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Rumoured price $540 & Adobe Demos Flash & Air on HP's Slate Device
- Thread starter laserfox
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See the upside to the iPad is exactly this...
The iPads Hardware and Software are designed to work with each other perfectly to achieve the highest possible performance and battery life. Everything is designed to work together.
Anything Windows made is not like this. Windows doesn't design their OS to work on any certain CPU or GPU. Your performance is limited to how well the hardware will work with the OS on a driver level. It's up to the manufacturer of the hardware to ensure this. I can't remember off hand if HP makes their own Motherboards but I don't believe so. Either way anything with an Atom processor just will not suffice for multitasking either. They have such a low Cache on the CPU itself.
Apple designed their processer to work with their Software. For this reason I believe is why Apple doesn't really have system crashes like a PC running Windows does. All of Apples hardware is the same in every machine of that series. Everything has the same chipset on all cards etc. I can't count how many times I had bought a Wireless PCI card even though it was the same model number but used different chipsets. There are simply too many variations when it comes to PCs and that is where the problems come into play with drivers and incompatibles with other pieces of hardware. There are way too many vendors making hardware out their. And it goes to the lowest bidder in most business decisions.
This is why I have no problem paying a higher premium for a higher quality product. Apple always has a high standard for quality and I stand by them for that. Look at their laptops...solid aluminum. It feels sturdy. When I pick up a HP, Dell, or any other brand of laptop they just feel cheap. Plastic outer-shell and just doesn't feel reliable. I'm just rambling my thoughts now. I'm done. Just to clarify in case someone decides to jump down my throat about my post. Most of this is my opinion and preference.
The iPads Hardware and Software are designed to work with each other perfectly to achieve the highest possible performance and battery life. Everything is designed to work together.
Anything Windows made is not like this. Windows doesn't design their OS to work on any certain CPU or GPU. Your performance is limited to how well the hardware will work with the OS on a driver level. It's up to the manufacturer of the hardware to ensure this. I can't remember off hand if HP makes their own Motherboards but I don't believe so. Either way anything with an Atom processor just will not suffice for multitasking either. They have such a low Cache on the CPU itself.
Apple designed their processer to work with their Software. For this reason I believe is why Apple doesn't really have system crashes like a PC running Windows does. All of Apples hardware is the same in every machine of that series. Everything has the same chipset on all cards etc. I can't count how many times I had bought a Wireless PCI card even though it was the same model number but used different chipsets. There are simply too many variations when it comes to PCs and that is where the problems come into play with drivers and incompatibles with other pieces of hardware. There are way too many vendors making hardware out their. And it goes to the lowest bidder in most business decisions.
This is why I have no problem paying a higher premium for a higher quality product. Apple always has a high standard for quality and I stand by them for that. Look at their laptops...solid aluminum. It feels sturdy. When I pick up a HP, Dell, or any other brand of laptop they just feel cheap. Plastic outer-shell and just doesn't feel reliable. I'm just rambling my thoughts now. I'm done. Just to clarify in case someone decides to jump down my throat about my post. Most of this is my opinion and preference.
Who told you Windows 7 wasn't suitable for touch ? when that is one of its main design aspects.
Desktop OS's are always going to have smaller design elements that aren't as touch friendly as their tailored counterparts. While Windows 7 is probably one of the better OS's out there for this, it's not going to be as touch friendly as iPhone OS.
It's amazing how these retarded slate/android videos have to specifically embed anti-Apple (ie: "Full Web", "can consume any content without restrictions") messaging.
It shows a general lack of imagination in introducing a product - they always seem to either be living in Apple's shadow or living as a counterpoint to Apple.
The guy drinking the coffee and using the slate is the worst of it. Just how an ad or presentation is designed tells you a lot about how a company feels about the smallest parts of design in its product.
Not impressed.
1:30, the guy clicks an icon. On my iPhone, the icons blow out and the app flies in. These little gui differences are some of the reasons why people buy Apple products.
1:38, oh look. Flash ad x2. The only flash on page there.
2:14, the lack of hulu or branded tv show websites does make me sad. I wish the iPad had this.
2:21, flash games. No thanks.
2:58, looks like multitasking. Ah, missing on the iPad too.
and yes, I have pr0switcher/backgrounder on my iPhone but it's one at a time... we'll see what the iPad jailbreaking community comes up with.
3:32, photoshop.com won't be missed.
4:31, crossword puzzle. Nice. Also like how you can drag the keyboard around.
Anyway, looks like an interesting device but doesn't get me all excited like iPad. I'd like to follow the development of it as it comes out.
It shows a general lack of imagination in introducing a product - they always seem to either be living in Apple's shadow or living as a counterpoint to Apple.
The guy drinking the coffee and using the slate is the worst of it. Just how an ad or presentation is designed tells you a lot about how a company feels about the smallest parts of design in its product.
Not impressed.
1:30, the guy clicks an icon. On my iPhone, the icons blow out and the app flies in. These little gui differences are some of the reasons why people buy Apple products.
1:38, oh look. Flash ad x2. The only flash on page there.
2:14, the lack of hulu or branded tv show websites does make me sad. I wish the iPad had this.
2:21, flash games. No thanks.
2:58, looks like multitasking. Ah, missing on the iPad too.
and yes, I have pr0switcher/backgrounder on my iPhone but it's one at a time... we'll see what the iPad jailbreaking community comes up with.3:32, photoshop.com won't be missed.
4:31, crossword puzzle. Nice. Also like how you can drag the keyboard around.
Anyway, looks like an interesting device but doesn't get me all excited like iPad. I'd like to follow the development of it as it comes out.
They said that about Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, and it definitely wasn't very good. I've owned 2 tablet PCs that used it.
Have you even seen it? While W7 is an excellent desktop OS, it is in no way a tablet OS. No matter how much MS say it is, it isn't. The fact that multiple tablet vendors have their own different "touch" applications to showcase the touch screen should suggest to you that the OS isn't ready for the full tablet experience like the iPhone OS is. MS Surface's technology is the better tablet experience or a scaled up W7 MobileOS.
MS does have one of the best applications there is for the tablet that even Apple has no replacement, the OneNote app.
Hah. Fair enough.
I do think it's funny the Windows ME guy had a mustache.
Windows user here, btw.
My point was that what you pointed out is just advertising. It's how things work. Every market puts out the same types of direct attack ads. Hell, even the soup industry does...
Do you mean by this that it is entirely touch ready? Can you flick-scroll all scrollable areas? Can all the buttons by easily hit by a thumb?
For me this stuff isn't optional on a touch OS.
Trust me when I say this:
You do not want to ever, EVER, purchase an HP product...under ANY circumstances.
You do not want to ever, EVER, purchase an HP product...under ANY circumstances.
Read these blogs:
http://jkontherun.com/
http://www.gottabemobile.com/
JKontherun in particular is very popular, respected, and well known for having spent the better part of the decade reviewing hundreds of these touch devices including the latest Windows 7 ones. Both sites eagerly anticipate the iPad and have called desktop OS touch devices a complete usability failure (as recently as today's podcast http://media.libsyn.com/media/motr/MoTR_201.mp3 ).
I wonder if PC manufacturers are banking on Apple making the slate market popular, and thus being able to sell product based on that. It's something I wonder because PC manufacturers have been making slate PCs for a very long time now and the market has been pretty small. I'm actually on a tablet pc that I paid about $2200 for about 3 years ago and I've been enjoying couch browsing in tablet form for a long time now.
One thing I would miss on the Apple Tablet is the pen input function. Having a pen input function is a nice option when you feel like drawing or handwriting notes. Perhaps in the future Apple can integrate a dual layer touch screen that integrates multitouch+a wacom display for pen input and then you have the best of both worlds. Screens like this actually already exist in the PC world.
Now for some things I don't like about my tablet. It's heavy, sorta. It weighs 3.5 pounds which is actually one of the lightest 12" convertible notebooks available but it's still not the right weight if you want to read. I've actually read several graphic novels on my tablet and a 12" screen at 1280x800 resolution seems to be the right form for reading graphic novels. I'll be interested to see how good graphic novels read on the iPad.
Another thing I don't like is the battery life+fan noise+heat. If you're going to be holding something for long periods of time, it should be as light as possible and for reading it shouldn't have a fan and I shouldn't have to constantly worry about my battery dieing on me after 3 hours.
Lastly, the screen is TN. When I saw the HP Slate Balmer was holding up, all I could say was FAIL. On a tablet you really want very wide viewing angles and IPS screens are the best LCD screens you can buy. The downside to IPS is that they are thicker, more expensive, and more power hungry than TN. I will never buy another tablet computer that doesn't have wide viewing angles like an IPS screen.
The upside to something like the HP Slate is that it'll run all of your PC software, albeit probably not in the best experience. For some people though, the experience will be "good enough".
Apple will win over the market because they have what no one else has right now, a mobile optimized operating system with applications fit to the device. The reason I believe previous tablet manufacturers have not been successful hasn't been for hardware reasons necessarily, they just haven't created a good enough operating system.
Competition is always a good thing though and it should help keep Apple on their toes and not become complacent with the success it's had so far.
One thing I would miss on the Apple Tablet is the pen input function. Having a pen input function is a nice option when you feel like drawing or handwriting notes. Perhaps in the future Apple can integrate a dual layer touch screen that integrates multitouch+a wacom display for pen input and then you have the best of both worlds. Screens like this actually already exist in the PC world.
Now for some things I don't like about my tablet. It's heavy, sorta. It weighs 3.5 pounds which is actually one of the lightest 12" convertible notebooks available but it's still not the right weight if you want to read. I've actually read several graphic novels on my tablet and a 12" screen at 1280x800 resolution seems to be the right form for reading graphic novels. I'll be interested to see how good graphic novels read on the iPad.
Another thing I don't like is the battery life+fan noise+heat. If you're going to be holding something for long periods of time, it should be as light as possible and for reading it shouldn't have a fan and I shouldn't have to constantly worry about my battery dieing on me after 3 hours.
Lastly, the screen is TN. When I saw the HP Slate Balmer was holding up, all I could say was FAIL. On a tablet you really want very wide viewing angles and IPS screens are the best LCD screens you can buy. The downside to IPS is that they are thicker, more expensive, and more power hungry than TN. I will never buy another tablet computer that doesn't have wide viewing angles like an IPS screen.
The upside to something like the HP Slate is that it'll run all of your PC software, albeit probably not in the best experience. For some people though, the experience will be "good enough".
Apple will win over the market because they have what no one else has right now, a mobile optimized operating system with applications fit to the device. The reason I believe previous tablet manufacturers have not been successful hasn't been for hardware reasons necessarily, they just haven't created a good enough operating system.
Competition is always a good thing though and it should help keep Apple on their toes and not become complacent with the success it's had so far.
I am reading the hardback edition of Bill Simmons Book of Basketball right now.
According to Amazon it's shipping weight is 2.2 lbs. The book is very heavy. Now I imagine increasing that weight by 50% (the slate), and think wow I don't want to hold this as some kind of portable or mobile device, and then I think what if I cut the weight down by 40% (to get to about the weight of the iPad), and given the slimmer form factors of each, the iPad seems like a good idea and the Slate seems like a horrible one.
I am not even sure I understand the idea of a 3+ lb slate unless you are trying to mix in exercise with computing.
This makes the slate much less usable for all kinds of situations I think would make the iPad very useful. Holding it with one hand, in all kinds of places / positions, the iPad seems to make sense, the slate not so much.
With that size that might as well go with the netbook form factor, or make it a table top version like they used to do in bars with table top arcade games.
According to Amazon it's shipping weight is 2.2 lbs. The book is very heavy. Now I imagine increasing that weight by 50% (the slate), and think wow I don't want to hold this as some kind of portable or mobile device, and then I think what if I cut the weight down by 40% (to get to about the weight of the iPad), and given the slimmer form factors of each, the iPad seems like a good idea and the Slate seems like a horrible one.
I am not even sure I understand the idea of a 3+ lb slate unless you are trying to mix in exercise with computing.
This makes the slate much less usable for all kinds of situations I think would make the iPad very useful. Holding it with one hand, in all kinds of places / positions, the iPad seems to make sense, the slate not so much.
With that size that might as well go with the netbook form factor, or make it a table top version like they used to do in bars with table top arcade games.
Once installed it needs little interaction. When you want to run it manually a window pops up with large tabs, and no place where you have to pull out a stylus to hit a small target. I have this on my Archos 9 tablet and it's very easy to use. Once tablet functions are enabled in Windows 7 ALL apps gain flick-scroll on scrollable windows.
A better argument for the iPad over any Win based tablet is that as far as I know there are NO apps on Win7 that utilize g-sensors, accelerometers, or locations services. Developers just don't expect to find such hardware on PCs.
To me, it's an Atom based Netbook, Minus the keyboard running Win7 and a touchscreen.
The Win 7 experience on a netbook isn't great to start with, add to this touch screen drivers / AntiVirus running in the background, and all applications designed for Mouse/Keyboard input the Slate looks a bit of mess to me.
To be a competitor to the iPad it must have a OS designed from the ground up for touch based input for me.
The Win 7 experience on a netbook isn't great to start with, add to this touch screen drivers / AntiVirus running in the background, and all applications designed for Mouse/Keyboard input the Slate looks a bit of mess to me.
To be a competitor to the iPad it must have a OS designed from the ground up for touch based input for me.
Looks a lot more appealing than the iPad. For one, I could actually use it to do the things I need to on it on a daily basis such as offer Flash based customer and sales on the go which would be a dream. Just a shame it doesn't have Mac OS X on it to transfer files between Laptop -> Tablet
Maybe not as touch friendly but much more capable.
More capable is a subjective statement. It really depends on what someone wants. If the Slate ends up being just a netbook with a touchscreen then it's not what I want.
The words capable and netbook are an oxymoron anyway. It's more like "I put up with my regular software running dog slow because I can carry this tiny computer with me more easily than a real laptop." And look, I can run 7 things at at time, really slowly...
For certain uses, someone might require a specific feature, but generally I'd prefer much less of a catch-all feature set. In my personal situation, I'd find it silly to carry a tablet computer and then lose the main benefits of the form factor by attaching external drives, a camera, etc. and even a monitor to it. A projector is the only thing I'd be attaching it to, and that's only when doing a presentation.
If you measure capability solely by bullet points in a feature list, I think you'd be missing something important. Watching the demos of the Slate or the Adam, I think there is still something missing in the ease-of-use and style department, not to mention their screens don't look quite as nice as the iPad screen, at least in the videos I've watched.
I think you're trying to downplay or rather trivialize features and capabilities. A full OS might not be what you need but this doesn't apply to others. The Macbook Air would have made much more sense in a tablet form factor.