Just ordered the EXOPC Slate

[lene1949]

Windows 7 was built for multi-Touch.

My desktop PC is multi-touch.. It runs windows 7.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by Fbone

And still less than 4 hours of battery life. Carry the charger with you.

Yeah, that's the price of having a minimum horsepower. So what !
My laptop don't hold much longer now.

[GreenMonkey]

Win7 runs on a tablet very nicely. I've got a 1-2 year old model HP TX2 tablet convertible. Had it for about a year. It's a pretty cool gadget with a capacitive touchscreen. Runs a bit too hot and the battery life isn't spectacular. Both of those issues were fixed in the Intel Core solo-driven TM2.

Win7's touch support is very well baked in. At 125% DPI on a 12.1" 1280x800 screen, everything works pretty well. It has gesture support, pinch-zoom, etc.

Windows even automatically adjusts for touch by adding handy checkboxes to select multiple files at a time with the stylus in File Explorer. Lots of little things like that are in the OS already.

All you need for fast Win7 is a halfway decent processor, some RAM, and a snappy SSD. I doubt the Win7 skeptics have run it on a decent SSD. My wife's Toshiba resumes from sleep instantly on its SSD. My desktop runs super snappy on it. Makes a huge difference. Both computers boot in under ~45 seconds...and at 47 seconds, you can do whatever you want (no HDD thrashing).

[harryE123]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Yeah, that's the price of having a minimum horsepower. So what !
My laptop don't hold much longer now.

Yeah and I have a 1970s car that won't go for more than 80 miles without refilling the tank, so what?

And no that's not the price of having minimum horsepower, that's the price of having an x86 architecture which is inefficient for such a mobile device and an OS with legacy desktop code that needs 700mb of ram to boot. And of course none of that translates to actual performance gains, since arm mobile os devices are faster, run cooler, have better battery life and can do more things and in a better way on a tablet.

These are not opinions, they are facts. People can and do use and enjoy whatever device they prefer for a multitude of reasons. It's when they profess that some apparent problems with it are non existent that there's a problem. I used to own an old x86 wintel laptop for years, and I was a happy camper despite some glaring issues it had with all sorts of software and hardware inadequacies. I didn't need more, and I didn't do more. But I didn't go around trying to convince others that they shouldn't require more from their devices.

And I ll stop here, and refrain from posting in this thread, since I 've belaboured a point, and even worse belaboured a point that is pretty obvious. But when someone claims

Using Windows 7 on a slate is an absolute MUST for it to be usable. No phone OS is even close to cutting the mustard. There seems to be many who miss this fact. Many consider this subjective, it is not.

I mean one feels compelled to reply, especially when said windows 7 tablets (if they are not vapourware), then they sell less in a month than the ipad say sells in a 5 minutes. Surely all the people buying them can't be collectively less intelligent than the op.

[CyGuy]

Originally Posted by harryE123

...and can do more things and in a better way on a tablet.

This is simply not an accurate statement. In fact, that is the very thing I was pointing out earlier.

[krighton]

There have been hands on testing of the EXOPC where the battery time is 4-6.5 hours, all depends on what you're doing...i can't imagine ebook reading or comic reading being that battery intensive. And these are preorders for forum members, IPAD didn't do anything like that, otherwise they would have had a smaller initial run. IPAD fanboi's make me tired.

[EowynCarter]

I mean one feels compelled to reply, especially when said windows 7 tablets (if they are not vapourware), then they sell less in a month than the ipad say sells in a 5 minutes. Surely all the people buying them can't be collectively less intelligent than the op.

iPad sells a lot. So ? Does that mean the rest is bad / useless / wrong ?
Because tablet running on mobile OS fits the need of most people, it don't mean it fit everyone's need.
One size fits all don't exists

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by krighton

There have been hands on testing of the EXOPC where the battery time is 4-6.5 hours, all depends on what you're doing...i can't imagine ebook reading or comic reading being that battery intensive.

The battery wouldnt last through the day for a college student or someone using it for technical manuals.

I guess if someone is going to spend $800 to read comic books only, then battery life is not a concern.

[harryE123]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

iPad sells a lot. So ? Does that mean the rest is bad / useless / wrong ?
Because tablet running on mobile OS fits the need of most people, it don't mean it fit everyone's need.
One size fits all don't exists

No, it means that the rest who continue the stale desktop os power hungry paradigm are the ones that are not any good, because had they been any good they would have caught on years ago, and they wouldn't be a stale fringe market.

The rest that use mobile os's other than ios, are mostly crap so far by all accounts (the joo joo is a case in point and the various chinese ipad clones with android), but then again there are not even a few out yet. I dislike google and android for a lot of reasons, but I am waiting to see what comes out of it. I am also looking forward to the hp one with the really good palm webos in there that unlike android isn't based on sun's stolen pattents(a lot of these guys that made this where former apple employees btw) although I am afraid they will have problems with the availability of apps. All of these however are fundamentally ipad clones in the way they copied the interface, multi touch, the app store paradigm etc., hence apple suing htc. That said when didn't the tec world mostly copy apple, first it was ms, now it's ms and google. That doesn't necessarily make for bad products btw, though it usually does. For sure they will be better of course imho than the win 7 ones.

You like what you like but don't present it as the latest and greatest tech because it's anything but that. I agree with the rest, I would be probably happy too even with a win 7 tablet on a lot of respects, but the pinnacle of technology, efficiency and design it isn't.

sorry for breaking my promise to not post, should probably unsubscribe from the thread to avoid being tempted to.

[CyGuy]

Originally Posted by harryE123

No, it means that the rest who continue the stale desktop os power hungry paradigm are the ones that are not any good, because had they been any good they would have caught on years ago, and they wouldn't be a stale fringe market.

Once again you are mistaken. Only now is the hardware finally ready to have a slim Windows slate with no keyboard and mouse. Believe me, I have been on the hunt for one for many many years, nothing has even been close really. The ExoPC is the first one that just may fit the bill. The past failures were due to hardware limitations.

You seem to misunderstand why a full OS is needed on a slate. The reason is that only a full OS has unlimited functionality and virtually no restrictions.

[harryE123]

Look you got an avatar of a hooded guy with a windows logo on them, I on the other hand love apple products, I don't think we 'll find much common ground.

You can't blame the hardware when arm cpus have been able to run mobile os's very well for over 4 years. Blame the legacy desktop code that's not optimized for mobility and is on x86. A desktop os loaded with antilmalware, antispyware, and antiviruses, the registry and all that jazz. And like I said I don't consider a mobile unix os such as ios as limited in functionality and restricted. Let's look at it this way, the ipad has been out for a few months and still one would be hard pressed to find apps that are there on the desktop and are missing on the ipad. You also have to understand that a desktop os doesn't mean you can run anything on it that you run on a desktop firstly because on the desktop you have a mouse and some programs don't translate to touch (that's why apple had to rewrite their whole iwork suite for the ipad), and b. because you will be limited by processing power. Actually it's less functional and more restrictive because you will always be taking a punt if any program will run well on it for those two reasons. I would have an app developed for a tablet specifically anyday than one developed for a different kind of os, and if ever an ipad falls in your hands with some decent apps on please use it and tell me if the interface isn't clean, simple, usable and sometimes even ingenious in most of them, as opposed to merely running a desktop app on a tablet where you'll get keyboard shortcuts that don't work, small menus, areas where you have to use a stylus because touch via fingers won't cut it, flash apps that dont work with touch etc. etc.

As for restrictions I have belabored two points amongst others, one that you can jailbreak and do all sorts of hackings to it if you are so inclined, second that an app approval process is there for security and safety which is urgent to mobile devices and doesn't restrict at all (I d rather have that than triple antiviruses running).

There's no point in disagreeing any more, we come from different backgrounds here and we are tiring others who read this thread. Enjoy your exopc I am sure it will have many enjoyable goodies on it.

[GreenMonkey]

Originally Posted by harryE123

ios as limited in functionality and restricted. Let's look at it this way, the ipad has been out for a few months and still one would be hard pressed to find apps that are there on the desktop and are missing on the ipad. You also have to understand that a desktop os doesn't mean you can run anything on it that you run on a desktop firstly because on the desktop you have a mouse and some programs don't translate to touch (that's why apple had to rewrite their whole iwork suite for the ipad), and b. because you will be limited by processing power. Actually it's less functional and more restrictive because you will always be taking a punt if any program will run well on it for those two reasons. I would have an app developed for a tablet specifically anyday than one developed for a different kind of os, and if ever an ipad falls in your hands with some decent apps on please use it and tell me if the interface isn't clean, simple, usable and sometimes even ingenious in most of them, as opposed to merely running a desktop app on a tablet where you'll get keyboard shortcuts that don't work, small menus, areas where you have to use a stylus because touch via fingers won't cut it, flash apps that dont work with touch etc. etc.

As for restrictions I have belabored two points amongst others, one that you can jailbreak and do all sorts of hackings to it if you are so inclined, second that an app approval process is there for security and safety which is urgent to mobile devices and doesn't restrict at all (I d rather have that than triple antiviruses running).

I'd rather have the "real" internet than 8000 different apps. Sorry. This mentality makes sense to me on a tiny device like an ipod touch or a smartphone. But on a 10+" screen? Not the same thing.

If you haven't laid hands on a win7 touchscreen of any sort, or at least watched a few video reviews, it's hard to judge. Try watching a video review of the HP TM2 touchsmart convertible. It really handles fairly well.

You can navigate the menus just fine with your fingers at 125% DPI at 12" as I said before. I was even doing powerpoint on Office 2003 just fine with oldschool menus - Office 2010 with the Ribbon interface is even better.

Sure, keyboard shortcuts don't work, so you have to do it the long way. Actually, you can always use the onscreen keyboard But it's not like an ipad has keyboard shortcuts.

There's only 2 things I like about the ipad: the battery life and the IPS screen. But the TM2 has pretty good battery life, as should the Exo slate.

[eswarjj]

Originally Posted by harryE123

I 've had it with you being uninformed yet having such conviction in what you say: iOS devices do multitask, and the ipad will do so in early November too catching up with the ipod touch and the iphone. No, it's lightweight because of the miniscule flash arm cpu and gfx, and because the unix iOS was compiled for this particular tech in mind.

Closed means a rubbish buzzword by moron tech pundits that some of the public have been chewing upon thoughtlessly. Re-read Danny's quoted comments about open and closed, and mine. You don't have to buy them from apple, jailbreak and get them from anywhere (along with the viruses and the security leaks). Apple just offers the store front and pretty much any app gets accepted unless it's porn or specifically interferes with something the os sets out to do in a different way.

How is the leading market with hundreds of thousands of apps closed just because instead of the developer selling them from their site they sell them via apple's store? Windows is closed too in as much as you can't install on it something that doesn't run there. Should we also say windows is close because people can't tweak the win kernel or interface to their heart's desire? Apple is the single mainstream tech company who's contributed the most to the open source community in terms of drivers, technologies etc. etc. Almost all mobile browsers (except for the great opera) use apple's open source webkit project based on the kde browser, now how is apple closing and manipulating people there? All this is utter rubbish. Just because apple made the right choice and realized that a highly mobile device should be safeguarded against malicious attacks by means of an approval system for apps and they did it first pundits have jumped all over them because apple thought this first and made tons of fans and money in the process. Finally developers get something for their money and average people don't have to scour the internet to find an app when they are all neatly categorized in the app store, which is a huge success. The average person never pays a dime in the open and fair to developers pc world, yet the very same people pay loads of cash for apple's evil closed system to the same developers.

But having said all that apple has implicitly said, you don't like it jailbreak it and put any crap you like on it. See if that makes any difference. Maybe you can then put in a couple of antiviruses, some antimalware software, firewalls and counter trojan measures, and see how great it will run after that. Heck windows 7 needs merely 500mb minimum of ram to just start up, why not replicate this lovely open model to the mobile platforms too...

I have both an iPhone and iPad (not sure will keep both if Palm better them this time around). But suggesting iDevices multi-task is not entirely a true statement. I have had this requirement where I was only interested in the audio of many video and could not have them in the BG.

[eswarjj]

Originally Posted by harryE123

I 've had it with you being uninformed yet having such conviction in what you say: iOS devices do multitask, and the ipad will do so in early November too catching up with the ipod touch and the iphone. No, it's lightweight because of the miniscule flash arm cpu and gfx, and because the unix iOS was compiled for this particular tech in mind.

Closed means a rubbish buzzword by moron tech pundits that some of the public have been chewing upon thoughtlessly. Re-read Danny's quoted comments about open and closed, and mine. You don't have to buy them from apple, jailbreak and get them from anywhere (along with the viruses and the security leaks). Apple just offers the store front and pretty much any app gets accepted unless it's porn or specifically interferes with something the os sets out to do in a different way.

How is the leading market with hundreds of thousands of apps closed just because instead of the developer selling them from their site they sell them via apple's store? Windows is closed too in as much as you can't install on it something that doesn't run there. Should we also say windows is close because people can't tweak the win kernel or interface to their heart's desire? Apple is the single mainstream tech company who's contributed the most to the open source community in terms of drivers, technologies etc. etc. Almost all mobile browsers (except for the great opera) use apple's open source webkit project based on the kde browser, now how is apple closing and manipulating people there? All this is utter rubbish. Just because apple made the right choice and realized that a highly mobile device should be safeguarded against malicious attacks by means of an approval system for apps and they did it first pundits have jumped all over them because apple thought this first and made tons of fans and money in the process. Finally developers get something for their money and average people don't have to scour the internet to find an app when they are all neatly categorized in the app store, which is a huge success. The average person never pays a dime in the open and fair to developers pc world, yet the very same people pay loads of cash for apple's evil closed system to the same developers.

But having said all that apple has implicitly said, you don't like it jailbreak it and put any crap you like on it. See if that makes any difference. Maybe you can then put in a couple of antiviruses, some antimalware software, firewalls and counter trojan measures, and see how great it will run after that. Heck windows 7 needs merely 500mb minimum of ram to just start up, why not replicate this lovely open model to the mobile platforms too...

I shouldn't have to break my warranty to install what I want. This is not how computing devices have worked in the past. So have phones until Apple came in to the pictures.

[HamsterRage]

Originally Posted by eswarjj

I shouldn't have to break my warranty to install what I want. This is not how computing devices have worked in the past. So have phones until Apple came in to the pictures.

I'm wondering if a jailbroken iPhone or iPad can even be called an iPhone or iPad anymore?

I mean, the Apple ownership experience seems to be wrapped up in the whole pitcher of Kool-Aid, so if you dump out the Apple app-store/iTunes part is it really the same thing?