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I'm excited about the prospect of a Windows 8 tablet. I'm willing to spend as much as it costs to get one. Unfortunately, nobody wants my money. Yesterday was
by dangrossman 14y ago
I'm excited about the prospect of a Windows 8 tablet. I'm willing to spend as much as it costs to get one. Unfortunately, nobody wants my money.
Yesterday was the big retail launch. I was on a mission to check out what my local stores had and, if they had anything that could do the job for me, buy it. I've always wanted a tablet, but only if it could be as useful as a laptop when paired with a keyboard. The new Windows 8 tablets are supposed to be just that.
Best Buy had one (1) Windows 8 tablet. It was a Asus Vivo Tab running Windows RT... supposedly. I don't want an RT tab, and this store didn't even have a working floor model of the one tablet they were selling. The one they had was stuck on a "failed to automatically repair Windows" screen. It was also glued to the display stand so I couldn't pick it up and get a feel for the hardware.
OfficeMax had zero (0) Windows 8 tablets. Heck, they had no Windows 8 touch screen laptops either. Or price tags. Or product specs. Or anything I could play with, really. There was one employee there setting up a display model of some laptop while complaining to another about how they were supposed to have tags for the computers but had none. Their electronics section was a joke.
Staples had one (1) Windows 8 tablet. It was a Samsung ATIV running Windows 8. Success! I actually spent some time playing with this one. Again, I couldn't really get a feel for the hardware, or specifically the weight, given it's got a pound of security alarms and tethers bolted onto the back chaining it to the display area. Beyond that, the specs just weren't up to snuff -- with 2GB RAM and 64GB storage, I'd just barely be able to run enough software to occasionally use it as a portable development machine. With nothing installed on it, there was only 14GB of free space -- the OS and preinstalled apps were using 50GB of the 64GB out of the box.
So all those trips were a waste of time. There's no Microsoft Store anywhere within 4 hours of me, so those 3 were the full range of retail options here.
I'm basically looking for a Surface Pro (Intel Core processor, 4GB RAM, 128GB storage). It's amazing that despite knowing Microsoft would be building this, nobody else built something comparable, and stores aren't carrying even the few tablets/hybrids they did build.
- colmvp 14y agoIs it possible just to order it online?
- dangrossman 14y agoI don't see any better selection on their websites, honestly. Best Buy had one additional 64GB tablet online that wasn't in the store.
- mgkimsal 14y agoI got bashed a few days ago for saying that it'd be a few months before real Win8 tablets would be out - that we'd only have the surface RT for the forseeable. I was told that was wrong, and that from Friday there'd be multiple vendors offering multiple options on Intel chips offering the full support for Win8 (not the limited WinRT current stuff). Come Friday - I went to a couple shops looking around, and saw what you did. I almost picked up Win8 Upgrade disk, but there were two boxes, different colors and SKUs, for the same price (there were others as well), and I'm *almost 100% certain that these were 32bit and 64bit upgrade options, but nothing on the box indicated that. Nothing at all indicated the difference between the skus (should have taken a picture). And now trying to upgrade online, I'm getting payment processor failures - I can not seem to buy Win8 without brokenness or confusion. http://gyazo.com/71da564b10515155cd2b1136d0ab6464 http://gyazo.com/71da564b10515155cd2b1136d0ab6464 This isn't just me - I submitted to HN a while ago - this has been going on since yesterday.
- jamesjguthrie 14y agoThere are other tablets out there. The Dell Latitude 10 is an Intel Atom but does run Windows 8 Pro. I want one of them.
- dangrossman 14y agoThe Latitude 10 has an Atom processor, 2GB RAM and a 64GB HD. Given there'll only be ~10-14GB free space on that drive out of the box, that's not enough to even install Office, Photoshop, Visual Studio, etc. let alone run them. It's almost a scam to sell such an unusable hardware configuration. Someone's going to sync their music and buy two movies and find out their new "64GB" tablet is already out of space. That size should really be relegated to Windows RT only.
- EwanG 14y agoAs an owner of one, I would point out that they do accept full sized SD Card. So you get a fast 64 GB SD card, and you find that it is actually fairly usable. That said, the 2GB limitation means you are still going to be doing more Office than Photoshop...
- jamesjguthrie 14y agoSounds like you want a touchscreen laptop. If you want to be running Visual Studio etc then you'll need a touch screen laptop. Dell Latitude XT3 would be good here.
- dangrossman 14y agoI have a laptop. I want a tablet. Something I can watch a movie on in bed, but also dock to a keyboard to work. Tablets with 4GB RAM and 128GB drives have been available for years. Nobody bothered to release one for Windows 8's launch, and Surface Pro which also fits the bill isn't coming until after Christmas.
- polshaw 14y agoHow did you get to windows 8 taking up 50-55GB of space out of the box?
- ephermata 14y ago(Disclosure: Microsoft employee writing this on a Surface with Touch Cover) Check out the Samsung Series 7 slate. 128GB SSD, 4GB RAM, core i5. 11.6 inches and a little less than 2 lbs. Unfortunately I don't know where you could find one in person to play with. I've been using it with Win8 for a bit and quite liked it -- with the dock and a keyboard you can run Visual Studio just fine. This link suggests Samsung just rev'd it to add a higher res screen, keeping the 4 GB RAM and 128 SSD. http://www.bestsalenewreviews.com/Samsung-Series-7-XE700T1C-A01US-Slate-ATIV-Smart-PC-Pro-700T-Reviews http://www.bestsalenewreviews.com/Samsung-Series-7-XE700T1C-... It is too bad that they haven't figured out distribution for your area. It does sound like what you want.
- emp_ 14y agoLooking at the Series 7 right now at Amazon [1], the Surface Pro version of this with a similar spec would be nice for the Type Cover, and note that this has similar tech specs as my 2011 Macbook Air, indeed a very promising replacement for Air+iPad, I'll keep watching but will skip this iteration simply for having purchased the iPad 3 recently. (.NET Developer here) [1]: http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Series-XE700T1A-A02US-11-6-Inch-Premium/dp/B006KYY1AU http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Series-XE700T1A-A02US-11-6-Inc...