I have Tablet PC

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I have Tablet PC

Post by 3DOKid » Sat Oct 15, 2011 8:05 pm

So, I bought an ViewSonic G Tablet. I got it from the US for about $150 once the UK VAT man had his way with me. The Viewsonic G Tab got average reviews upon release, mostly down to the very poor OS implementation. Which being a geek I can fix.

So, no concern of mine. I flashed on an Android 3 image, overclocked the CPU and hay-presto a device that gives the Apple iPad 2 a run for it's money, just cheaper. A lot cheaper.

My opinion? All i can say is this: Computers are the greatest thing since fire. Seriously, not since the dog, way back when humans lived in caves and ate roast brontosaurus every night and the little K9 hangers-on sniffed round our animal skins, hoping for food, pretending to give a shit by barking at people it didn't recognise, has such a thing augmented the failings in human beings so well. A computer remembers what we cant', it calculates faster than we can be arsed, and communicates further than shouting distance from your mum with ease. The computer, even the cheapest one, is ace. It makes humans perfect. In design capabilities at least. It fills the gaps in humans. Humans, in case you forgot, do not evolve in the traditional sense, we change our environment to fit it, and the computer is the current pinnacle of that human skill.

So, what the fuck is the tablet PC? The so called future of computers?

Agreed, computers will continue to become a greater commodity. They will become as water. Very close to, if not very actually free. Discarded and used like rags, available and accessible to everyone, with little or no value. A future I hold dear/

So where does a $600 tablet computer sit within this cycle? This evolution? With a quarter of the processing power, an eighth of the ram, an awful interface, no real integration, and little or no point to owning one? Other than of cause, being a fashion accessory for the handful of fuck-witted westernised deities sat on the steps of the western mount Olympia. The Tablet PC clearly, being to dogs what Paris Hilton Chihuahua is to security: Completely fucking pointless.

This hacked and chopped second rate Tablet i have built is useless. Come back to me when I can talk to it as I would a human, the storage being endless, and it can second guess I want to see Gantz episode 2 without being told. And then downloads it. Free. And winks like a mate when it hands it over.

There you go buddy. Cheers mate. Now that's the evolution of computers.
Last edited by 3DOKid on Sat Oct 15, 2011 9:39 pm, edited 6 times in total.

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Post by BryWI » Sat Oct 15, 2011 8:33 pm

Your rants are awesome sir!

I have never understood the use of tablet PCs. Just big enough to not put in your pocket which means why the hell would anyone want to carry this shit thing around when most cells can do the same things now-a-days. It's definatly not portable so why not get something better.

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Post by 3DOKid » Sat Oct 15, 2011 9:37 pm

BryWI wrote:Your rants are awesome sir!

I have never understood the use of tablet PCs. Just big enough to not put in your pocket which means why the hell would anyone want to carry this shit thing around when most cells can do the same things now-a-days. It's definatly not portable so why not get something better.
Exactly.

Mobius

Post by Mobius » Sat Oct 15, 2011 9:50 pm

For a long time, I ignored tablet PCs because I didn't see a use for them. Then I decided to get one for the classes I'm taking, because reading journal articles on a tablet is WAY nicer than reading them on a widescreen laptop (soo much scrolling...) I went with the iPad 2. It was my first Apple product.

But once I finished my classes, it almost exclusively became a bedtime Netflix/podcast player. That, and I use my bank's app to deposit checks. Or I use it as a remote control for VLC when I hook my laptop up to my TV to watch videos. It's also been handy when going out of town, visiting family or taking a road trip. It's much nicer to carry around than a laptop. I've gotten a ton of free or dirt-cheap (on sale) games from the App Store, too. Stuff like Need for Speed, Tiger Woods, Monopoly, etc. The first weekend I had the iPad, every EA game was 99 cents!

Overall, I like it and I guess I've found some uses for it, but it's not going to replace my laptop anytime soon.

Also, I work for HP, so I got in on the $100 TouchPad deal. I figured, for $100, why not? I did the same thing as you, 3dokid. Tweaked the OS, overclocked it... Basically, I fixed all the problems the reviews complained about. Then I was left with a respectable $100 tablet PC that I couldn't really do anything with. I planned to use it during meeting at work instead of docking/undocking my laptop and dealing with that annoyance, but it's not very good at opening complex Word docs, which are what I would usually need to reference during a meeting. Also, the WebOS app store has very little to choose from. So in the end, I just have an oversized mp3 player now. But hey, Android got released for it the other day, so maybe that will make it more useful.

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Post by 3DO Experience » Sun Oct 16, 2011 2:14 am

Th only thing I could find a use for the tablet PC is for when I need to get up and use the bathroom.
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Post by Austin » Sun Oct 16, 2011 9:31 pm

I suppose I can see a purpose for tablets, but not anything that's really worth the financial investment. People also theorize that these will eventually replace full-blown desktop computers, yet I don't really see that happening any time soon, either. The technology is going to have to come a long, long ways before that's even a remote possibility.

I have to admit though, a tablet with a keyboard dock and mouse support is kind of cool. More stylish than a laptop, and slightly more flexible in some regards. Again, probably won't be nearly as powerful as a high-end laptop though, so I guess it's a moot point.

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Post by sneth » Mon Oct 17, 2011 12:14 am

The tablet form is likely to stay. As more and more compute power and storage is offloaded to the cloud, all you need is a handy tablet to have desktop capabilities.

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Post by 3DOKid » Mon Oct 17, 2011 8:29 pm

I still think the natural progression would too a laptop from a tablet, not vice-verse. The point will come where a tablet hasn't enough grunt, storage or flexibility and people will want a PC.

Likewise, my view is that currently it's a fashion accessory, nothing more. I work in IT, I should be able to dream up or justify even a small reason to own a tablet but I can't. It sits uncomfortably between my phone which is blackberry so it actually does a pretty good job of email, and my laptop which does everything else. The resolution and screen size don't lend themselves to presentation or demo's, the form factor makes it harder to use in 'Technical' situations, and... and...

I just don't get. I though owning one would inspire me. It hasn't.

IMHO the industry was heading in the right direction with EEE PC. Cheaper, smaller, PC's for everyone. It could do everything everyone wanted for £150. It was genuinely useful thing. Thing is 30% margin on £150 PC is not as exciting as 30% profit margin on a $600 tablet.

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Post by Austin » Mon Oct 17, 2011 9:31 pm

sneth wrote:As more and more compute power and storage is offloaded to the cloud, all you need is a handy tablet to have desktop capabilities.
That's a good point and something I didn't think of. OnLive has shown us that gaming can be viable via the cloud and it's just a matter of time before that method is perfected and other areas of computing and software adopt that model.

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Post by sneth » Wed Oct 19, 2011 5:04 am

The one thing a tablet can't produce is a nice tactile interface.

I really try to get into mobile and tablet games, but I just can't do it without buttons.

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