Because it's on a 10.1 inch display not a 13-15 inch display like we're used to. It's not breaking any density records obviously, but 1366x768 on a 10.1" makes it 155ppi which is reasonable enough. Being a similar high quality IPS to the Prime I can imagine it'll look quite nice. If it lets them sell it for a competitive 500$ price that's the best corner to cut for a tablet IMO, besides it'll help with battery life. If/when WinRT catches on in the tablet world a more expensive version that doesn't hold back anything would be quite welcome.
$500 wouldn't be too competitive IMO. By the time this thing is released, you could get much better hardware with the iPad or Android for the same price, if not cheaper. And you have a reasonably mature app ecosystem on those platforms.
Heck, the newest iPad is already $550 and it has that ridiculous resolution.
IIRC Windows RT isn't expected until October. By then the Tegra 3 would seem a bit dusty for a newly released product. I'd think they'd have to run it with a pretty big discount to be competitive.
My biggest concern for Windows 8 tablets is battery life and pricing. I'm very excited about the potential but if it craps out after 5 hours it is worthless to me. Alternatively, if it manages 10 hours of battery life but the entry price is $700+ it's also worthless to me. 9+ hours battery life and an entry price of $500 or less and I'm in. Otherwise this is a flop in my opinion.
"Unless there is some serious subsidies going on, I don't think that It's going to be price competitive"
Because they were never able to sell 300 dollar netbooks or anything. Microsoft's OS licensing does not cost the OEMs hundreds of dollars per device - they buy in bulk.
"Battery life i don't think that will be there either, at least not from the start. Apple and Google have much more experience in ARM than MS."
Yeah, because it's not like Microsoft has had WinCE running on ARM devices for freaking decades or anything.
"Battery life i don't think that will be there either, at least not from the start. Apple and Google have much more experience in ARM than MS."
I don't think it is. I think the opposite is true for their ARM tablets. They have to make it feel and act as differently as possible so people will forget the bad experiences they had with past Windows tablets.
If this were the wince kernel you'd have a point. I don't understand why people are so excited about W8 ARM tablets. The only things they will offer over ios and android will be Office (which itself has been rumored to be coming to said systems in November). Other than that, you'll be stuck will, basically, what you have now with windows phones (albeit completely different beneath the ui).
My point is between Apple and Google, Microsoft has more experience working with ARM architecture than those two combined. Even if it was with WinCE it's not like that experience is utterly worthless with WinNT.
The problem, as I see it, is that both Android and ios are running basically their desktop kernels. In the case of darwin they can leverage around 20 years of continuous work, while Android can do the same with Linux. They haven't been forced to recreate a new kernel for the mobile space thus they can leverage their vast knowledge of those two kernels. So, a companies past experience with an architecture counts for less than the experience their specific software has had with said platform.
NT kernel can run on any platform MS needs. It ran on MIPS,PPC or Alpha, so they know how to port it to other platforms.
Mainly HAL and low kernel needs porting. Rest of stack and subsystems need only such changes as required by goals - like optimisation. (besides of recompilation)
So they have much more experience then other two companies... Considering first ports were early 90s for original Windows NT.
I understand your point but respectfully disagree. While msft may have been using a cross architecture toolchain internally, I'm not aware of serious prior efforts to use NT on architectures other than the desktop/server variety. So,, as I said, both Apple and Goog have been working with their particular kernels constantly for the past l, say, seven years or so, while we don't know how long msft has been working hard on getting nt to the mobile space. The fact that they even had a separate kernel for embedded work (admittedly a rt one) tells me that nt might not have been given much thought prior to the releases of ips/android. As for company experience, these are companies not people. They all can by all the expertise they need, so I wouldn't give any of them any special lead in that department.
This would almost work for me, and I can certainly live with the processing power of the Tegra while undocked. However it would be really nice if there was some way to have a Core i5 in the docking station and it could switch over to the faster processor when docked (and have more RAM available as well). That would drive the price way up, but it really what I'd like to see for this to fully replace my normal laptop.
How do you switch between different hardware in a blink? You would have to have 2 Windows licenses and then somehow keep them fully synced with eachother. Nah, not a very good idea imo.
The Transformer Book sounds like a better alternative for you.
This should be at most $300 retail in September, otherwise is dead on arrival. IPad, which I hate, is the best buy money-wise. Then come a legion of Android tablets, that are working well anyway.
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mayankleoboy1 - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
how can a 1366x768 display look awesome ?can you give some hands on feeling of win8 on a tablet?
retrospooty - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
"how can a 1366x768 display look awesome ?"on a 10 inch screens its not bad. It's still higher res than the ipad 2.
frostyfiredude - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
Because it's on a 10.1 inch display not a 13-15 inch display like we're used to. It's not breaking any density records obviously, but 1366x768 on a 10.1" makes it 155ppi which is reasonable enough. Being a similar high quality IPS to the Prime I can imagine it'll look quite nice. If it lets them sell it for a competitive 500$ price that's the best corner to cut for a tablet IMO, besides it'll help with battery life. If/when WinRT catches on in the tablet world a more expensive version that doesn't hold back anything would be quite welcome.jwcalla - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
$500 wouldn't be too competitive IMO. By the time this thing is released, you could get much better hardware with the iPad or Android for the same price, if not cheaper. And you have a reasonably mature app ecosystem on those platforms.Heck, the newest iPad is already $550 and it has that ridiculous resolution.
IIRC Windows RT isn't expected until October. By then the Tegra 3 would seem a bit dusty for a newly released product. I'd think they'd have to run it with a pretty big discount to be competitive.
faizoff - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
I'm going to wait for a Win tablet and this looks very much like what I need. Exciting times ahead.tayb - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
My biggest concern for Windows 8 tablets is battery life and pricing. I'm very excited about the potential but if it craps out after 5 hours it is worthless to me. Alternatively, if it manages 10 hours of battery life but the entry price is $700+ it's also worthless to me. 9+ hours battery life and an entry price of $500 or less and I'm in. Otherwise this is a flop in my opinion.Zane K - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
Unless there is some serious subsidies going on, I don't think that It's going to be price competitive, But that is up to Microsoft.Battery life i don't think that will be there either, at least not from the start. Apple and Google have much more experience in ARM than MS.
MS's only hope are people that perceive it as a proper edition of windows, which it's not, and x86 windows tablets which will be proper windows.
Cheers
Zane
Solidstate89 - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
"Unless there is some serious subsidies going on, I don't think that It's going to be price competitive"Because they were never able to sell 300 dollar netbooks or anything. Microsoft's OS licensing does not cost the OEMs hundreds of dollars per device - they buy in bulk.
"Battery life i don't think that will be there either, at least not from the start. Apple and Google have much more experience in ARM than MS."
Yeah, because it's not like Microsoft has had WinCE running on ARM devices for freaking decades or anything.
"Battery life i don't think that will be there either, at least not from the start. Apple and Google have much more experience in ARM than MS."
I don't think it is. I think the opposite is true for their ARM tablets. They have to make it feel and act as differently as possible so people will forget the bad experiences they had with past Windows tablets.
Solidstate89 - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
Ctrl + c fail. That last quote was supposed to be;"MS's only hope are people that perceive it as a proper edition of windows"
tuxRoller - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
If this were the wince kernel you'd have a point.I don't understand why people are so excited about W8 ARM tablets. The only things they will offer over ios and android will be Office (which itself has been rumored to be coming to said systems in November). Other than that, you'll be stuck will, basically, what you have now with windows phones (albeit completely different beneath the ui).
Solidstate89 - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
My point is between Apple and Google, Microsoft has more experience working with ARM architecture than those two combined. Even if it was with WinCE it's not like that experience is utterly worthless with WinNT.tuxRoller - Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - link
The problem, as I see it, is that both Android and ios are running basically their desktop kernels. In the case of darwin they can leverage around 20 years of continuous work, while Android can do the same with Linux. They haven't been forced to recreate a new kernel for the mobile space thus they can leverage their vast knowledge of those two kernels.So, a companies past experience with an architecture counts for less than the experience their specific software has had with said platform.
Klimax - Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - link
NT kernel can run on any platform MS needs. It ran on MIPS,PPC or Alpha, so they know how to port it to other platforms.Mainly HAL and low kernel needs porting. Rest of stack and subsystems need only such changes as required by goals - like optimisation. (besides of recompilation)
So they have much more experience then other two companies... Considering first ports were early 90s for original Windows NT.
Note: ref: p.37 of Windows Internals edition 6th.
tuxRoller - Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - link
I understand your point but respectfully disagree.While msft may have been using a cross architecture toolchain internally, I'm not aware of serious prior efforts to use NT on architectures other than the desktop/server variety.
So,, as I said, both Apple and Goog have been working with their particular kernels constantly for the past l, say, seven years or so, while we don't know how long msft has been working hard on getting nt to the mobile space. The fact that they even had a separate kernel for embedded work (admittedly a rt one) tells me that nt might not have been given much thought prior to the releases of ips/android.
As for company experience, these are companies not people. They all can by all the expertise they need, so I wouldn't give any of them any special lead in that department.
kmmatney - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
This would almost work for me, and I can certainly live with the processing power of the Tegra while undocked. However it would be really nice if there was some way to have a Core i5 in the docking station and it could switch over to the faster processor when docked (and have more RAM available as well). That would drive the price way up, but it really what I'd like to see for this to fully replace my normal laptop.snoozemode - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
How do you switch between different hardware in a blink? You would have to have 2 Windows licenses and then somehow keep them fully synced with eachother. Nah, not a very good idea imo.The Transformer Book sounds like a better alternative for you.
Ananke - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
This should be at most $300 retail in September, otherwise is dead on arrival.IPad, which I hate, is the best buy money-wise.
Then come a legion of Android tablets, that are working well anyway.