Wintel Monopoly.' Did you forget that the so called 'Wintel Monopoly' only became this way because x86 offered best IGP per clock compared to PPC and ARM. Even apple had to go the intel route because IBM couldn't compete clock for clock with intel much less amd. And Windows could be installed on any computer unlike macintosh which was limited to one manufacturer.

Not at all. It took decades for x86 to match the performance/watt, performance/clock and absolute performance offered by its contemporaries (e.g, 68000 vs , MIPSco, Alpha, etc etc). And the rest of the PC architecture took a long time to catch up -- 8 bit ISA was horrifying.

x86 Windows could be installed on any computer -- so long as it was an Intel x86 box designed to run Windows. Good luck slapping Winx86 on an IBM RS6000, an ultrasparc, VAX 9550... And while there were versions which ran on alternate architectures they didn't run commercialy available x86 binaries and where eventually all discontinued.

What made wintel a monopoly was the ability to run popular, cheap, widely available x86 windows binaries -- the exact thing you wish to do.

Luckily that's no longer quite the issue it was in the past. Almost every Windows binary has a viable cloud alternative, and the rest are just a matter of time or irrelevant.

 

[NaOH]

Get a keyboard and a mouse. All that separates Tablets from netbooks is the case you use:

http://www.zagg.com/accessories/zaggmate-ipad-case

Wouldn't that essentially make it a really thin laptop like the thinkpad linked above?

 

[poofyhairguy]

Wouldn't that essentially make it a really thin laptop like the thinkpad linked above?

Yes, but with the added ability to simply remove the case to get back at the attractive Tablet form factor. Keep it in the laptop case all day to type and do real work, take it out at night and comfortably play some games on your couch.

 

[Spicedaddy]

I hope Windows 8 is a blend of touch and mouse/keyboard interface. Use it as a tablet on the go, but when you get back to your desk and want to be more productive, you use it with mouse/kb...

iOS and Android are touch, and Windows 7 is made for a mouse. We need something in the middle.

 

[TheStu]

I hope Windows 8 is a blend of touch and mouse/keyboard interface. Use it as a tablet on the go, but when you get back to your desk and want to be more productive, you use it with mouse/kb...

iOS and Android are touch, and Windows 7 is made for a mouse. We need something in the middle.

The OS is only half (maybe even less than that) of the equation, the software needs to be built from the ground up to work with one's fingers. If you look at GarageBand on iOS, it is rebuilt from scratch, not just a porting of the existing OS X version. Same with iMovie on iOS. When/if Apple ever puts iPhoto onto iOS (why the hell wouldn't they?) it will also have a different UI and layout compared to the desktop version.

 

[RandomFool]

I really don't see a need for a tablet. I've got a phone and I have a notebook, between those two I can do just about anything I need too.

Tablets are neat but they'll never be more than a toy to me without a better input system. Losing half my screen real estate isn't acceptable for most of what I do on notebook.

I'm interested in Apple tablets less than most due to their habit of banning/restricting anything that messes with their walled garden approach. (Flash, Java, the JS slowness for webapps)

 

[Pliablemoose]

I do believe Tablets are a paradigm shift in the computer industry. Workstations and servers won't be replaced soon but already many people are trading in laptops for Tablets. Now most of that is in the personal computer industry, but as soon as a player makes a decent business friendly tablet (RIM, HP?) laptop budgets at business will shift towards tablets quickly..

Agreed, we're in the beginning of a quantum shift in personal computing, When Apple fires up it's server farm, I suspect the next gen iPad won't need to dock to a pc, ever...

We're already seeing what happened to desktops happen to laptops, less frequent upgrades, less use in general.

Texting has taken the place of the bulk of emails for many people.

For most people, a cheap laptop is fine, the newer notebooks that are just a bit more powerful than netbooks are perfect. For now. As tablets become more powerful and full featured, there'll be less and less need for other computers.

It won't happen right away, and there's still a lot that needs to happen.

I think the most interesting player in the tablet market is HP, they're the only manufacturer that has control of the OS and the hardware outside of Apple. If they can pull it off remains to be seen. It's been a long time since I've seen a compelling HP anything...

 

[Anubis]

tablets may replace laptops for the general computer moron but untill they have serious UMPH behind them they wont replace them for business people. we are rolling out a company wide refresh of hardware this year. I5 laptops and I7 ones for those that need to use CAD and such

when a tablet can do a access/oracle/whatever DB lookups flawlessly work with excel files that are maxed on tabs/rows/coloums that are full of equations graphs and shit sign me up, thats years away, and would require an real OS not a phone OS

Until they make one that has a resolution larger then 1080p i wont get one. which might be never and im fine with that

 

[Tom]

Maybe your company should move to a country with internet access. Pretty soon there won't be any need for a tablet to do the processing of cad, databases, or spreadsheets, all it needs to do is be the screen for a remote computer that is doing the work.

 

[smartpatrol]

I'm really hoping that Windows 8 does tablets right. I would love to get a Windows-based tablet, one that you can do real work on. My dream tablet:

- Windows 8 ARM version
- Capacitative touchscreen + digitizer for stylus input (so you can take notes/do graphic design on it)
- transitions from tablet UI to mouse/keyboard UI when docked, without rebooting
- in order for apps to be sold in the Windows 8 app store, they must support both tablet mode and mouse/keyboard mode
- MS should produce an API that makes it easy for a program to support both mouse/keyboard mode and tablet mode, and to transition between them. One feature of tablet mode is that it should be possible for the OS to "pause" the app to save battery life.

MS seem to have no interest in scaling Windows Phone up to tablet devices. Instead, they are hell-bent on adapting Windows to tablets. I think it has a lot of potential, but they need to do it right.