Inspiron Duo, Ipad killer? no, but neat

Entil'Zha

[url]http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/18/dell-inspiron-duo-finally-official-can-be-yours-the-first-week/[/url]


This is actually a pretty tempting device, I've been looking for a tablet, was going to wait till next year for the Android 3 powerd tabs, But this Netbook/Tab combo running win7 could be interesting.

I'm concerned with the graphics, Processor and battery life, but it might be a nice replacement for our Inspiron Mini 10 at work. I'd love to see one of these devices do better than 720p for movie watching

And at a starting price of $549, You get more computer for less than the iPad.

Tempting....

sinclair

I've been considering of buying such device to my table as well, just to waste money on something I dont really need.

I've been looking at HP Slate, but haven't made any decisions yet..

Entil'Zha

I was really waiting for the android 3 tabs (Samsung is supposed to have an 11 inch galaxy next year) But a good win7 tab would be nice too, i think with ths one, or a slate, i need to hold it first and see the weight, While the iPad is bulky and a little akward to hold, it is fairly light.

WORF

The HP Slate isn't available for the general public, they're only selling it to big businesses and it's extremely expensive.

And I don't consider myself and Apple fanboy but I do really like my iPad.

Entil'Zha

I don't consider myself an Apple fanboy, in fact, i really hate Apple (the company) but i do love my iPhone, and i'd buy an iPad except for the price and the limitations of it being a closed Apple device.

the Dell mini Duo goes on sale the first week of December, And i may buy one (hey, its for work, its deductable!)

sinclair

[QUOTE=WORF;190459]The HP Slate isn't available for the general public, they're only selling it to big businesses and it's extremely expensive.
[/QUOTE]

I heard something like that but didn't really pay attention to it. That isn't a problem though... And I'd believe that HP would release such device for the public, if there is demand.

WORF

Entil'Zha, that's what jailbreaking is for ;)

Sinclair, possibly. The last thing I heard was they only made 5,000 but had orders for 8,000.

Entil'Zha

Even with Jailbreaking it's a limited device.

A2597

I'm really tempted by the slate style devices, but my ideal solution is not available yet.

My issues with ipad:
Actually, with jailbreaking most of my issues would disappear. I'd get a file manager, printing, large document type support, etc. At that point, my main gripes become lack of built in connectivity (A dongle for usb...really?) and lack of flash support.

My issues with the HP Slate:
I really wanted this device awhile back. But having seen later iterations I've deemed it utterly worthless. It's too small (8in?! What can I do on an 8in screen that I can't on my ipod touch?! Even the iPad at 10 inches is pushing the limits of too small. Don't even get me started on the dell crap)

It's battery life is abysmal, it's stuck with long boot times like all windows devices (No instant on) and lets face it, windows is *not* the ideal touch surface OS.


Idealy, I'm looking for a 11-12 inch screen, long battery life, decent connectivity and file support...and above all a halfway decent price. $600 is too much for one IMHO.

croxis

A friend of mine is not a fan of his iPad as there are a number of bugs that hurt his experience with it.

The problem with anything running windows is that it is an X86 processor, which is power hungry compared to ARM chip devices.

Personally I am interested in [URL="https://www.alwaysinnovating.com/products/touchbook.htm"]this[/URL] or [URL="https://www.alwaysinnovating.com/products/smartbook.htm"]this[/URL], or even building my own.

Entil'Zha

I dunno, the Atom uses much less power than some of the other chips, My mini gets pretty darn good battery life.

WORF

Me Eee has almost as much battery life as my iPad. But then it doesn't have to worry about running Windows 7 and a touch sensitive screen.

Random Chaos

The Atom may use a lot less than other x86 chips, but it is still a lot more than the ARM chips. Intel is trying to get the power use lower, but so far hasn't.

As for the HP Slate, HP blew away expectations with it, nearly doubling their planned production run. Well, that sounded good until the facts came out. Their planned production run was 5000 units. They wound up building 9000. Compare that to the number of iPads sold and you cringe. No wonder HP bought Palm for their Slate 2.

A2597: As for Flash support, you're not going to find decent Flash support short of a laptop grade processor anywhere. The full version of Flash is just way too CPU intensive and Adobe has yet to get a light version for mobile platforms that is stable and doesn't eat your battery.

C_Mon

I'd like a tablet but none of them are worth getting at the moment. I need a tablet to have active digitizer because I use it for note taking. People have told me to use a keyboard for notes, but writing equations isn't really a possibility with that. The 2kg HP Pavilion tx2590 tablet PC I have at the moment sometimes gets a bit heavy to carry around, but I will keep on using it until someone makes a usable small tablet.

Entil'Zha

I'm looking for something that i can do general internet goo, as well as run Quickbooks and do inventory for work with.

croxis

C_Mon: [URL="http://www.latex-project.org/"]Latex[/URL]

C_Mon

I don't see Latex as a viable solution.

But been thinking and came to that soon I don't need to be able to take notes with pen, so will just wait until then and then see what kind of tablets are around.

Biggles

It is very unlikely that Intel will ever get an x86 chip down to the power levels of an Arm chip. The hardware required to decode the very large x86 instruction set is too large, and that's where they're losing the power. Arms are RISC chips, so they can have relatively very simple instruction decoders and put the extra space into other, more useful parts of the chip.

croxis

Just read up on RISC on wikipedia interesting stuff.

Now, anyone know where I can buy a 7-10.1" capacitive touch screen? :P

sinclair

I changed my mind, I want LCARS system instead:
[url]http://www.viralviralvideos.com/2010/11/23/real-star-trek-computer-at-home/[/url]

Quite awesome...

WORF

That's pretty impressive. Puts the lcars app on my ipad to shame :(

Worf

Falcon1

I've had a go on the Samsung Galaxy and its nice to hold and a good size. The OS seems ok, nice effects etc but its a bit rough round the edges in places. Quite a few reviews have found software problems that take the shine off it. But with updates it should get better.

There was also a Toshiba pad in the shop. It was crap. The back was made of plastic, made it feel really really cheap and flimsy. The OS was not nice at all. Horrible really.

I want an iPad to replace my lounge Powerbook which is 7yrs old now. But at the moment I can't justify the cost as its a bit expensive to use a few hours each evening browsing and checking emails. Anyway I'd prefer to wait to rv2 of the iPad before getting one.

WORF

At this point you probably are better off waiting for the second generation iPad, it's less than 6 months away.

Worf

Biggles

[QUOTE=Falcon1;190508]There was also a Toshiba pad in the shop. It was crap. The back was made of plastic, made it feel really really cheap and flimsy. The OS was not nice at all. Horrible really.[/QUOTE]

The Toshiba pad is generally considered to be terrible.

After CES in January there should be a lot more tablets to choose from. How many can compete with the iPad remains to be seen.

Random Chaos

It's too bad that there isn't an iPad level tablet without all the BS that Apple puts on it from the product level...

croxis

The Notion Ink [URL="http://www.notionink.com/"]Adam[/URL] ([URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_tablet"]wiki[/URL]) caught my eye now. $400 for standard screen with just wifi, about $600 for Pixel Qi and 3G.

WORF

Apple is the biggest problem with the iPad.

Entil'Zha

Wait till next year with Android 3 which will be designed for tabs, the current android based pads are really just running their phone software.

Sanfam

My workplace just got a demo unit of a Samsung Galaxy Tab. It really becomes apparent that at just 7", it simply isn't more than a gigantic phone with an even wider aspect ratio than the current crop of android handsets. It's nice for web browsing, but it's really not that good at mobile computing tasks as the iPad is. As mentioned above, Android 3.0 should help that out, but with Gingerbread not even officially announced yet...that's not a fair reason to purchase a current android tablet.

Biggles

I had a play with a Galaxy Tab in a shop. It's really nice to play with, and probably a good reader, but I can't see it being a good size for a productivity tool. It's too big to carry in a pocket (despite what the ads say) and it's too small to have a decent on-screen keyboard. Any dock with a keyboard is going to be bigger than the tablet.

But it does [i]look[/i] pretty.

E.T

[QUOTE=Entil'Zha;190455][url]http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/18/dell-inspiron-duo-finally-official-can-be-yours-the-first-week/[/url]

And at a starting price of $549, You get more computer for less than the iPad.[/QUOTE]Finally something which makes more sense.
Overhyped iPad is basically mini laptop with keyboard stripped away and other limitations and as devices of that size are in any case too big to fit into pocket and intended for pretty much same uses as small laptop keyboard should be included.
Not that either Samsung has keyboard but at least it has less limitations... Some of Apple's policies make Microsoft look almost like model boy scout.


As for CPU side I agree that ARM architecture CPUs should be considered when highest performance isn't needed but battery life is important. (neither is Windows that good OS for such devices)