back to article Lenovo said to release Intel and ARM Android convertibles

Lenovo will reportedly release Android-based convertibles in the first half of this year, and they'll be powered by your choice of either Intel or ARM processors. Convertibles – clamshell laptops that can be converted to tablets – were one of the most talked about items at last week's CES 2013. Intel, for its part, sees them …

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  1. frank ly

    Android Apps for productivity?

    I'm a fandroid, (Asus Transformer Tab, HTC Incredible, old Vega, old Wildfire) but I'm not a rabid fandroid and I do recognise the shortfalls of Android and am fed up with the creeping permission grabs of app updated, also mightily pissed of with two recent app updates that broke what I regard as essential functionality. (Fortunately, I have the old .apk files backed up onto my laptop, and other places, using the excellent Air Droid application which also installs .apks over WiFi)

    What I don't understand is the totally clumsy method of selecting text on the screen. Do Microsoft have some kind of 'patent' on click-hold-drag to highlight? Android has click-hold to get beginning and end markers around a word; click-hold-drag each marker to the start/end of the text you want; press-CntrlC; click the 'done' icon at the top of the screen. (If there's a better way, somebody please tell me.)

    Android is great for consuming content, which was probably Google's thinking in the first place, and I now surf the net and type El Reg comments on my Transformer. The cloudy goodness is wonderful with my data appearing on all my devices - I type my shopping list on the Asus Transformer and it appears on my phone, great :) For anything more than typing short text files, I'd want a laptop or desktop every time, running Microsoft Office (or FOSS/Mac/Linux equivalent). I've tried Polaris, it's a pain and has shortfalls.

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: Android Apps for productivity?

      Curiously, I find the text-select in Android reasonably easy to get on with... its the click-drag-release in desktop browsers that I find idiosyncratic, especially if I want to select a hyperlink as text.

      But yeah, Android was never designed for productivity... it might be made to work, but would miss tricks associated with extra human input devices.

    2. DrXym

      Re: Android Apps for productivity?

      I'm a strong advocate of Android but frankly I think most tablets OSes stink for productivity. Apps like word processors are cut to the bone and offer minimal functionality and stuff like printing / saving / importing / exporting / cut / copy / paste is severely limited. What pisses me off the most about android is the lack of printing and the very poor mouse and keyboard support which is most evident if you have a transformer like I do.

      One of the few things working in Windows RT's favour is it does have a proper office suite and keyboard / mouse support. But I think RT is so half baked in other ways that if I were after a proper desktop / tablet I would hold out for a proper Windows 8 device to arrive. I expect before the year end there will be tablets for less than $500.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Android Apps for productivity?

        I wonder how difficult it'll be to rip the Android drivers out of these and use them in a proper, grown-up OS... perhaps little Debian/Fedora/*buntu based projects will pop up to do it for us.

  2. Philippe
    Go

    Chromebook, Chromebook, Chromebook

    nuff said

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: Chromebook, Chromebook, Chromebook

      >nuff said

      Sorry, but could you expand upon that?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    >Hasn't happened – and it's still to early to add "yet" to that observation.

    That was an observation from 2010. Six months back Intel volunteered that they didn't expect to really have an edge over ARM for another two generations of chip.

    We’re not yet certain how Tegra 4 and Snapdragon 800 compare to their predecessors in that regard, but we do find it interesting that Intel is the only company eager to illustrate the power of its designs in a lab setting.

    - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/atom-z2760-qualcomm-apq8060a-tegra-3-battery-life,3403-6.html

  4. Ilgaz

    Wow man, just wow

    "The display is a 1366x768 IPS panel "

    I won't lecture anyone, I am speechless this time. I was saying if I buy x86 portable, it would be lenovo.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Wow man, just wow

      Hearing you dude. That has blown my mind too man! Blown it right back to the 1990s. Man! WOW!

  5. Carl Williams
    Stop

    Media Consumption and Media Generation

    Have a Razr i and Nexus 7, great for media consumption but when I want to get serious and type more than a line or two it's back to good old Windows it will be that way for a while I think. VDI and BYOD will keep Windows dominant in the corporate space for sometime even if Android (access mine on my Nexus from time to time) is on some access devices users will still need Windows to take advantage of the full capabilities of their virtual desktop.

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