HP Slate 2: Brilliant or Bust? 235
First time accepted submitter redletterdave writes "After being introduced in September, HP's new CEO Meg Whitman announced Oct. 27 that the company 'needs to be in the tablet business.' However, by creating a lackluster product in the Slate 2 that runs on a soon-to-be-outdated operating system, HP will surely find itself back where it started, when furious Best Buy executives demanded HP to take back their thousands of unsold tablets piling up in storage."
iPad (Score:2, Insightful)
Is it an iPad? Because people won't buy it unless it's an iPad.
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It's a HumancentiPad.
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Need to be in the tablet business (Score:5, Funny)
After being introduced in September, HP's new CEO Meg Whitman announced Oct. 27 that the company 'needs to be in the tablet business.'
Maybe they should buy WebOS - I heard that the company that owns it wants to get out of the tablet business.
Bust (Score:3)
The WebOS-based TouchPad was innovative, but it was over-priced. HP proved that by lowering the price to fire-sale levels and it took off. Maybe they should have priced it at about $300 as a loss leader, to build up a market for apps. Amazon's losing money on their Fire tablet, for example. Seems like a smart strategy, and they're big enough to pull it off. Just fire a few of these over-paid execs like Whitman and presto! you have plenty of money for R&D.
Regarding this Slate: at $699 no one's going to buy this moldy old thing. They'll go with Apple or a Fire for $200 or some of the other up and coming budget Android offerings. Come on. Motorola proved that there's no market for a premium priced tablet that under performs compared to an iPad.
And Windows 7--excuse me? Do they really pay these executives millions of dollars to make these kinds of decisions? Heck, I'll take the CEO job for about $250K (with about a $100K golden parachute) and I'll set that house in order. Re-hire the WebOS team that they just fired, develop a world class, well engineered budget tablet to take the low ground away from Apple, and stay in the market for LONGER THAN SIX WEEKS. Offer an Android tablet, too. Come on, you're a $100 billion corporation and you can afford to develop two different platforms.
Oh, and I would keep making PC's and laptops, only make them better. More touch screens, maybe a best-in-class ultra light laptop, etc. Listen to the customers, HP. Corporate America is not dropping out of the desktop and laptop markets any time soon. Consumers don't want a Windows 7 tablet (as far as I know); they want an Apple or an Android.
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Oh, and I would keep making PC's and laptops, only make them better. More touch screens, maybe a best-in-class ultra light laptop, etc.
How would more touchscreens make PCs and laptops better? Touchscreens are sucky interfaces for devices that don't have a keyboard and mouse.
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I can tell you what I'd do to make HP's computers better. I'd kill 90% of their products.
I'd like to see a big computer maker try doing things Apple style. Stop trying to be all things to all people. It may be OK for corporate purchases (although at this point I'd think people would be looking for something to replace HP since they seem so... stable), but in the consumer market it's a major pain. Two or three laptops, two or three desktops.
Computer shopping is a major pain. Just a quick look at HP's site
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It may make some sense, but it strikes me that there's something inherent in marketing or pricing theory that causes businesses to have a large number of apparently superfluous/redundant products and purchasing options.
They almost seem to need to have them to demonstrate that they have the "specific solution for you", as well as to create the complex pricing tiers that makes it difficult for purchases to choose which product suits their needs; inevitably you end up buying too much widget to get a specific f
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We are in a completely different biz, but what did wonders for us was changing our product line to good/better/best. Three levels, with economy, mainstream, and deluxe being a pimped out version of mainstream with all the options at a discount. So 3 levels, 2 assembly lines since 3rd product is just 2 with all the options.
Whether it is with 2 or 3 levels, simplicity (but with options) makes it easier for the customer and makes them more likely to stay on your website. And obviously, the key to making mon
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I think it's that if you are control-freakish enough to make sure there is absolutely no duplication of effort or market share anywhere in the company, you end up stomping out innovation*. Free-market vs. planned economy inside the corporate walls.
* Unless you're Apple, of course.
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Did it not occur to you that you can put a touchscreen and a keyboard on the same device?
Uh, we were talking about laptops and desktops, which traditionally have keyboards.
Why would I want a touchscreen when I have a keyboard? How long do you think I'm going to sit at a desk prodding my monitor screen with a finger before I say 'who the hell thought this was a good idea' and go back to the keyboard and mouse?
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Why would I want a touchscreen when I have a keyboard? How long do you think I'm going to sit at a desk prodding my monitor screen with a finger before I say 'who the hell thought this was a good idea' and go back to the keyboard and mouse?
I would imagine that it depends on the software interface you are using.
If you've got something written well for a touchscreen, a touchscreen is intuitive, simple, and fast.
If you've got something written for a keyboard and mouse, a touchscreen sucks.
I can't imagine playing Angry Birds on a laptop with just a keyboard/mouse. I find most drawing programs that are mouse-based to be annoying and hard to use. Simple web browsing where everything is linked well, a touchscreen is good. "Go THERE".
But I'd ne
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At that point, you basically have a laptop that costs $100 more than your identical model, for the delight of being able to smudge at a few bundleware applications because nobody does touch applications for windows...
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The only reason it took off at that price point was because it entered the "impulse buy" category for many people.
It also entered the "hack toy" category for many - Nearly everyone I know who scored a firesale TouchPad only had its stock OS as their "backup plan" - their main plan was to follow Android porting efforts for the device. That's why I tried to score a TouchPad, for example.
Had HP sold the TouchPad with Android, they would have at least managed to stay afloat in the market... It is possible to
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And you know for a fact that the Touchpad would not have sold at $200 or $250 or $300 because...?
Everyone you know doesn't mean everyone in the market for a tablet. Several million people want to buy an Amazon Fire which is a lowly 7" tablet that doesn't even run regular Android, only a customized Amazon version, for $200.
WebOS was not declining until they screwed up the phones (that's another whole discussion). It was innovative in its day (a year or two ago). This is my main point. Lower the price of the
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"And you know for a fact that the Touchpad would not have sold at $200 or $250 or $300 because...?"
mainly due to all the unsold auctions at that price on Ebay.
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It just proved the obvious: You can't sell a sub-iPad product at an iPad price. Why buy WebOS (not well known, no apps, slower hardware) when I can get an iPad (huge app and accessory ecosystem) for the same price? There is basically no point. If they had priced it better they'd have had a much better shot.
I really liked an idea I read somewhere, possibly on Darring Fireball. The person suggested that HP should have just given the things away with any purchase of a HP computer over some amount (say $1000)
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The funny thing is that Best Buy in fact is already doing something like this:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/11/the-hp-touchpad-has-reappeared.ars?comments=1 [arstechnica.com]
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To be up front about it, she didn't really do anything for eBay, except oversee the company becoming more monopolistic and distant from their user base
You may whine about your problem to a volunteer in our forum, but we don't really care about you or your problem, especially if we've already got our cut
OR
There are 4 people head of your in the help queue, average wait time, 2 hours.
What did HP really think they were getting?
Yeah, I don't think I could do worse as CEO at HP, either and I don't even requir
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Hell, if you engineer it right, you don't even have to build two different hardware specs. And if you're creative, you can have the guys over at CyanogenMod make a Tablet OS for you that is world class and always up to date, while you build WebOS for yourselves.
THEN you give people a choice, and they can change their mind later and put a different but fully armed and operational OS on it.
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I'm pretty sure I already commented on this strategy. [slashdot.org]
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The whole fire sale of the Touchpad was odd. Normally when you EOL a product, you gradually lower the price so they'll sell out over a few months. With the Touchpad, they went straight for the lowest clearance pricing, resulting in all stock selling out in a matter of days. I really suspect there's a company politics sto
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You are absolutely correct, and I'm sure a majority of HP employees see it your way. Unfortunately, Cxx's don't listen to the little people below. As they will explain that "you just don't understand the big picture". Big Picture is only 3 months long, quarter to quarter.
Rarely do you see a leader with guts, vision, and the ability to make intelligent decisions based on a long term strategy.
What happened to the fundamentals. Just make a damn good product, offer it at a competitive price, and offer damn
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Offer an Android tablet, too. Come on, you're a $100 billion corporation and you can afford to develop two different platforms.
they dont have to "afford to" do that. They've already proven they dont have to: all they have to do is make the hardware available to the right people, and they'll make sure Android runs on it for free. What's not to like, from a corporate perspective?
Out of touch (Score:3)
Most voters in California could see that Whitman is out of touch with reality, but apparently the board of HP is equally out of touch. She is yesterday's player and proves it with this product.
Riiiight (Score:2)
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Yeah, as much as anything, the question is "What was HP's board thinking?" Why did they hire Whitman in the first place? I haven't heard anything to indicate that she's qualified.
I don't object to the idea that HP should get into tablets per se, but that doesn't mean that they should put out a tablet just for the sake of putting out a tablet. It's as though they've learned nothing from the past several years.
I think I'm giving up on HP altogether.
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That is not what happened. The voters of California chose between two people out of touch with reality. proving that most of California is out of touch with reality, because the (R) party gave us Whitman and the (D) party gave us Moonbeam.
California is after all, the land of fruits and nuts.
How you talk.
Meg was fortunately outed as poor manager. Sitting at the helm of eBay was a cake walk, they hold a dominant position in online auctions, pretty much everyone else threw in the towel and left it to them. So they never really got better and she was collecting a lot of money for being there.
Put her in a company which is struggling to keep pace with the technology market, which was once a leader, and she's a fish out of water. Super poor choice. She'll be out in a year.
Brilliant business decision (Score:4, Funny)
Mod parent +1 funny (Score:2)
This (Score:3)
This is the sort of brilliance the people of California were very nearly exposed to as a follow up to Governor Ahnold.
Sad to see she's being clueless for millions at HP, but better than clueless for billions in Sacramento.
I think HP should buddy-up with Google.
Best Buy was returning TouchPads, not Slates (Score:5, Informative)
Apparently the Slate has been selling pretty steadily since its announcement --- mostly to business, but Amazon is listing just 4 in stock at the moment.
More positive and informative article here:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-33200_3-57317842-290/surprise-hps-slate-pc-is-a-success/ [cnet.com]
There aren't that many competitors in the Windows Tablet PC slate-format since Fujitsu quit. I really wish HP would revive the form-factor of the critically-acclaimed Compaq TC-1x00 though:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Compaq_TC1100 [wikipedia.org]
which truly offered the best of all possible worlds.
William
crosses fingers (Score:5, Interesting)
....for the next HP sell-off, after which someone jailbreaks the product and makes it actually useful.
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Will not work (Score:3, Insightful)
Windows tablets suck, period. I don't know anyone who wants one, and I can think of a reason anyone should buy one. Windows is not a low power OS, it doesn't work on low power CPU's, and it's interface was not designed for touch.
Most people want an iPad, the poor and geeks go for Android. There is no room in the market for Windows based tablets.
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I want one... well, I have one, and I want a Windows 8 tablet bad.
Let me back up. I've owned Windows Tablets since the HP TC1100 [wikipedia.org]. It was a pretty good machine for its day, but it was a little large. Then I owned a couple of convertibles, including the Dell Latitude XT with multitouch screen. This was a great computer, due in no small part to windows 7. The larger task bar is a perfect size for fingers, jump lists can be accessed by flicking, adjusting DPI allows for larger buttons, and there are a number of
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You certainly provide some good reasons why you use it, sounds a lot like how I use my netbook. Have you considered Asus Transformer? It would provide stylus, keyboard, better touch, better battery, and probably lower price. I've never used the Transformer, and obviously I don't know how well it would fit your needs, but you sound like it's target audience.
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There is no room in the market for Windows based tablets.
Also, there is a market for maybe six computers, and 640KBytes of RAM should be enough for anybody.
Yes, iOS and Android based tablets are sufficient for the overwhelming amount of consumer usage cases, but that doesn't mean that there is no room for a Windows tablet.
One thing that always irked me was the fact that there is no such thing as a true desktop replacement tablet. Overkill for OneNote, but I'm sure that I could find more than a few die-hard Mac-based graphic designers who would begrudgingly eyebal
But not at boutique prices (Score:3)
HP, there is a market for a well built tablet that's not an iPAD. But not at the prices you were trying to charge.
Too Soon (Score:2)
Personally, I'm semi-excited about the idea of a Windows 8 transformer tablet (similar to the other asus transformers) running on an ivy bridge CPU. It could be a solid daily driver when paired with a remotely accessable desktop for the heavy lifting.
That said, a windows 7 tablet running an atom CPU with no keyboard is rediculious. It's not a computer and it's not a tablet. It's a still-born bastard.
Ultimately though, I'm not convinced that an iPad plus a solid Windows 8 ivy bridge laptop next year won't
Sounds like Texas Instruments T99/4A of 1982 (Score:2)
Sounds like Texas Instruments T99/4A of 1982 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI99/4A [wikipedia.org]
Release date June, 1981 (99/4 in June, 1979)
Discontinued October, 1983
Operating system TI BASIC
CPU TI TMS9900 @ 3.0 MHz
Memory 256 bytes "scratchpad" RAM + 16 KB VDP (graphics RAM)
Good looking but stood no chance against the brand new 'IBM compatibles'
History repeats itself
Slate 2 is a non-starter out of the gate (Score:3)
Dear HP..... (Score:2)
Please pull your head out of your ass and do the following...
Buy a iPad2, take it apart.
Build something better at the same price point.
Put a vanilla tablet android on it and leave the bootloader UNLOCKED.
You will win compared to all other non apple tablets. The techies will love you because they can easily put their favorite flavor of OS tweaks on it, your regular users will love you because it's a non screwed up Android release.
Everyone will be happy, you will make money and dominate the tablet market.
I
HP has hit the iceberg... Intel isn't helping. (Score:3)
Exactly year ago, when HP released the Slate 500 (the predecessor to this Slate 2), there was a lot excitement among Tablet PC enthusiasts regarding the device. the device had been hinted by Ballmer at CES, then touted by HP, then mysteriously killed by the company, then suddenly resurrected by HP. Once released, the device sold out remarkably quick and became a source of frustration to those that awaited months for production to catch up with demand. It was obvious that HP had underestimated the Slate 500's appeal. The device got mostly good reviews from its owners. But at at treat point, HP had already shifted focus to the Touchpad, which got all attention, marketing and resources.
If you needed dual-boot capability, MS Office (or LibreOffice, like me!), Winamp, Notepad++, VirtualBox, Firefox and other Windows apps; and you happened to be into tablet computing; the Slate 500 offered you a platform to both consume media and do real work on the go....with all the amenities of laptops such USB, HDMI, SD Card slot, Bluetooth, etc. Truth be told, not cheap as a netbook, but you'd get a business-grade machine with decent durability, a docking station and a touchscreen.
Fast forward 12 months to this Slate 2. Intel convinced HP to "upgrade" (this word, plus "innovate" have truly lost their meaning) from the original Atom Z540 used on the Slate 500, to the slower Atom Z670. Not only is the CPU inside the "upgraded" Slate 2 quite slower, but its integrated graphics suffers from some crippling driver-induced sickness that prevents the GPU from even performing at the levels of the year-old Slate 500. Not only the new HP Slate 2 got beat by its predecessor from a year ago, but it also arrived too late, as Fujitsu released a slate of similar specs (the Q550) about 6 months ago.
I own 2 Tablet PCs (I'm handwriting this from one of them right now), but if you want to try this platform (this is not a toy), do yourself a favor and get a Tablet PC from someone else (the Samsung Series 7 Slate looks good). HP has lost its way.
Slate 500 (Score:2)
I picked up one of the slate 500's in the spring. It's a decent enough little box, runs quick considering the processor/os - well within the expectation of what you'd want from a tablet. It's nice that I can run visio, excel and word on it and at least look at my files.. that were created on other machines.
But, using it for actual productivity has been a problem. The pen / input setup leaves much to be desired in terms of accuracy. And I can't find a decent on screen keyboard anywhere.
Wait for Windows 8 (Score:2)
It would be a smart move if it came with Windows 8 at a price point of $499. HP has an opportunity to create the flagship Windows 8 device if they play it right.
If they release the device more expensive than the iPad with an old OS, it will be a failure.
Re:HP? (Score:4, Interesting)
I shouldn't bother to feed the trolls, but I wouldn't count HP out just yet. At least not until we find out how their memristors turn out.
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I remember buying into Freescale when they announced MRAM. A month or so later, Blackrock (or Blackstone, it's hard to tell those hedgies apart; they all dress alike and have the same forked tails) offered a bundle to take the company private. Haven't heard a word about MRAM from Freescale since.
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There's a computer chronicles on YouTube from ~1990 that features Toshiba announcing flash ram, a technology that would replace hard drives and floppies within a couple of years. Twenty years later and it's starting to happen.
Sometimes this stuff takes a while to get to market in a usable form.
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I was surprised Whitman was still around. I thought she disapparated back to the unreverberate blackness of the abyss after losing the governor's election.
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I wonder who actually found this funny?
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"HP is still around? I thought they went out of business years ago. Wow, you learn new things every day."
HP could die tomorrow, but LaserJet 4s will be printing until the Sun burns out.
Their test equipment was also Good Stuff.
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Their test equipment was also Good Stuff.
Their test equipment is still good stuff. It's just that HP is called Agilent nowadays.
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HP could die tomorrow, but LaserJet 4s will be printing until the Sun burns out.
Sun burned out on January 27, 2010...
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Windows 8 can't get here soon enough.
What's Windows 8 going to offer that iPad and Android currently don't? Putting Windows on a tablet is pointless if Microsoft can't convince developers to produce apps for it... and developers probably won't be interested in producing apps if most people have iPads and Android tablets.
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What are you talking about? Windows 8 will run everything Windows 7 and before would run. Just because it doesn't have a Fischer-Price UI doesn't mean you can't use it with a touch screen. And developing for Windows 8 has the lowest cost of entry of any of the platforms, so it would be ludicrous to NOT develop apps that are desktop/tablet friendly for Win8 as well at iOS and Android.
Re:Bust (Score:4, Informative)
Windows 8 will run everything Windows 7 and before would run.
No it won't. An ARM tablet won't run anything from Windows 7 other than the few .Net applications which don't call native code other than that provided by Microsoft.
And any of those applications which do run will leave you with a WIMP interface on a crappy touchscreen. Microsoft have been pushing that for at least a decade and it's been a dismal failure.
So again, what does a Windows 8 tablet offer that an iPad or an Android tablet don't?
Re:Bust (Score:4, Interesting)
Windows 8 will run everything Windows 7 and before would run.
No it won't. An ARM tablet won't run anything from Windows 7 other than the few .Net applications which don't call native code other than that provided by Microsoft.
And any of those applications which do run will leave you with a WIMP interface on a crappy touchscreen. Microsoft have been pushing that for at least a decade and it's been a dismal failure.
So again, what does a Windows 8 tablet offer that an iPad or an Android tablet don't?
More powerful x86 slates that you can dock to use all existing PC apps but still use Metro apps on the go.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8-K1ELv6DE [youtube.com]
Of course these will probably be bigger and heavier (and more expensive) than Win 8 ARM tablets or an iPad, but Microsoft and their OEMs think there is a market for them.
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http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/02/gartner-idc-windows-phone-to-steal-second-place-from-ios-by-2015/ [techcrunch.com]
On the other hand, you're absolutely right. Microsoft and their OEMs should dissolve themselves and give the money back to shareholders since failing at one thing means they will fail at another and they shouldn't even try to go against Apple who is the invincible winner forever and ever in tablets. I mean look at the Touchpad and Android tablets failing. Right?
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How does the cost entry get lower than free?
Android dev has no cost entry at all, assuming you already own some sort of computer.
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Because existing android tablets are all underpowered, overpriced, or both, I think MSFT probably surmises that the #2 spot in this market is out there for the taking.
the Kindle Fire is a strong bid for #2 at the moment, but consumers aren't buying anything but iPads right now, and these other companies would be wise to bring a sub-$500 tablet to market that doesn't require a monthly service agreement.
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Not to mention items like the Nook Color (Barnes & Noble). You can install CyanogenMod 7 (a community-maintained Android distribution) on it; you can even run it 100% from an SD card so you won't have to mod the device itself (the Nook tries booting from the SD card first before booting from internal storage). If you do run CyanogenMod from an SD card, make sure to use a Sandisk (class 2 or class 4) card. It is the only card I've tested that has good performance on small read/writes (even beats out a
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the Nook tries booting from the SD card first before booting from internal storage
Yay for boot-sector viruses!
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All I heard was "what is Windows 3.1 going to offer that System 6 [wikipedia.org] didn't.
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Windows 3.1 succeeded because it installed onto the dominant hardware platform of the day and because it was blessed by the dominant hardware maker. Unless they figure out how to get Windows 8 to run on an iPad, that advantage won't hold here.
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Couldn't Windows 8 tablets run windows applications?
Some, but who in their right mind wants to run Word on a tablet?
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Couldn't Windows 8 tablets run windows applications?
Some, but who in their right mind wants to run Word on a tablet?
A fair point.
What's the horse power of the minimum configuration for Windows 7 PC? What will it be for Win 8? Anyone paying attention to the considerably slower processors (compared to laptops and desktops) of tablets? If Win 8 is the bloated beast of its presecessors, good luck.
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Windows 8 has the same hardware requirements as Windows 7 and is said to be slightly smaller and faster.
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Windows 8 has the same hardware requirements as Windows 7 and is said to be slightly smaller and faster.
So... without significantly paring things from it it will be a cow even on the fastest tablet.
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Why would I want a device I can't edit a document on? Even Windows Phone 7 runs Office.
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I'd consider it one of the necesities.
Along with Power Points, MS Project, and Excel.
If I can't get them and an HDMI port for hooking up to the projector, the tablet loses a huge incentive for me to use it.
I'm not going to be writting massive docs on a tablet, but I need to be able to plug into a projector at a meeting, present project plans and status reports, open spread sheets for SME's to see data models, etc...
The Tablet isn't a replacement for the Laptop/PC, it's just a tool used to increase mobile ab
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People who use tablets for more than fart apps and Angry Birds? Why wouldn't want to run it on my tablet?
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Couldn't Windows 8 tablets run windows applications?
Some, but who in their right mind wants to run Word on a tablet?
When paired with a bluetooth keyboard, Apple's pages works quite well on the iPad.
I'd still prefer doing such things on a laptop or desktop, though - mainly because I find myself moving the text cursor (e.g. which works much better using a mouse) more often than I find myself inserting/moving pictures.
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Some, but who in their right mind wants to run Word on a tablet?
Someone, somewhere is probably dreaming of running IE6 on a tablet. And someone else probably wants it to run a SAP client (the only thing more horrifying than IE6). Let us hope all such evil maniacs are ignored.
Re:Bust: ARM vs Intel (Score:2)
Don't forget that Windows 8 is supposedly moving to ARM CPUs for mobile/low power devices. So it won't run x86 binaries, though presumably MS Windows apps like Office could be ported...
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Remember what prompted the price cut in the first place? It was Best Buy (and presumably other retailers) unhappy about their big stockpile of WebOS tablets that weren't selling.
That's what the story is referring to.
the problem with the HP Touchpad: (Score:2)
Note I didn't use the canonical hamburger/steak analogy since branding is a big part of this equation.
I see no reason why bogging down the hardware with Windows is going to improve their situation. Oh, wait, there's that branding again. Of course, many would see Windows as being a negative brand for something that's specifically intended to not be a desktop.
Re:Stockpile? (Score:4, Interesting)
It appears HP still had committments with suppliers to purchase parts - so there was one final production run as it was likely more profitable to build the parts into firesale TouchPads than to just write them off.
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it'll run windows 8...
Exactly. Not even released yet and it's already outdated.
Re:outdated? (Score:5, Insightful)
it'll run windows 8...
Exactly. Not even released yet and it's already outdated.
Very cautious about Windows on a tablet. When XP for tablets came out it was extremely clunky and far to large for the humble resources of a device loaded with low power chips and a slow (by desktop standards) HDD. Perhaps the greatest reason tablets didn't catch on until iPad.
As Win 8 is probably still going to be a Be-All, Do-All OS and crammed with everything, including the kitchen sink, it'll probably not compare to iPad or Android. But that's my speculation.
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Do you know much about Windows 8? It runs on ARM, uses less resources than Windows 7, and is designed specifically for touch. I think it will be amazing on tablets (in fact I'm already running the developer preview on my latitude XT and it's a pleasure to use).
Actually, it seems that most people are worried about how Windows 8 will run on desktops rather than tablets!
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When XP for tablets came out it was extremely clunky and far to large for the humble resources of a device loaded with low power chips and a slow (by desktop standards) HDD
It ran quite nice on the fujitsu stylistic. very pricy though, comparatively speaking.
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It'll run Win8 when it'll be available. Right now it runs Win7. Which, for most users, would equal to "no thanks".
Right now, it may be a decent device for someone who's looking for hardware to test their Win8 Metro apps on in advance, especially for the price (compared to most other Windows tablets, it's cheap). But that's a very narrow niche.
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Mod article -1 Troll, please.
Windows 8 (Score:2)
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It's been shown in Apples own quarterly reports that they are NOT losing money on iPad sales. They are making a very nice profit.
Apple doesn't do loss leaders (Score:3)
Apple makes major profit on each iPad.
HP will also have a problem competing because Apple buys massive supplies and factory capacity well in advance in order to secure the lowest prices and exclusives on the latest tech.
HP used to have the talent and vision to create a vertically integrated product like the iPad. These were the guys behind the PA-RISC and HP-UX, plus the hardware talent to make everything from a fetal monitor to a mainframe. And now they can't pull off a decent tablet?
Not just volume (Score:3)
Apple pays up front for an expansion or upgrading of a company's manufacturing capabilities, to be paid off by low prices and/or exclusivity. Most suppliers have a huge risk in ramping up for more capacity or new technologies to handle a company's needs, but they don't have this risk with Apple. That's quite the incentive.
Last year Apple committed $4 billion to this and prepaying for volume for two years.
I don't know about the iTunes factor. A while back, iTunes was just a way to sell more iPods, and even o
Re: (Score:2)
Right, and you don't put a pair of cameras (front and back) on a "business and enterprise product". Those are gimmicks aimed squarely at the consumer market.
Not the same product (Score:3)