Tablet computer for Writing?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by crich70

In other words they get hot when used for something they weren't designed for if I understand you right. Even Netbooks aren't designed for gaming as they are small computers so I can only assume that tablets aren't really made for the bigger CPU heavy games either.

It's completely normal for any computer to get warm when it's working hard. As long as the heat isn't excessive, it's nothing to worry about. Both my Surface Pro and my iPad get warm when they're doing CPU-intensive tasks.

[Rizla]

You'll know if it's too hot because it will become unstable. At worst it might shut itself down. Don't worry, it won't blow up. Do you live in a nice,warm climate? If so, that might impact it and I also will have no sympathy for you

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Rizla

You'll know if it's too hot because it will become unstable. At worst it might shut itself down. Don't worry, it won't blow up. Do you live in a nice,warm climate? If so, that might impact it and I also will have no sympathy for you

Well right now it's a balmy 21 degrees Fahrenheit outside so I doubt I could be said to be in a warm climate. Though the snow is beginning to vanish for the year and in a couple of months I'll probably be complaining about how hot it is.

[Marseille]

I got my Dell Venue 8 pro in the mail tonight. I can't speak to the full range of heat, but the area that heats up is in the lower right hand side (in portrait), which is probably the location of the chipset but it could be battery related heat (common when power is quickly charged or quickly discharged) too.

While playing a hulu video, it gets warm to the touch there. Forty minutes in, it's not actually hot, just warm. Far cooler than my first gen atom netbook (which had a fan while this is fanless) would have gotten also watching hulu. I'll have to get back to you on the temp during word processing and the like if you care about that, but I suspect it'll be near room temp.

Bay Trail is a lot hardier than previous atom generations, not just compared to prior generations, but compared to the gap between intel's high end and low end in previous gens. I might not recommend Skyrim, but from what I've read, it is more suitable for gaming than anything in this class has been before.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by David Marseilles

I got my Dell Venue 8 pro in the mail tonight. I can't speak to the full range of heat, but the area that heats up is in the lower right hand side (in portrait), which is probably the location of the chipset but it could be battery related heat (common when power is quickly charged or quickly discharged) too.

While playing a hulu video, it gets warm to the touch there. Forty minutes in, it's not actually hot, just warm. Far cooler than my first gen atom netbook (which had a fan while this is fanless) would have gotten also watching hulu. I'll have to get back to you on the temp during word processing and the like if you care about that, but I suspect it'll be near room temp.

Bay Trail is a lot hardier than previous atom generations, not just compared to prior generations, but compared to the gap between intel's high end and low end in previous gens. I might not recommend Skyrim, but from what I've read, it is more suitable for gaming than anything in this class has been before.

I imagine it's because movies like video games require a lot of cpu power to support the graphics involved. Though I'd guess that video games are more intensive in that way than movies since you don't interact with a movie file like you do with a video game. How much hard drive space does the tablet allow you to use? I found that after I'd formatted the netbook, put the os and some programs on I still have some 207 GB of free space though the drive itself (according to a sticker on it) has 250 GB's of space (only 220 GB's of that show as being there, but I figure part of it is also the restore and other files I won't need to access unless I do a system restore or other fix in the future). Still Scrivener doesn't take up much space so even if a tablet (running windows) doesn't have a large amount of Hard Drive space for use that wouldn't be a problem I'd guess. Still I am curious how much HDD space is available for use on the tablet.

[Marseille]

My 64 GB tab had somewhere near 36 GB free to start with. About 6.5GB IIRC is taken up for system partitions relating to recovery. And it has an micro sd slot.

Despite the lower capacities, I'd never trade a solid state boot drive for any amount of space in most contexts. I built my PC in 2009 or so using parts that were midrange a year earlier. A year or so ago, I replaced the boot drive with an SSD. The difference in responsiveness is extraordinary. For a general computing environment, there's no better upgrade.

[VydorScope]

Originally Posted by David Marseilles

Despite the lower capacities, I'd never trade a solid state boot drive for any amount of space in most contexts. I built my PC in 2009 or so using parts that were midrange a year earlier. A year or so ago, I replaced the boot drive with an SSD. The difference in responsiveness is extraordinary. For a general computing environment, there's no better upgrade.

Fully agree. Also what ever drive you use for your swap file, that you want to be SSD also.

[Rizla]

I think I'd much rather have RAM based storage rather than a dedicated hard-drive. I imagine it uses less power and produces less heat (and therefore fan activity). So is it possible to replace an existing hard-drive with RAM storage?

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by crich70

Well right now it's a balmy 21 degrees Fahrenheit outside so I doubt I could be said to be in a warm climate. Though the snow is beginning to vanish for the year and in a couple of months I'll probably be complaining about how hot it is.

Soft Southerners

[VydorScope]

Originally Posted by Rizla

I think I'd much rather have RAM based storage rather than a dedicated hard-drive. I imagine it uses less power and produces less heat (and therefore fan activity). So is it possible to replace an existing hard-drive with RAM storage?

SSD is pretty close to RAM based storage. In fact, if you have say 8gb of ram, and consistently use 16gb of swap - with an SSD your far less likely with normal tasks to notice it. With a traditional HD your machine will drag heavily under those conditions. My work laptop is maxed with 16gb of RAM already and I have it backed by a 256gb SSD. I consistently use 64gb of RAM or more thanks to swap space and it runs without hiccups.

A good modern SSD with a modern OS will do wonders.

[Rizla]

So how do you use the SSD? Do you install an OS on it and make it the boot device? If so, what OS are you running on it? It seems they have a limited number of write operations in their lifetime and are best for "passive" storage.

[HarryT]

It's a drive, like any other. Yes, you boot from it.

[crich70]

It's easy to boot from a flash drive or other such. You just change your bios setting in the setup. At least that's how it works in Windows. I don't know how it's done in android or mac.

[Marseille]

Originally Posted by Rizla

It seems they have a limited number of write operations in their lifetime and are best for "passive" storage.

They have a limited life just like platter hard drives. At this stage, I think the average SSD lasts longer than the average HDD. Probably doubly true for mobile devices that are moved around a lot.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by David Marseilles

They have a limited life just like platter hard drives. At this stage, I think the average SSD lasts longer than the average HDD. Probably doubly true for mobile devices that are moved around a lot.

From what I understand they last longer because there are no moving parts unlike with a HDD.