id like this to be an article, but it's more of a rant. i'm hoping to be wrong-comments welcome...

ins4n17yins4n17y Cabanatuan City, Philippines Icrontian
why i hate tablets so much

see the thing is i am a power user. ok, what exactly is a power user? a power user is a technology user that makes use of most of if not all the features of current technology be it hardware or software which in contrast to "normal" users that are limited to basic usage or core functions of technology. lets look at the hardware and software aspects of tablets, which i will mention the cream of the crop in comparison to why i think they blatantly suck. (funny how i almost mis-spelt blatantly-i'm such an idiot)

first is the software side

software

features - on tablets, which is mostly limited by hardware - and we will get to that in a moment - is SEVERELY limited. what that means is the features you will get out of a tablet are CASTRATED versions of what is available in non-tablet form. Even in netbooks, you can download a FULL VERSION of Chrome, Firefox with extensions and features. So add-ons which i absolutely cannot live without such as ghostery, adblock, chromey calculator, wiki mini, forecastfox, google dictionary, hoverzoom, and more are simply not available on tablets. I tried this on an ipad 2 and 3, and Chrome reported that my browser is "not" supported yet. Go figure. I would rather use a netbook, despite it can be slow, to have a decent experience

touch - ahhh yes, everyone likes touch. i don't. it's not perfect as you all well may know. i prefer my blackberry because i can type perfectly on it-something i cannot do at all with a touch software interface. misspellings, hopping between sets of screens to find the adequate key isn't something i want to do. it is funny however to watch other people mistype texts and have it autocorrected, leading to the phrase "fsuk/da*n you autocorrect" websites that publish funny but real life examples of why touch keyboards or touch is generations behind tactile response input. try and do office document editing, it is a nightmare.

operating system - i have no problem with android, other than it runs mainly on java, it is insecure. android and mobile devices are still on their way to mass adoption and their marketshare is increasing by the nanosecond, but for now, it is insecure though it won't be long before that is 'truly' fixed. yes there are antivirus solutions out for mobile devices but considering the youth of the whole 'born mobile' nature of this relatively new market, i wouldn't hold my breath and still prefer to say that android antivirus needs some time as of not to mature a bit for my general acceptance of security.

now onto the hardware bit -

ARM - ARM makes low power chips for all devices as of writing this post, yes there are intel variants like medfield, silvermont, etc but for now let's just say those intel variants are such a small group they are not worth mentioning. since netbooks have died, [acer stopped manufacturing in jan 2013] intel will officially make ARM competitor products in the mobile space. what that means is that finally, competition is here and consumers will start to see features and innovation for lower prices. i hear the galaxy tab 3 will have an atom chip inside it but i will wait and see. the bottom line is that ARM, without any 'real competition' of late, and until intel products start their stampede-have produced sub par products. the best most decent SoC (system on a chip i can describe) other than the big.Little arctiectures from ARM that are promising is the 800 snapdragon series from quallcomm with an adreno 320 gpu. despite those advances that sap precious battery life, i am still lacking in performance. the take home message is that until decent snapdragon 800's class or exynos 8 core chips start flodding the market (which they will soon) but as of this writing, tablets and mobile devices are simply underpowered-and thus feature crippled making that a big red flag for me.

memory - right now you can get a 120gb ssd for roughly 100 us dollars or 5000 philippine pesos where i currently reside. until prices reach say the same 100 usd for 250 gb, tablets are memory castrated in what i can call decent storage options, even with high compression on files like jpegs/h264 movies.

resolution - most tablets operate at 1024x600. simply intolerable, enough said. there are phones that have 720/1080p screens. i am looking to get either a optimus gj, xperia zr or galaxy active-if they are good. either way, i haven't given up on tablets/smartphones i am simply expressing my utter fustration with them. like i said i will wait for reviews, and if any of you out there can advise me, on the above mentioned phablets (or large smartphones) i'd be happy to hear it.

weight - i love the weight of an ipad mini. all tablets should weigh that much!. too bad ipad mini weight isn't available on a galaxy tab. try gaming on temple run for more than 15 min, or reading a book. i go to the gym, but c'mon it feels like a brick after half an hour of angry birds. if only all tablets weighed as much as an ipad mini-then i'd have no problem.

s/amoled - i want a tablet i can use at 100% brightness, i like colors, graphics, and bright displays, especially when watching movies and i want it 100% bright all the time with the same wallpaper. this will destroy an amoled screen as oled screens do not have backlights, but rather have self light generating pixel elements. as portions of the screen never change such as the taskbar, or whatever you call it, those pixels get used more as they are always illuminated than the pixels surrounding the taskbar. this causes those pixels to lose brightness relative to its surrounding pixels causing permanent destruction of the screen resulting in 'image retention' commonly known as burn in. s/amoled-no thank you!

ram - lpddr3 is good, in fact samsung can fab high density 2133 mhz lpddr3 modules as of the time of this article's writing. but we need [lp]ddr4. 2gb of ram is NOT going to cut it for me-and definately not for windows 8 (rt).

ok now that i've blabbered about all this, i could be wrong on some of the points but i will never know unless i post my 'opinion'. i want to buy a tablet but am stopped by 'myself' due to the points above. if you can correct me, then do so. i'd gladly want a mobile device that can replace my ageing blackberry 9320 in tablet (but preferrably in smartphone form). my current choices above are the xperia zr, lg optimus gj, and the galaxy active-> which hopefully isn't s/amoled or it will be wiped out my shortlist with no mercy.

-sincerely yours crazy gadget guy - ps. i want to get my gf a tablet but unless we solve all the issues above [tablets and mobiles are making headway] then she can forget about it....

Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited May 2013
    Windows 8 Pro tablets: 1080p screen, 200GB+ SSDs, 8GB+ RAM, full OS, etc.

    /thread
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    edited May 2013
    Let me preface this by saying, I didn't read your whole rant. I skimmed it because it's long, frustratingly bereft of proper capitalization and largely inaccurate.

    First off, tablets aren't meant to replace full-blown computers. Comparing the two, apples-to-apples isn't accurate. Tablets are consumption oriented devices whereas laptops/desktops are production-oriented devices. No matter how much some talking heads want to say tablets are the future of computing, it's highly unlikely that they are. Arguably, they're the future of consumption computing. Also, if you really want to create content using a tablet, there are a plethora of nice Bluetooth keyboards out there that one can use, typing problem solved.

    Your claims about ARM are just plain wrong. ARM Holdings doesn't even manufacture the chips, they just license the technology and there is far more competition around ARM SOCs than there is around x86 chips (at least by my understanding).

    Resolution - Even my Nexus 7, which is considered mid-range for tablets afaik, has a 1280x800 display. The Nexus 10 is 2560x1600 which you'd be hard pressed to find on any consumer laptop or monitor currently. So.... wrong again there.

    Weight - purely subjective. My Nexus 7 is comfortable to hold indefinitely, especially compared to a laptop.

    I'd go on but I'm running out of patience. Your arguments all seem to be either subjective, based off incorrect data, or complaints about tablets not being able to do something that they weren't intended to do.
    MrTRiot
  • SonorousSonorous F@H Fanatic US Icrontian
    I felt the same way until I bought an iPad. I don't care for iOS but it gets the job done and sure beats lugging my laptop around to and from work. For light reading and content consumption it's more than adequate. Find a store that doesn't have a restocking fee, buy a tablet, a nice tablet, nice being the operative word and I can almost guarantee you won't take it back.
  • VicarVicar Icrontian
    2nd Thrax try a surface pro.
  • d3k0yd3k0y Loveland, OH Icrontian
    I have the Asus Transformer for my wife, she loves the sucker, I use it to read comics because my phone is too small and if I am on my PC I am too busy playing games.
  • ins4n17yins4n17y Cabanatuan City, Philippines Icrontian
    Thrax said:

    Windows 8 Pro tablets: 1080p screen, 200GB+ SSDs, 8GB+ RAM, full OS, etc.

    /thread

    those are nice specs - however, what is the weight and price of the devices you mention? any exact models coming from asus etc? please give me some examples to consider.

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited May 2013
    Asus, Samsung, Lenovo, Sony and Dell all have compelling models. I don't care about weight, so I don't have that memorized. They're all convertible 10-11" notebooks with screens that dock on the keyboard. They're about $1100. But that's the price of a laptop, which they are. The tablet functionality is a nice perk.
  • ins4n17yins4n17y Cabanatuan City, Philippines Icrontian
    edited May 2013
    ardichoke said:

    Let me preface this by saying, I didn't read your whole rant. I skimmed it because it's long, frustratingly bereft of proper capitalization and largely inaccurate.

    First off, tablets aren't meant to replace full-blown computers. Comparing the two, apples-to-apples isn't accurate. Tablets are consumption oriented devices whereas laptops/desktops are production-oriented devices. No matter how much some talking heads want to say tablets are the future of computing, it's highly unlikely that they are. Arguably, they're the future of consumption computing. Also, if you really want to create content using a tablet, there are a plethora of nice Bluetooth keyboards out there that one can use, typing problem solved.

    Your claims about ARM are just plain wrong. ARM Holdings doesn't even manufacture the chips, they just license the technology and there is far more competition around ARM SOCs than there is around x86 chips (at least by my understanding).

    Resolution - Even my Nexus 7, which is considered mid-range for tablets afaik, has a 1280x800 display. The Nexus 10 is 2560x1600 which you'd be hard pressed to find on any consumer laptop or monitor currently. So.... wrong again there.

    Weight - purely subjective. My Nexus 7 is comfortable to hold indefinitely, especially compared to a laptop.

    I'd go on but I'm running out of patience. Your arguments all seem to be either subjective, based off incorrect data, or complaints about tablets not being able to do something that they weren't intended to do.

    i am well aware of the fact that it is not an apples to apples comparison. the whole idea of a tablet is to create a gap between smartphones and portable computers. no i don't expect an alienware-like for gaming marathons but i think tablets can and will do better. i believe i mentioned that they will eventually, and that time will soon come to pass. however for now, to those who have asked me why i have not purchased one, i have stated the reasons time and time again, and here they are. now-i am glad that i have had some suggestions, and will look into them because in a matter of speaking i was hoping i *was* or *am* as you put it incorrect. i will definitely be checking out surface pro devices, and i thank you all for your inputs and suggestions. i want one device, i do not want a keyboard for the same reason i do not like a stylus. i may be able to check out cases for tablets with built in bluetooth keyboards, but again until tablet feature sets improve, and cpu/memory combos enhance a bit i would welcome the keyboard only to find the software lacking for now. speaking of software, before i check and look into the surface, does anyone here know approximately how many apps are available for windows mobile devices? (android/ios has 500k i think in total)

    i am also aware that arm licenses designs and that companies design and fab at others (probably and most likely at tsmc). perhaps i was not clear on that as i know they are an ip company. in fact, amd is doing the same thing with their apus. intel will soon leverage their technology manufacturing processes to silvermont and airmont (airmont will be 14nm i think) - and arm has a new 20nm 64 bit out of order execution coming out in ip very soon around the same timeframe as intels mobile devices announcements.

    furthermore, i was not aware of a nexus 10. where i live i did some heavy researching, and all i heard about was the nexus 7. the nexus 10 is a good device-is there a version with a sim slot?
  • BlueTattooBlueTattoo Boatbuilder Houston, TX Icrontian
    @ins4n17y, I’m glad that you started this thread and I understand your points. What makes this a rant rather than an article is that you didn’t state your requirements. You are a power user. Many of us are power users, but maybe not while away from home and office. If tablets are not ready to run really big Oracle databases or edit 3-d animation videos, that might be a problem for you, but not for everyone.

    Don’t be mad because there are devices that you can’t use. They may be perfect for others. My brother loves his Android tablet. He uses it to browses the Internet and read books. That’s all. It wouldn’t be enough for me.

    I have had a netbook for about four years. I love it for what has done for me. It runs the programs I need away from home. Slowly. But that’s not a problem because I know that CPU power and battery time are linked. I recently replaced the hard drive with an SSD and XP with Win8. Nice improvements that will allow me to get another year out of it, then, maybe I’ll get my tablet. I’ll probably go with an Atom or i3 instead of an i5 for more time between charges.

    Your requirements are certainly different from mine. If you think that there isn’t a tablet for you, maybe you haven’t clearly determined your requirements. Maybe you do need a really powerful tablet. If so, you have to wait. But maybe you just need subset of all your programs on the road. Or maybe you just need an Android or Metro or iPad app to remote your home or office system. You can do that now.

    Good luck on your quest. Oh, is your gf a power user?
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