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$300 8" tablets: Thin+light, fast web browsing w/Flash, 8-10 hours...and Steam
- Thread starter dLMN8R
- Start date
Got my T100 today. Was a complete pain in the arse to set up, thought I had bricked it multiple times!
Anyway, I feel like it is 90% laptop,10% tablet. There are just so few metro apps, and for me there is little incentive to use the ones that are there.
Why use the netflix app when I can view it in browser with a region unlocking extension?
Why use the chrome app when it doesn't support all extensions?
Any apps are probably lagging behind there web/ios/andriod counterparts anyway.
But as a laptop, its great. I can get my university work done and still have the option of detaching the keyboard and using any desktop app relatively well. Plus I think I will finally play some old games on it like Baldur's Gate.
Anyway, I feel like it is 90% laptop,10% tablet. There are just so few metro apps, and for me there is little incentive to use the ones that are there.
Why use the netflix app when I can view it in browser with a region unlocking extension?
Why use the chrome app when it doesn't support all extensions?
Any apps are probably lagging behind there web/ios/andriod counterparts anyway.
But as a laptop, its great. I can get my university work done and still have the option of detaching the keyboard and using any desktop app relatively well. Plus I think I will finally play some old games on it like Baldur's Gate.
Seconded here. This is what I use with my DV8P. It even comes with a nice cover that doubles as a stand.
I feel the opposite way. Only time I use the desktop is for development stuff. The browsing experience in ie11 with all its touch optimizations alone means I never want to touch chrome.
Carton
Member
Using a Dell Venue 8 Pro, it is handled very well. I had never played the game before, so i downloaded it to my laptop and tablet to compare the experience, and found touch input considerably easier than mouse; there is an option to use tablet/touch as the input in the input settings, as by default it requires a double-tap to register a click. I did notice the tablet got quite warm over the course of the two beginner songs i played.
sotodefonk
Member
a thanks a lot.. do those tablet can support hours of gaming like that? i mean they appear to just have passive cooling
SonofdonCD
Member
I've had my Asus T100 for close to a month now. I am still very satisfied with it. I realize only a few moments ago that I use it more than my home-built PC with dual monitors now, even when I'm home.
The main reason being that Windows 8(.1) makes SO MUCH MORE sense with touch. It's actually kinda fun to use, just swiping and dragging programs about the screen. IE11 is so much better to use than Chrome right now, since on the desktop it does no pinch to zoom or any other touch enabled features. I've had one or two problems with it. One was after installing a bunch of updated from Asus and I guess it somehow messed up the tablet, so I refreshed. It was maybe a day or two after I got it, so I hadn't set up my system just so yet. It was relatively painless to redownload different programs and such. The Homegroup setup helped out a lot with that. I bought a 64GB MicroSD card. All my extraneous media and documents go there. I just wish you could move your Windows Store apps there (there apparently was a way in Windows 8, but for 8.1 they removed it), as I bought the 32 GB model.
Installed Steam, and tried out several games. It helped when I reformatted the microsd card to NTFS, as the games wouldn't run for me beforehand.
I mostly keep the keyboard docked; partially because I use it a lot to type and some of the desktop programs I have installed require the precision of a mouse (touchpad, in this case, which while not the absolute greatest, I'm getting used to using), but also because I don't have to hold it. I have undocked it a number of times, and at that point, I don't use those desktop programs.
I've showed many friends and family this thing. A lot of them say "Oh yeah, I saw that on a commercial" (I'm not sure if they saw this exact model, or a Surface or other older convertible model), but a lot of them are impressed by the offering. Then I told them how much I paid and they seem highly impressed. I did get one of my friends to buy one for sure, as he needed something to replace an older laptop/notebook he had previously.
I really think that MS and Intel have to push these things hard in the coming year. So many places that I looked, at least online, seemed to have sold out of either this or the Venue 8 Pro. They need to get prices down, just like these two tablets, so they can compete, not only with iPads but the cheaper Android tablets. I think when more people don't have such a huge price differential to contend with, they can see the huge benefits to having a full OS on their tablet. Then more apps will come, and that won't be such a weakness anymore. They just need to get these things down in price.
The main reason being that Windows 8(.1) makes SO MUCH MORE sense with touch. It's actually kinda fun to use, just swiping and dragging programs about the screen. IE11 is so much better to use than Chrome right now, since on the desktop it does no pinch to zoom or any other touch enabled features. I've had one or two problems with it. One was after installing a bunch of updated from Asus and I guess it somehow messed up the tablet, so I refreshed. It was maybe a day or two after I got it, so I hadn't set up my system just so yet. It was relatively painless to redownload different programs and such. The Homegroup setup helped out a lot with that. I bought a 64GB MicroSD card. All my extraneous media and documents go there. I just wish you could move your Windows Store apps there (there apparently was a way in Windows 8, but for 8.1 they removed it), as I bought the 32 GB model.
Installed Steam, and tried out several games. It helped when I reformatted the microsd card to NTFS, as the games wouldn't run for me beforehand.
I mostly keep the keyboard docked; partially because I use it a lot to type and some of the desktop programs I have installed require the precision of a mouse (touchpad, in this case, which while not the absolute greatest, I'm getting used to using), but also because I don't have to hold it. I have undocked it a number of times, and at that point, I don't use those desktop programs.
I've showed many friends and family this thing. A lot of them say "Oh yeah, I saw that on a commercial" (I'm not sure if they saw this exact model, or a Surface or other older convertible model), but a lot of them are impressed by the offering. Then I told them how much I paid and they seem highly impressed. I did get one of my friends to buy one for sure, as he needed something to replace an older laptop/notebook he had previously.
I really think that MS and Intel have to push these things hard in the coming year. So many places that I looked, at least online, seemed to have sold out of either this or the Venue 8 Pro. They need to get prices down, just like these two tablets, so they can compete, not only with iPads but the cheaper Android tablets. I think when more people don't have such a huge price differential to contend with, they can see the huge benefits to having a full OS on their tablet. Then more apps will come, and that won't be such a weakness anymore. They just need to get these things down in price.
antiquegamer
Member
I love the wedge mouse design, but talking about cramping up your hands after long period of using it.
Aaaand another thing: Due to synchronized bookmarks, history etc. I like to use firefox. But In Firefox as well as in windows explorer I would like to use gestures for "back" and other things (but mainly for going back). How would I go about setting that up?
And on a slightly different note, why can't I find a way to turn on grid lines and luxury resource icons in Civ V? I for the Life of mine can't find that option.
And on a slightly different note, why can't I find a way to turn on grid lines and luxury resource icons in Civ V? I for the Life of mine can't find that option.
sotodefonk
Member
I want to know too, but I guess you can use the turn off the display timer in energy options, and put 1 minute... then play music and leave the tablet until it turns the screen off itself.
Yes and no... IF you use the metro music app it works as expected - screen turning off and music playing albeit the volume goes down massively during the first few seconds of playback. But if you use for example winamp from the desktop then the music stops once the screen turns off.
sotodefonk
Member
Yes and no... IF you use the metro music app it works as expected - screen turning off and music playing albeit the volume goes down massively during the first few seconds of playback. But if you use for example winamp from the desktop then the music stops once the screen turns off.
Maybe its another power saver feature (maybe something only on tablets), or something with winamp... i use foobar all the time, and both my desktop and my laptop, keep playing music when im doing something else and leave the machines alone for more than 15 minutes (the timer i have on both machines)
Yes and no... IF you use the metro music app it works as expected - screen turning off and music playing albeit the volume goes down massively during the first few seconds of playback. But if you use for example winamp from the desktop then the music stops once the screen turns off.
I believe the Connected Standby mode (new Sleep) disables the Desktop and every Desktop App. The oly Apps which are allowed to partially keep running are Metro Apps. In other word, as far as I know yoi have to use a Metro music player to listen to music while your device is on conected standby.
Dell just posted a new update for the touch screen firmware on their site. Version 1.0.4.2 A02 released 1/2/2014.
They've recalibrated the pen (it seems to work much better now), and the repeating keys and random zooming in IE seems to be gone.
Awesome.
http://www.dell.com/support/drivers...leId=3332775140&languageCode=en&categoryId=FW
They've recalibrated the pen (it seems to work much better now), and the repeating keys and random zooming in IE seems to be gone.
Awesome.
http://www.dell.com/support/drivers...leId=3332775140&languageCode=en&categoryId=FW
Cheetos is Pretty Awesome
Member
Fantastic update. The last update already fixed the pen to being halfway-usable, now it's even better IMHO.
Sen²;95779585 said:
You are most likely completely correct. But after trying some it appears that even some metro music apps don't correctly work when the screen turns off. And the default one is... lacking. Or does anyone know how I can simply add all songs of my local library into one playlist and put it on repeat all/shuffle? And how do I play a file that is not part of my library without going through the desktop and file explorer?
Sho_Nuff82
Member
So I was a bit worried when the title screen movie ran at 10 fps, but the Project Spark Beta, at least the tutorial, runs pretty well on my ASUS T100. It's kind of amazing, really.
ThinkPad 8 sounds like a beast. Wonder how the battery will hold up.
http://mobile.theverge.com/2014/1/5/5277418/lenovo-thinkpad-8-specifications-release-date-price
http://mobile.theverge.com/2014/1/5/5277418/lenovo-thinkpad-8-specifications-release-date-price
Great, now let's try to find the pen for sale...
Nothing about stylus though.
Like the look of that a lot.
SlickShoesRUCrazy
Member
just saw that Lenovo, really nice, but the lack of stylus support is quit disappointing especially since it's aimed at the business market.
how many people actually use stylus? from all the comments, you would think stylus is sold with 99% of tablets or something close to that... i dont know whats going on with stylus fetish.
otherwise, Lenovo looks really nice and is priced at $399, similar to T100 when it just came out.
brotkasten
Member
How can they call that tablet "ThinkPad" and not provide an option for a stylus? That's incredibly disappointing.
After I set up my 3 monitors I wanted to find a way to be able to leave my computer and not power off/power on 3 monitors every time I came back.
My solution--"Lock". It's Windows Key + L and puts up the login screen but doesn't mess with any running programs. It will turn off the display in about 15-20 seconds after locking. I'm not sure if this works the same on tablets, but give it a shot.
Unfortunately, I don't think it works that way for tablets. Once the screen turns off, everything turns off. I've been trying to find a way to let my T100 torrent things without the WIFI adapter going to standby mode - but no dice. The only work around is to set a screensaver (blank screen) and turn down brightness when idle :-/. If someone has a better solution, I'd be extremely grateful.
can you set it to turn off screen quickly in power options?
ya you can. you can set it to turn off the screen whenever, but that just triggers connected standby/sleep mode.
Dumb decision. Lets hope Asus will get this right with their new 8". It's pathetic that Samsung seems to be the only OEM that cares about stylus input and they only do it for Android devices.
Rodney McKay
Member
Mmm, I like the sound of this. No stylus is a bit of a bummer, but I've barely ever used it on my Note 2 phone, so I think the higher-res display is a better trade for me.
Winterfang
Banned
Can someone link me to the Dell update site, I want to download the keyboard fix but I can't find it anywhere.
Asus bringing the Wacom starting at $300: http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/06/asus-vivotab-note-8/
Funky Papa
FUNK-Y-PPA-4
Dang. Throw a keyboard case there and you have another client, Asus.
My poor DV8P
antiquegamer
Member
I am glad to see all these gen2 8" tablet. I love my Dell Venue Pro 8 even with it's little quirks and bugs. (They really need to fix that wifi connection bugs). I am ready to upgrade!
Shadowhaxor
Member
I'm sorry but after dealing with my DVP8, no Windows tablet should come with 32GB at all. 64GB ghas to be the bare minimal with Win8 taking up way to much room.
Also for those who do have a DV8P and are looking to take back some space, check out http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/del...ell-venue-8-pro-other-windows-8-1-system.html
Also for those who do have a DV8P and are looking to take back some space, check out http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/del...ell-venue-8-pro-other-windows-8-1-system.html
Asus Transformer Duo and Trio are making my head spin... detachable tablet + keyboard dock with HDD is for both, and they run 8.1 and Android on same cpu... Trio has extra Atom in tablet and i7 in the dock (and extra battery) while Duo does it all with same CPU.
http://gizmodo.com/asus-new-three-in-one-crouching-windows-pc-hidden-an-510998881
http://gizmodo.com/asus-transformer-book-duet-one-laptop-two-tablets-al-1495351978
It is very interesting idea and maybe the future but still, without trying it out it is hard to grasp how it all works together (and well).
http://gizmodo.com/asus-new-three-in-one-crouching-windows-pc-hidden-an-510998881
http://gizmodo.com/asus-transformer-book-duet-one-laptop-two-tablets-al-1495351978
It is very interesting idea and maybe the future but still, without trying it out it is hard to grasp how it all works together (and well).
The problem with this idea is that I pretty much want to carry around a fully-featured tablet device, and if I'm going to go to the effort to pull it out, I'm just going to want to use the Windows part and not the Android part. It's a device that I'd only ever use 50% of the way it was intended to be.
I'm glad to see Asus thinking outside the box, though.
Rodney McKay
Member
I'm not sure, but I think that first one never actually came out. It was announced about 6 months ago and the second one that was just announced at CES seems to be the model that actually WILL come out. ...Or maybe the first one just isn't out YET, I not 100% sure.
I definitely like the idea because there are some Android apps I love that aren't available on Windows 8 (Pocket Casts being one I use on a daily basis). It actually got me thinking about maybe getting a Win 8 tablet and dual booting Android myself, but the Transformer Book Duet seems bigger and heavier than I like in a tablet.
Looks good to me for my next purchase and stylus support is not needed for my use case. This really is a class above the other 8 inch tablets which all appear to be the same.
Me too, love my Venue Pro 8, but honestly, and I've bitched about this before, the scrolling issues I have while surfing (inadvertent zooming) and the lack of precision on the touch means I'll probably update sooner rather than later. The thinkpad 8 looks pretty good, but probably not enough of an upgrade over the venue pro 8 to upgrade so soon.
its big and heavy because it supports up to i7.
did anyone try running bluestacks on these new atoms? does it work ok?
Did you get the latest touch firmware update? It mostly fixed these for me.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GCQ7022/?tag=neogaf0e-20
Seems like the Trio came out? No idea if it's any good...