Samsung readies handheld releases for Windows 8 At the Mobile Unpacked event in Berlin last night, Samsung showed off its Windows 8 handheld devices that appear in its new Ativ range of computing products that all feature touchscreen functionality. Samsung Ativ tablet The Windows RT Ativ Tab is a 10.1in fondleslab with a 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor with 2GB …
The phone looks nice apart from the fact that it's the size of the monolith from 2001. Why phones that size sell, I have no idea. But the hybrid? It would be great - if it had a trackpad! I've looked through the Win8 hybrids that Samsung, Toshiba and Sony have revealed at the event and they all seem to have this mistaken idea that just because the screen is touch-capable, that they can forgo a trackpad. I can't be the only one that thinks this is a mistake. I mean the Surface has a trackpad so I hope at least some of the OEM ones will still have these.
Also, the Samsung presentation was hillarious in all the wrong ways. My favourite line from it: "Okay, so we've heard a lot of shit about sharing, tonight..."
quote: "The phone looks nice apart from the fact that it's the size of the monolith from 2001. Why phones that size sell, I have no idea."
They sell because large touchscreens are easier to use than small touchscreens. Also some of us (myself included) actually have massive gorilla hands and a 5" phone is not only perfectly comfortable in use, but easier to type on than those tiny Apple sized thingies :)
Some of my female friends have also gone for 4+" phones as they prefer the screen "clarity" (read: better resolution) to smaller models, so it apparently strikes a chord with content consumers who want more than just a phone from their device.
I have absolutely no doubt that manufacturers will continue to make small form factor phones though, since that is also a market segment in its own right ;)
+1 for separate user accounts. This is what has stopped me replacing the "general surfing and reading mail" laptop in the living room with a tablet. A tablet would be neater, but as both my wife and I currently use the laptop, I'd need to buy two tablets to replace it, and the total cost of these would far exceed a good laptop.
Apple holds many patents. For instance, they own the patents on the following:
Water
Door handles
Carpets
Manatees
Horse shoes
Belgium
Corduroy
Matt Edmunson
The annoying drunks that live in a park near my house.
But, back on topic, I think I will wait and see how these devices do before committing to a new tablet. I am very eager to see how a tablet/slate with a Core i5 will do on the battery frontier, and to see how heavy it may turn out to be.
For those sort of customers it wont matter - they will buy the cheapest one - with Windows RT - and pay the app store tax for everything that they need. Which is great for Microsoft....
And of course for applications companies - Microsoft have a far better record on security than Android / IOS, and this will mean that piracy will likely be much lower.....
"Windows 8" can mean the phone, or the Intel desktop, or the ARM version. "Windows RT" apparently means tiles mode, also called "Modern UI", and only software from the Windows app store where Microsoft takes a big share of the price. On an ARM Windows device that's all that you get.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
