4 ms·
I've had mine since 10AM yesterday; and I'm actually fairly pleased, at least for effectively being a new platform. Thoughts, in no particular order: - Love th
by ConstantineXVI 14y ago
I've had mine since 10AM yesterday; and I'm actually fairly pleased, at least for effectively being a new platform. Thoughts, in no particular order:
- Love the build. Very solid overall.
- 16:9 means it's one long tablet. Oddly, it's actually fairly usable in portrait; can't say the same for my old 16:10 Transformer (maybe just better balanced?)
- The touch cover is, like most say, surprisingly usable. Desperately needs a way to no-op Caps Lock though.
- Screen res lower than iPad, but still usable. Difference not near as noticeable as between iPad 2/3, but too many factors in play to make an objective call there.
- Metro takes getting used to, but I like it (even with KB/trackpad).
- It's the first time I've seen proper desktop Gmail and Google Docs usable in a tablet browser.
- Performance is generally decent. Not blazing, but decent.
- Windows RT appears to still contain far more of Windows than we've been led to believe. Even `csc` is installed, but missing a few dlls.
- No SSH client for Metro yet. That's one of the risks you take on a new platform (esp. a non-Unix one), but still aggravates me.
- Snapping is very, very handy; nice solution to bring proper multitasking to a tablet UI.
- When touch-scrolling over on desktop apps (what few remain), the entire window "bounces" at the head/tail of the content. Odd decision.
- No central notification bin (like Android's shade or iOS's Notification Center). Have to rely on scanning Live Tiles if you miss anything.
- The back camera seems to exist only to make the iPad 2's back camera feel better about itself. Has to be the blockiest camera I've ever seen.
- Handwriting recognition is pretty solid. Wacom junkies will be very pleased when so-equipped tablets ship. (Capacitive styli still suck)
- None of the Twitter apps have really thrilled me. Given the circumstances, I'm not that surprised.
- OS-level share support is a smart move; similar to Android's impl but more thorough (sharing pops up a share pane from your selected app in the sidebar, instead of bouncing you out of your current app entirely).
- Printing is mildly unintuitive; you have to open the "Devices" charm and pick your printer. No one is going to guess that's how to print.
- On the bright side, our network printer/scanner was detected and installed immediately, with zero user intervention. Very, very far cry from the WinXP days.
- There's no way to see your precise battery life outside of the desktop (in the classic sys-tray).
- Presumably due to the use of pressure sensors vs. capacitive, the Touch Cover isn't quite as accurate without a solid surface underneath.
- If you're not using the keyboard (watching movies, etc.), flip the cover backwards with the kickstand out and it's nearly as stable as a laptop.
- The intro tells you about the basic edge swipes (right for charms, left for app switcher, top/bottom for menu); not mentioned is swiping straight from top-center to bottom kills the current app.
- Screenshot is Win+VolDown.
- Wordament can be played while snapped. This is dangerous.
- IE lets you swipe on the outer edge of the page for back/forward, which would be smart if this didn't occasionally clash with the app switcher.
Questions?
(PS: I typed this entire post on the Touch Cover.)
- mide765 14y agoAre the speakers really that bad as the reviews say? I've read that the covers can be on the back of the tablet, while holding it like a magazine. Are the input keys disabled if you do that?
- ConstantineXVI 14y agoNo better or worse than most other tablets, I've found. Yes, keys are disabled when the cover's folded back. I haven't done any scientific testing on a threshold, but the on-screen keyboard will pop in/out as you flip the cover in and out of position. It also engages the rotate lock when the keyboard is out, for obvious reasons.
- alexsb92 14y agoRegarding the Twitter clients, I tried Tweetro on my Windows 8. Haven't gotten to use it too much, but it seems kinda cool. Especially the link preview. I'm wondering if you tried it, what's your opinion on it? As an aside this brings me to one of my problems with Windows 8. When I was in Desktop mode and I first discovered the Side Bar (forgot what it's called) and saw the Share Button, I knew from before that you can use that to update twitter and facebook for example, so i got really excited thinking I had this quick easy way to update twitter and facebook without having to open up the browser. Turns out I was incredibly wrong. When you do click Share, it says "Nothing can be shared form the desktop". Then what is the point of keeping that button in the bar when in the Desktop context? Initially I even thought it was because I had to have a Twitter app open in Metro, but that had no effect.
- ConstantineXVI 14y agoTweetro is one of the better ones, but it has an aggravating habit of failing to tweet for no apparent reason, on a fairly regular basis. Not related to the share charm, but you can snap Tweetro from the app switcher to the side like so[0] [0] https://www.dropbox.com/s/9x8pothn1h3qf1i/Screenshot%20%288%29.png https://www.dropbox.com/s/9x8pothn1h3qf1i/Screenshot%20%288%...