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Ipad but windows based or OS neutral? |
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#1 |
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Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Going nowhere fast.
Posts: 201
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Ipad but windows based or OS neutral?
Hey,
About a year ago I was using my laptop in the living room and was getting annoyed with a heavy, hot and cumbersome device on my lap while surfing the web and thought it would be nice to be able to just have the screen part of the laptop to hold with one hand while sipping a cup of coffee to make things more comfortable. Then in the past year I started reading about kindle and tablet device etc. Now I look at the ipad I just saw an advert for and see it as having everything I want, except one thing, its an apple device. I don’t like safari and would want firefox for my web browser, I have all my addons for it how I like and all my bookmarks setup how I like them with my addons, safari don’t come close to providing the type of functionality firefox does. I don’t like the idea of paying for things from the apple app store to provide extra functionality or useful programs etc, nor do I like the idea of having to go through the app store in the first place, I want freedom the net provides to download programs of my choosing. So this leads me to my question which is: Does anyone know of a ipad like device (mostly in terms of size) that would let me put windows on it like from installing it from a usb stick or such or failing that at least Firefox in all its glory? I basically want to view webpages in firefox from an ipad like device without being restricted to an apple OS. Is anything like this around yet? I guess what I am thinking of is like a netbook but with out a lid that opens up, the computer is part of the screen, that’s the most cumbersome part of the netbook/laptop for me. Has no one made a lightweight, small, netbook sized pc with the screen incorporated into the computer, kinda like the ipad but is OS neutral (just the hardware) or at least based around a windows OS yet? |
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#2 |
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Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 9,780
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Archos already make some tablet/slate thingys. I have read some bad reviews of them and I don't know if Firefox would work on it the same way as Safari does on the iPad, You'll, need to check out more recent reviews or YouTube videos to see if it suits your needs.
Samsung will be announcing their Android running device on 2nd September and other devices with or without Windows are sure to follow some time later this year. |
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#3 |
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Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: the wild world web
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The Archos 5 uses the same A8 CPU as the iPad.
It is just the fact that Archos are clueless about Android upgrades. Their latest firmware is meant to be now very decent. Being Android 1.6 it is the same as the Dell Streak. Pre 1.6 was always a bit crap. At a discounted £200 so reasonable value and for that you get 160GB of disk memory. The iPad graphics will be better if you are an iPod gamer. The Archos 7 home edition supposedly works ok with Opera but is quite limited in speed. |
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#4 |
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Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Western Scotland
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We keep hearing about all these up and coming iPad killers! But we've yet to see one available yet.
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#5 |
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Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: the wild world web
Posts: 28,132
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300 grams weight, expandable memory, 160GB+ hard drive, USB host and mass storage, Opera browser with Flash support.
There is still no competitor to the Archos 5 available.
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#6 |
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Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Glasgow
Posts: 656
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Quote:
I guess what I am thinking of is like a netbook but with out a lid that opens up, the computer is part of the screen, that’s the most cumbersome part of the netbook/laptop for me. Has no one made a lightweight, small, netbook sized pc with the screen incorporated into the computer, kinda like the ipad but is OS neutral (just the hardware) or at least based around a windows OS yet? I'm sure a device that you describe will arrive eventually, however the OS, and it follows, the applications, will have to be finger friendly (like the iPad) before it'll catch on. People do not want resistive screens, styluses, non-multitouch displays. If you've tried an iPad, you'll see that everything is sized for fingers. The pop up menus waste screen real-estate just to be useable. Even if a manufacturer did produce such a device, there are practical limitations in it's use. What if you had the perfect Windows tablet? What if your favourite application used 'mouse over' to carry out a function, something as simple as a tooltip appearing perhaps. How's that going to work on a touch interface? Answer: it doesn't. There's no pointer. Your finger is the pointer and your app is compromised in it's functionality already. And that's before we think about manipulating, with fingers, the 5-pixel wide controls in Photoshop (because it's Windows, we can load any old softwares, right?) |
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#7 |
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Join Date: Aug 2008
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Hey thanks for the replys.
The hard part was i did not know what to look for in a simple word like i do now. Seems what i want is a slate device. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Slate_PC Think i shall be waiting for this to come out as its got windows 7 on it and looks like it will be what i'm in need of. |
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#8 |
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Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Was UK now EU
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I think regardless of who ever come out with a successful device comparable to Ipad, it will have an App store as that is where the money is to be made not selling the hardware, that is just the business model currently.
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#9 |
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Join Date: May 2005
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#10 |
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Join Date: Aug 2008
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Quote:
I think regardless of who ever come out with a successful device comparable to Ipad, it will have an App store as that is where the money is to be made not selling the hardware, that is just the business model currently.
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#11 |
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Join Date: May 2002
Location: Crystal Palace TX
Posts: 19,702
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Microsoft were quite confident about their being Win 7 tablets available in time for XMas, last I heard. Whether they materialise or not this time remains to be seen. But personally I think there is a market for them and the iPad needs competition. Still there's always Android/ChromeOS...
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