Hardware The Tablet You Want Isn't What You'll Get

Maybe I'm in the minority here but I actually WANT Windows 7 on a tablet. I don't want a media consumer device like the iPad, I want a real computer in a tablet form factor.

The Asus Eee Pad 121 (annouced at CES) looks really nice, slightly thinner and lighter than an iPad (allegedly), includes a Wacom digitizer and running Win 7.

If you haven't used Win7 on a tablet before then you should try, it actually works very well with a lot of subtle UI changes when it detects that a multi-touch screen is installed. The only caveat to that statement is applications on the whole sometimes aren't very touch-friendly. But blame the app developers not Microsoft for that.

 

These things are exactly what we talked about in the other thread -> "Is the iPad the future of computing?"

It'll happen sometime in the future, but it won't happen the way you want it, as the future devices aren't targeted at nerds like us, but the vast majority of people who don't need anything else then a simplyfied and locked-down OS with the bar basics of software (i.e. web/office/multimedia).

If you want to keep the ability to work with your tablel like you would with your notebook, then you've got to rely on the full Windows 7 tablets like the Asus Eee Slate EP121.

 

I would want something that I can use in my business life as well as my personal life, something upon which I can sketch or draw, and make annotations (eg site survey or doodling over a photograph I've just taken), something capable of running a dfx viewer, pdf viewer, and with a bit of luck a basic cad package like SketchUp. Something that can e-mail this information to someone on a desk in the office while on the fly, and will automatically sync with my desktop when I get within wireless range. Something that I can dock next to my workstation and drag and drop information between the two systems.

The list goes on and on, including wireless integration to cctv, tough enough to hand to kids to play on, etc, etc, etc.

 

Eee Pad 121? Despite the quite poor battery life it runs Win 7 on a proper Core i5 so will do all those things. Asus has had the balls to actually make a something that'll suit Win 7.

Anyone think that by the time Microsoft gets to the market with Win 8 we'll all be bored of tablets and move onto something else? Look at the netbook market - that lasted all of 2-3 years, and tablets are already a year in.

 

You're exactly right there. Tablets were around for years (I remember using one in school) before Apple decided to make one, and nobody wanted them.

A netbook with a rotating screen is still the best option. There were some prototypes floating around the web (MSI?) I wonder if anyone ever made them.

 

Windows is made for desktop devices, and laptops are basically portable desktops. Netbooks are supposed to be even more compact, mobile laptops. So Windows translated quite well --even if there were issues with CPU requirements. Windows does not translate to Tablets well however. How do we know this?

Putting aside the fact that you are wrong about that (never assume; check out the numbers), remember that we already had Windows tablets in 2003. Your HP TC1100, my Motion Computing LE1600. They flopped. Windows does not translate well to tablets. The GUI is unsuitable, the power requirements are too high, leaving the tablet slow and short on battery life.

I'm not anti-microsoft: I have said before that Windows Mobile 7 is more innovtive than iOS. Microsoft has all the elements to be as successful as Apple: where Apple has OSX, iOS and iPod/iTunes, Microsoft has Windows 7, Windows Mobile 7 and Zune. They are comparable. However Apple has a better business strategy.

Microsoft wants to become the Nike or GAP of computers: a recognisable brand name and leader in the market. But Apple is already there, with Google coming up fast as the younger, hipper alternative. Microsoft is focusing on consistency: to have the same Windows experience in all technological niches of the market. This is Fail: these technological niches are all fundamentally different. If they weren't, they'd be the same niche. Hence they make different demands and different selective pressures apply. So Windows (desktop) works well on desktops and laptops, but poorly on Tablets and smartphones. So if you are introduced to Windows in the desktop niche, your (positive) expectation is set, and then disappointed in other niches. If you meet Windows for the first time in the mobile niche, that experience is so bad that you don't even want to know about Windows in any other niche.

Apple focuses on the experience: to have a slick, user-friendly experience in all technological niches of the market, regardless of how different it functions from that in another niche. It can be different because the niche is different; because the technology is used in different ways and for different things. Apple is banking on the fact that no matter in what niche you are first introduced to Apple, it is going to be good, so your expectation is set. And when you move to another niche, it is confirmed.

There is nothing to prevent Microsoft from taking the Apple route. It has all the elements in place. It has a much better cloud infrastructure to boot. It just stubbornly deploys them in the wrong way, because its management can't make the paradigm shift. I think that is because Apple already has a vector for its brand consistency, which is its hardware product design. You recognise an Apple object from a mile off. Windows is made to run on generic hardware which has no physical design consistency at all; apart from the Zune, the only way you know it is a Microsoft device is when you see the logo appear on-screen. So Microsoft obsesses a lot about keeping the GUI consistent, and this is wrong. What it needs to do is keep the experience consistent, which it is only just learning to do with Windows Mobile 7: for something to be ideally suited to, and work well within its specific niche.

It already did. 2003, remember? It failed. It took Apple's iOS to make Tablets a success. It will take Google Android 3 to make it established. It could have been Windows Mobile 7 --if Microsoft had the vision.

 

I really want the Motorola Attrix concept to go forward. The only thing that would be even better would be if I didn't have to dock it, but it would interact wirelessly with the docking stations.

 

I got all excited looking at tablets and then I saw the amazon kindle. I spend my entire day looking at backlit screens and if I look at any more my eyes wil frazzle. What a pretty black and white screen the kindle has and whats more it's fit for purpose! That'll be my next purchase!

 

I've had the Kindle 3 since launch and it's awesome. Its e-ink screen is excellent for reading and its battery is incredible (I think I've only charged it two or three times), but it's no tablet competitor. Its processing power is minimal and its screen is not suitable for the sort of work you would do with a tablet, not to mention the lack of a touchscreen.

Off-topic: How awesome would it be if apple put a pixel-qi display in an ipad?

 

Basically, what you want is a netbook. That doesn't mean other people don't want a Tablet.

Fixed.

 

Nexxo - if only Microsoft listened ey?

I really want a tablet, but at the moment the only one I want is the iPad and I'm reticent to get it because of price and lack of flash.

I was expecting some cheaper alternatives that looked properly viable. I've been sadly let down.

Windows 7 Phone on a netbook would be great from the very limited play I've had on a Windows 7 Phone (very hard to find in my town?!). If MS wake up and realise this very soon they could corner the market with their cloud integration, office and exchange synching. Oh...and getting flash on their OS.

Hmm, I'll go back to playing on my iMac and iPhone until someone brings out something that rivels or beats the iPad....or maybe I'll just get one of those

 

So what you say is that there is no way to make a tablet version of Windows without changing everything that we come to like about Windows.

A tablet Windows must be completely different from desktop windows and you can't run the same applications. Basically there is no point to even call it Windows anymore. Just call it "Microsoft Tablet".

The problem is that you guys seem to equate tablet with touch screen device.

The older tablets were merely a screen only computer with a digitizer surface which you used a stylus to draw on. That is what tablet was all about before Apple came along and said you should use your thick imprecise fingers instead.
On the desktop you buy a standalone Wacom digitizer. On a portable device it makes sense to merge that with the screen so that you can actually draw or write on the screen itself.
This makes working with applications like Photoshop a dream. And I would to use other applications in the same way on Windows except I can't afford a Wacom digitizer yet (they cost too much because of the quality and features and because they are mostly used by professionals so not mass manufactured).

Tablet to me is not touch screen. It is Wacom.

 

Once again, to you, because you have specific needs, such as photoshop. For the people who make up the iPad's core market, a touch input method coupled with a suitable ui (big buttons etc) is more than enough, and in fact is better as they don't have to worry about a stylus. I agree that digitizers are awesome, but if I asked my mum whether she would rather use a pen or her finger on the screen, I'm fairly certain she would prefer the finger;

(In fact, whenever I handed her my pen-based M200 tablet, she would always go to use her finger on the screen)

 

Actually, it should do both. I have a PC Tablet running Windows XP Tablet Edition. Great if you want to use a laptop in notepad mode (OneNote is cheesecake) and if you want to use email, calendar and web browser without having to be hunched over a keyboard.

However brilliant as handwriting recognition is (and it really is uncannily good), it is poorly integrated into MS Office --because it is a suite not really adapted to Tablets, despite the significant improvement of a Ribbon interface. You cannot write longhand on a page in Word and see that change to print; you have to write in a special floating (small) bar which shows the recognised words under your scrawl as you go along (which allows you to make corrections) and tap enter to have the result transferred to the page. You can use a keyboard instead --which appears in the same floating bar, where you have to peck tiny keys with your stylus. It is bloody awkward, and not a patch on the big, almost half-screen sized full keyboard of the iPad on which I can type almost as fast as a physical keyboard, using ten fingers (I don't even need to look much once I have positioned my hands correctly).

Only on OneNote can you scrawl on a page and afterwards get it to convert the whole page to print. Formatting is of course a mess, but you can tidy it up or export the result to Word for formatting. It does not recognise drawings as such however and will try to convert those to text also.

OneNote however drops the ball by not allowing you to paste hyperlinks in the notes to other notes (whether OneNote or Outlook Notes) documents or downloaded web pages. It is surprisingly, well, like an ordinary note pad.

You can annotate Word Documents, but this scrawl will not be recognised and converted to print. You can draw but this is not tidied up as in the Apple Newton. Adobe Acrobat Reader has no integrated annotation function at all --you need third-party software for that and none of it is very elegant.

Basically, as a Tablet GUI it feels cludged. It is exactly like desktop Windows with a Wacom input device bolted on. It offers additional ways of inputting text and drawings, but does not substitute a mouse and keyboard well at all. There is no benefit to the touch screen, and you cannot use fingers. Which makes you wonder what the whole point of a touch screen is.

 

I'm a graphics designer and work professional with Photoshop every day basically for the last 15 years. I also own a Wacom-tablet.
BUT... for 75% of the work you usually do in Photoshop it's better to use a mouse and a keyboard instead of the Wacom-tablet, as the mouse is so much more precise when you do stuff like drawing a path, slicing an image, etc. A Wacom-tablet only really shines when you're sketching or colouring stuff. And now look at the iPad + Brushes or ArtStudio... it's even better for sketching and colouring as you draw directly on the screen as you would do on paper.
The only thing even better is the Wacom Interactive Pen Display, but it costs $1200 for the 17" and $2300 for the 21" version.

 

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/06/razer-switchblade-preview-3g-intel-oak-trail-almost-definitel/

This over tablets

 

also have Kindle 3 which is perfect for what it does, however wife is in the market for a small form factor...

tigra2 + pixel qi please

 

+1. I really like wacom's pen input, but what you have said is absolutely spot on. It would be nice to have the option alongside the standard finger-based touch, but only if it is properly implemented in the OS (and if it doesn't add £300 to the price)

 

Oh, look: it's a netbook. Not sure how the customisable keyboard and touch screen is going to be an added bonus because Windows, as it is, cannot make good use of either. Paradoxically Windows Mobile could; the Metro tiles make good sense on a touch screen and the customisable keys could function as dynamic extentions of Metro tiles in some way. It all comes down to the OS whether this will make a useful netbook/tablet hybrid.

 

Has anyone succeeded in hacking Windows 7 mobile onto another device?