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>Microsoft is going to feel this as well, as manufacturers won't be very happy selling $200-$300 tablets with $100 ($200 for enterprise versions) Windows licens

>Microsoft is going to feel this as well, as manufacturers won't be very happy selling $200-$300 tablets with $100 ($200 for enterprise versions) Windows licenses. That does not make any sense. If you think Windows 8 Pro x86 tablets like the Surface Pro(running an Intel Core i5) are competing with the Kindles on features and price, think again. They will be expensive, but far more capable and powerful(heavier and less battery life too). For example, they can run the full Visual Studio or Eclipse. You can take a Surface Pro and a Kindle Fire with you, run Eclipse with the Android SDK loaded, connect the Kindle Fire to the Surface and take the program you just wrote on the Surface and run it on the Kindle! Or write your code while on a roadtrip or on the subway and debug it on your Android or Windows phone(don't know how Hackintosh it can get for running apps on the iPhone). Can you do that with a Kindle, iPad or any other tablet on the market right now, which are used by most people as consumption devices? Where Microsoft is competing with the Kindle, Android tablets and the iPad is with Windows RT, which is a different beast(and costs less than $100 for OEMs + they are rumored to get kickbacks on ecosystem sales). The only big advantage Microsoft has right now in this space is Office RT.

randallu 14y ago
You can't do it on a tablet right now, but it's a software problem, not a hardware one. The Galaxy Note 10.1 ships with 2GB RAM and a good SoC. It's more powerful in every way than the PC I was using 5 years ago to write media player UIs. I don't know when we'll start seeing things like Eclipse running on Android tablets, or if instead app development will trend to HTML and we'll see web-based tooling around that, but I do think that it is on the cards. I also can't imagine that the Surface tablets (ARM or x86) are going to sell well at all. Not as good as an iPad for tablet things, not as good as a laptop for Office things.
- cooldeal 14y ago
  >It's more powerful in every way than the PC I was using 5 years ago to write media player UIs. I agree about the quantity of RAM and probably even the GPU, but is there a raw comparison of the CPUs(not just cores and GHz? I strongly suspect your 5 yr old x86 PC is much more powerful than the ARM one in the Galaxy note. >I don't know when we'll start seeing things like Eclipse running on Android tablets, or if instead app development will trend to HTML and we'll see web-based tooling around that, but I do think that it is on the cards. I sure wish Eclipse would get on to Android instead of devs moving to HTML just because their tablet does not support a full-on IDE or programming platform. >I also can't imagine that the Surface tablets (ARM or x86) are going to sell well at all. Not as good as an iPad for tablet things, not as good as a laptop for Office things. This reminds me of the folks that discounted the iPad because it was not good as a smartphone for portability(oversized iPod Touch) and much less powerful than a laptop. I agree that the Surface Pro is trying to create a new market here, but I do think there is a big market of people who want a no-compromises powerful portable tablet for on-the-go use.
larsberg 14y ago
> but far more capable and powerful Also, since they're full versions of Windows, they should just be able to access Hulu, Evernote, and all the other services that expect you to pay extra if you choose to use them on an anemic mobile device.

randallu 14y ago

You can't do it on a tablet right now, but it's a software problem, not a hardware one. The Galaxy Note 10.1 ships with 2GB RAM and a good SoC. It's more powerful in every way than the PC I was using 5 years ago to write media player UIs. I don't know when we'll start seeing things like Eclipse running on Android tablets, or if instead app development will trend to HTML and we'll see web-based tooling around that, but I do think that it is on the cards. I also can't imagine that the Surface tablets (ARM or x86) are going to sell well at all. Not as good as an iPad for tablet things, not as good as a laptop for Office things.

cooldeal 14y ago
>It's more powerful in every way than the PC I was using 5 years ago to write media player UIs. I agree about the quantity of RAM and probably even the GPU, but is there a raw comparison of the CPUs(not just cores and GHz? I strongly suspect your 5 yr old x86 PC is much more powerful than the ARM one in the Galaxy note. >I don't know when we'll start seeing things like Eclipse running on Android tablets, or if instead app development will trend to HTML and we'll see web-based tooling around that, but I do think that it is on the cards. I sure wish Eclipse would get on to Android instead of devs moving to HTML just because their tablet does not support a full-on IDE or programming platform. >I also can't imagine that the Surface tablets (ARM or x86) are going to sell well at all. Not as good as an iPad for tablet things, not as good as a laptop for Office things. This reminds me of the folks that discounted the iPad because it was not good as a smartphone for portability(oversized iPod Touch) and much less powerful than a laptop. I agree that the Surface Pro is trying to create a new market here, but I do think there is a big market of people who want a no-compromises powerful portable tablet for on-the-go use.

larsberg 14y ago

> but far more capable and powerful Also, since they're full versions of Windows, they should just be able to access Hulu, Evernote, and all the other services that expect you to pay extra if you choose to use them on an anemic mobile device.