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iPad Versus Windows 7 Slate

The 16:9 widescreen of that tablet looks terrible. Great for watching movies but desktop applications are designed to be wider than tall since most displays are more wide than tall. Google Earth is a good example of that, it looks absolutely terrible when it is first opened. The onscreen keyboard also looks terrible, it might be better in landscape but I am guessing it will take up around 60% of the screen because the vertical resolution will be so short.

Everybody says they want a W7 tablet because they can run their desktop apps. Apps like Photoshop will barely run on the slow hardware unless they put faster processors but then the battery life will suffer. Add the fact that the interfaces aren't designed for touch and you get a bad experience.
 
Looks OK. The two most striking things to me:

- pinch-to-zoom in the web browser looked very sluggish and difficult to use compared to the iPad
- widescreen aspect appears to make portrait mode much less attractive for web browsing, the right side of the website seems to get cut off

My bigger questions about the Win7 slate:
- how much will this cost?
- how much will this weigh?
- how long will the battery last?
- where's the e-book reader software? (I notice they didn't compare book reading between the two devices!)

(side note: they only ran the scaled-up iPhone version of Angry Birds on the iPad, not the full iPad version!)
 
Not bad. I still like the iPad's simplicity but I might get this if it doesn't break the bank. For battery life I'll be okay if this can run for 4 hours or so. This'll be good for traveling on instances where I'd need a real OS. I can imagine running iTunes here and syncing my iPhone and iPad with it (joking).
 
Still way too many variables up in the air for me to really pay attention to the Windows 7 Slate.

I'm satisfied with my iPad right now. Why bother looking at some "replacement" that isn't even finished yet?
 
BrennerM said:
Looks OK. The two most striking things to me:

- pinch-to-zoom in the web browser looked very sluggish and difficult to use compared to the iPad
- widescreen aspect appears to make portrait mode much less attractive for web browsing, the right side of the website seems to get cut off

My bigger questions about the Win7 slate:
- how much will this cost?
- how much will this weigh?
- how long will the battery last?
- where's the e-book reader software? (I notice they didn't compare book reading between the two devices!)

(side note: they only ran the scaled-up iPhone version of Angry Birds on the iPad, not the full iPad version!)
Click to expand...

Unless you don't browse in portrait mode. To be honest, I have no idea why people do it.

I hope it can compete because competition is good. I imagine it would be cheaper, small screen and such but looks like watching a movie widescreen would rock.
 
And depends on their marketing but with the USB, SD slot etc -- they could market it towards a different set of people. As much as I try and do work on it and I love it, the iPad is more entertainment.
 
If you need a real computer with a full featured OS, there's no comparison. The iPad is nice and all but I had a Samsung Q1 running Windows XP that did a hell of a lot more 3 years ago. I agree that no one can really afford to skimp on the battery. The Samsung went 6 or 7 hours between charges, my iPad runs even longer and now I won't even look at your typical trash netbook with their typically commanding 2 or 3 hours of battery operation between charges. Do it right or don't do it at all.
 
That video shows exactly why the iPad is superior to anything else out there. If I wanted something that heavy, chunky, clunky etc, I'd have a full-blown laptop. The iPad offers me something different. That slate is just a Windows computer in a tablet form. No thank you. Part of why I enjoy the iPad so much (arguably THE reason) is the slick user interface. Until other companies realize the UI IS the experience, Apple will reign supreme.
 
I dislike the widescreen format. I do not primarily use my iPad for video and would not have purchased it if it were in a widescreen format. The Windows tablet loads pages a bit faster, and loads youtube videos a lot faster, but again, since I don't generally use the ipad for video, youtube least of all, it doesn't make a difference to me.

The one thing I did notice is that the guy typing on the ipad finished before the guy on the windows tablet every time. Since I am doing a lot of typing on the ipad, this is key.

The interface made me laugh. It looked just like a desktop interface, with all of the important buttons and icons crammed onto a strip at the bottom of the screen. I suppose this would keep the middle of the screen free of finger prints, but in my opinion, the screen is there to be used, which the iPad does well.

I found it also a little funny that they watched the youtube video in portrait mode on 16:9 screen. I think more than half the screen was black bars.

My final opinion is that this specific windows tablet is a worthy competitor, but if it had released alongside the iPad, I would still have purchased the iPad.
 
Hang on a second.

This is pretty much just another widows tablet (albeit with some iPhone like UI features).

Windows based tablets have failed for years. They are the same size, battery and weight basically as a net book but they are crap to use quickly and efficiently because the UI was designed for a mouse.

The iPad success does not suddenly mean that the failed windows tablet idea will now work.

The first true iPad competition is surely coming from the android arena?
 
Yep, also the aspect ratio of the iPad is superb, and clearly the competition hasn't figured that out. We don't all watch movies on our iPads 24:7!
 
16:9 is cool but that'll kinda be a moot feature and even a bad design decision. Who wants to watch a movie in this if the battery won't allow you to finish your film? :D
 
This slate looks pretty awful when compared to the iPad. The browser zooming is ridiculous. Also, typing looks pretty pointless.
 
im getting my iPad on Wednesday but hopefully will be getting some hands on time with the HP Slate (runs Win 7) in the coming week or so. Will be interesting to compare the two
 
if they fix that awful looking keyboard and make it the same aspec ratio as an ipad i think itd be pretty useable. And with all those ports it'd probably be more useful in an education setting imo.

Ipad does have the upper hand on looks and entertainment value though.
 
newbiemacguy128 said:
if they fix that awful looking keyboard and make it the same aspec ratio as an ipad i think itd be pretty useable. And with all those ports it'd probably be more useful in an education setting imo.

Ipad does have the upper hand on looks and entertainment value though.
Click to expand...

As well as any other category too. That tablet is 90% unusable. I also guarantee you it costs more per gigabyte than the iPad.
 
From the video, the performance just web browsing seems on par with the ipad. Except for the keyboard. If it plays flash thats a big plus too.

Maybe we have different definitions of useability anyways. I have friends who use netbooks and are satisfied. It fits there needs. Of course they don't write 8-10 page term papers on their netbooks, but its a study tool. Use it to look through powerpoint presentations, surf the web for information, and lightly using it for productivity. The ports on a netbook also lets you store peoples notes from a flash drive, do presentations (powerpoint/excel), and if your a science major you have the data analysis pack to do some quick statistics work. There is no alternative to microsoft office. It's pretty frustrating without it.

Those things right there on a netbook already make it a better choice for college level classes. It's already been said that an ipad is a consumption advice and it does it very well! But from a practical standpoint, a windows 7 slate If it can do the things a netbook can, would be a great tool.
 
As much as some of you talk about apple haters you're doing what you normally protest against and hating on a product you know nothing about or just making up stuff. Not sure that video said a thing about the tablet battery life. Yet one of you laughed at it's lower life.
 
Nice thing about a windows tablet...I could probably run battlefield on it.
The problem with a windows tablet...I could probably run battlefield on it.

There is just too much under the covers. I need functionality. I don't need device manager.

It's just not going to happen. You cant just slap windows 7 on a tablet, enable touch, and call it a day right now. If they could double the horsepower, at the same weight and batterey life, then you could get away with running some application overlay UI specifically for a tablet and take advantage of all of the flexibility that windows offers in the background.
 
WilliamG said:
That video shows exactly why the iPad is superior to anything else out there. If I wanted something that heavy, chunky, clunky etc, I'd have a full-blown laptop. The iPad offers me something different. That slate is just a Windows computer in a tablet form. No thank you. Part of why I enjoy the iPad so much (arguably THE reason) is the slick user interface. Until other companies realize the UI IS the experience, Apple will reign supreme.
Click to expand...

That was my impression of it. I have nothing against companies building Win7 tablets, I just don't want to use one. That looks horrible (my god, what a mess that on-screen keyboard is!), and yeah, I'll be surprised if it gets anywhere near the iPad's battery life (while probably weighing more). People keep salivating over these Win7 tablets, but they're all a joke and are quickly exposed as being cobbled together compromises. Yeah, you could get "work" done on these, but would you want to? I can drill holes with an old hand-cranked drill too, but I wouldn't do it unless I was really desperate. Wake me up when someone actually makes one that is fast, light, long-lasting, and easy to use because I'm not seeing any of those yet.
 
Looks like the others that were scrapped before being released.


xraytech said:
Windows 7 Slate = Gimped Netbook

Apple iPad = iTouch on Roids

Pick your poison.
Click to expand...


Ipod touch on Roids ??? Do you own either device ? You say it like it's a bad thing. Besides the touch is based off of the iPhone. iOS was originally designed for a tablet, but Steve realized that the os would be great on a smart phone, so the tablet was temporary put on the shelf. So the iPod touch is a baby iPad, and that is a good thing, no poison involved.

Windows Slate device = non exsistant in the wild, so then again no poison.
(JoJo is (was) a linuix tablet, Kmart 'Blue Light Special' is a Droid (that can't install apps and has Skype on it that doesn't work) Pick your poison.)
 
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