Renzatic on 13/10/2010 at 07:58
Quote Posted by Ostriig
By the way, Asus support lines really are as crap as they say, they're eons behind, wait for it...
Acer.
I dunno. My one experience with them wasn't so bad. I had a graphics card go bad, so I sent it in, waited about 3 weeks, and they sent me an upgraded one because they didn't produce my old card anymore. Hard to complain about that, considering the new card they sent was about $150 more than what I spent on the old one.
They are slow though. The whole thing took about 5 weeks to resolve.
I know about Apple. They're probably one of the most anal retentive company on the face of the earth. Everything has to be their way, and they bitch, whine, moan, and groan when it's not. And their hardcore fans are creepy. And their hardware rarely ever justifies the price. And, you know...blah. It's almost a damn shame they make such good products.
See, I've been enamored by the concept of a tablet PC for a good long while. Right now, Apple makes the best tablet, bar none. And from the looks of thing, they're gonna be in that position for the next couple of years. The Android tablets, the Window 7 tablets, I haven't seen anything that's impressed me yet. Hell, even the iPad disappointed me when it first came out, and it's only started piquing my interest here recently now that I've seen what it's capable of.
So when you consider the available apps, the speed, and the UI, all the other choices pale in comparison to the iPad. If I want a good tablet, I only really have one choice. The BS corporate politics are all background noise to me, so long as I can jailbreak it and use it however I want.
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But one solid piece of advice I can give you is to hold off a bit longer. I've seen some speculation regarding the second generation of the iPad coming along in the next couple of months, so if I were you I'd wait to get the newer one. I mean, I know tech like this has a fast refresh rate anyway, but this new iteration might be very close at hand. Well, unless it doesn't get announced or anything by the end of November, which would prove all that speculation to be bullshit.
Yeah, I was thinking about waiting anyway, since iOS 4.2 is coming to the iPad around then. I want to see how it performs before I take the final plunge. The whole experiences people have had upgrading their iPhones to 4.0 has made me a little wary. I don't want to spend over 500 bucks and have the same thing happen to me on my brand new piece of hardware.
Ostriig on 13/10/2010 at 20:32
Quote Posted by Renzatic
I dunno. My one experience with them wasn't so bad. I had a graphics card go bad, so I sent it in, waited about 3 weeks, and they sent me an upgraded one because they didn't produce my old card anymore. Hard to complain about that, considering the new card they sent was about $150 more than what I spent on the old one.
Well, fair enough, maybe I've just had an inordinately poor mishap, but I was a bit underwhelmed with the amount of info both their tech and sales departments had to offer regarding their upcoming products in the UK (already out in parts of Asia), not to mention the sales dude stated there are N53 9 cell batteries on their accessories shop when there are in fact none. I don't know, either he made a really unprofessional mistake or he was so eager to get me off the line that he outright
lied to me. Either way, hardly impressive when you call a rep about wanting to give his employer a big bag of money.
Anyway, I know you've already said they're slow and they do have that reputation in the UK, but just for reference - Acer took a whooping five working days before sending my laptop back fixed. Set up a courier a day or two after I called in, as I recall, came Friday indeed and Friday next it was back with a brand new motherboard. Though I suppose with their reputation for build reliability a good warranty service is kind of required.
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Yeah, I was thinking about waiting anyway, since iOS 4.2 is coming to the iPad around then. I want to see how it performs before I take the final plunge. The whole experiences people have had upgrading their iPhones to 4.0 has made me a little wary. I don't want to spend over 500 bucks and have the same thing happen to me on my brand new piece of hardware.
Applies to hardware as well. I've seen quite a few Apple fans swear unyielding allegiance to the practice of waiting for the second revision of any product Lord Turtleneck puts out, part of the reason for my recommendation.
Renzatic on 20/10/2010 at 23:55
Shit, sorry Ostriig. I didn't even know you replied after all this time.
The only thing I can say is that they're a smaller company, and don't have the strength of support Acer has. They make damn good computers, and that's enough for me. But if you need that tech support, you might want to look elsewhere.
But anyway, the reason I'm resurrecting this thread is because of the new (
http://www.apple.com/macbookair/) Macbook Air. Your suggestion to wait on the next iPad might've been a damn good one. I mean here you have a laptop that's as thick as the iPad, and uses actual honest to god PC parts. A Core2Duo with a 320m Geforce board, while not the cutting edge of computer technology, will run circles around an equivalently sized Netbook. It reasonable to think that the next iPad will probably sport similar hardware, so long as they can eek a little extra battery life out of it.
Hell, I might just buy the Air here, and not have to worry about all the jailbreaking BS.
edit: (
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/10/20/director-of-firefox-fires-opening-salvo-at-apples-tyrannical-ma/#comments) Then again...
edit 2: I say damn too much.
Ostriig on 21/10/2010 at 19:48
No worries, dude, there wasn't really anything up in the air anymore at that point anyway. Just to clarify about Asus, I'm not too intimidated by the potentially irritating support as long as the build quality and reliability of the actual laptops is as good as they say. I'm holding off because the models (technically, just the 15'', don't want the 17'') currently on the UK market don't sport BD burners, and I just don't wanna drop that sort of money on a laptop without it, it's a dealbreaker. What I really wanna see is an N43Jsomething with an i5-520M, a GeForce 425M, a BD burner, and hopefully an 8/9 cell battery available at long last for it, that's a day one purchase for me right there.
As for Apple... I'd been so busy these past two days that I'd forgotten yesterday was the Happy Fun Stevie Show. Skimming through Youtube in the next window as I type, and this "Mac App Store" has...
potential. Should be fun to watch.
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It reasonable to think that the next iPad will probably sport similar hardware, so long as they can eek a little extra battery life out of it.
About this though, I'd be surprised if it does. Apple have proven to be very aggressive about putting out products with low risk of cannibalizing their other stuff. In fact, I think the first iPad itself can illustrate that. So really, while I do believe that the next iPad revision, whenever it's coming, will be a notable improvement on the current one, I seriously doubt it's going to be
anywhere around the specs of new Air.
Renzatic on 5/1/2011 at 18:06
Thread.
Yeah?
ARRRIIISSEEEE!
Why do people have to go and make me change my mind all the damn time? Now the iPad is admittedly a neat thing, and I'm still tempted to get one, but my enthusiasm has been greatly tempered for it after seeing this...
(
http://promos.asus.com/US/ASUS_EeeSlate/index.htm) The Asus Eee Slate
12 inch screen, Core i5 Processor, 32 or 64GB SSD drive, 4GB RAM, a Wacom Digitizer touchscreen (BOUT DAMN TIME), Windows 7 64-bit, and hey, it even has SD card and USB slots. Basically an all around great portable computer, all in a nice 2.5 pound package.
This is what I wanted the iPad to be. Even though it turned out to be alot more useful than I assumed it'd be be when I first heard it was using iOS, it's still nowhere nearly as full featured as this thing. The only downside I can see, assuming the thing is put together fairly well, will be the battery life. 10 hours on an iPad, vs. probably 3 or so on this thing (maybe 4 or 5 if I can put Ubuntu on it). But all things considered, this is a tradeoff I'm willing to take.
$1100 bucks. It's mine. I start selling plasma tomorrow.
Zerker on 5/1/2011 at 23:42
Now that looks like a pretty awesome device, though the battery life is a bit troubling. Decisions, decisions.
Ostriig on 6/1/2011 at 01:23
Quote Posted by Renzatic
$1100 bucks. It's mine. I start selling plasma tomorrow.
Um... boy, are you gonna hate me now, but I can't help it - seeing as how battery life's not all that impressive, mightn't it be worth it to wait for a potential Sandy Bridge refresh? Assuming it's fairly quick around the corner? Supposedly they give a notably improved battery life and Intel's rumoured to put out the low voltage versions quite soon.
Otherwise yeah, that does look pretty awesome. Assuming it's well built, if they could just manage to pull 5-6 hours of battery life it could shit on the iPad sideways. Granted, that's a big
if, I wouldn't expect Intel's new trinket to bring anything like that, even a
Processor of Sandy Bridge: +50% Stamina would be pretty miraculous.
Renzatic on 6/1/2011 at 03:55
Quote Posted by Zerker
Now that looks like a pretty awesome device, though the battery life is a bit troubling. Decisions, decisions.
Quote Posted by Ostriig
Um... boy, are you gonna hate me now, but I can't help it - seeing as how battery life's not all that impressive, mightn't it be worth it to wait for a potential Sandy Bridge refresh?
The 3-4 hour battery life is just an educated guess I made based off the hardware. As far as I know, it could last a bit longer than that under normal usage (doubt it, but hey).
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Otherwise yeah, that does look pretty awesome. Assuming it's well built, if they could just manage to pull 5-6 hours of battery life it could shit on the iPad sideways. Granted, that's a big if, I wouldn't expect Intel's new trinket to bring anything like that, even a Processor of Sandy Bridge: +50% Stamina would be pretty miraculous.
Problem is, I'm getting tired of waiting for something better to come out. :P
Right now, even with it's assumed short battery life, it's about the perfect tablet for me. I can use it to make textures up close and personal in Photoshop, and have access to everything a full blown OS offers me in a package only slightly larger and heavier than the current gen iPad. I'm willing to take a hit on one front to gain so much more elsewhere.
Plus you can probably pop a larger cap battery into the thing, assuming it's not using a proprietary build specifically designed to fit into the small form factor.
Whatever though. It's neat. :D
edit: (
http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/windowsexperience/archive/2011/01/04/hands-on-with-the-asus-ep121slate-pc.aspx) First review is up. It's the Windows Team Blog, so take it with a grain of salt.
Looks like I was right. It has an average 3.5 hours of battery life. Not too great, but with everything else being so good, I still think it's worth that one sacrifice. And since this thing is a full and proper PC, I don't necessarily have to stick to Windows 7. I could slap Android on it, assuming the Android x86 project is far enough along. Or even go with another full blown OS, like Ubuntu or even OSX. Assuming the latter are a fairly good fit without any hardware issues, I could probably eek out 6 hours of battery life no problem.
And also, who's Andariel? And are her tits really that nice?
Ostriig on 6/1/2011 at 14:02
3 hours is also the official estimate on its Amazon page if you follow it there. Now, I know that Ubuntu and OSX are supposed to be a bit more power-efficient than Windows 7, but I was under the impression we're talking something like an extra 20% autonomy on average, isn't hoping for nearly double the battery life a bit much?
I know what it's like to be tired of waiting around, I got my N43 just over a month ago despite knowing Sandy Bridge was just around the corner, decided the oomph increase wasn't worth the wait for my needs. Admittedly, I didn't know about the reduced power draw, but unless it turns out to be an extra 50% or more mobility I won't really care. But with a tablet I imagine it might be worth looking into it especially since I don't see a removable battery slot in the pictures, do you know anyone working for an Asus retailer, someone who might have access to availability details? I understand some low voltage SB procs are expected in Q1 and that Asus are usually quick with refreshes.
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And also, who's Andariel? And are her tits really that nice?
(
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act1-andariel.shtml) Click me. :)
Renzatic on 6/1/2011 at 19:48
Quote Posted by Ostriig
3 hours is also the official estimate on its Amazon page if you follow it there. Now, I know that Ubuntu and OSX are supposed to be a bit more power-efficient than Windows 7, but I was under the impression we're talking something like an extra 20% autonomy on average, isn't hoping for nearly double the battery life a bit much?
Yeahhh...I probably did overestimate on the battery life by a bit. Wishful thinking overriding common sense and all that. If this thing could sport 5-6 hours of battery life under a fairly decent load, it'd be the perfect tablet for me. As is, it's got so much going for it, but falls short in that one key area.
With OSX or Ubuntu, I could probably push an extra 45 minutes out of it. But you're right, I wouldn't be able to get a near 50% increase, no matter how much I scale everything back and tweak for optimal performance.
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do you know anyone working for an Asus retailer, someone who might have access to availability details? I understand some low voltage SB procs are expected in Q1 and that Asus are usually quick with refreshes.
I wish I did. Right now, the only option I have if I go with this particular rev is to hope Asus eventually releases a higher cap battery I can eventually swap out (not easily, since it doesn't have a battery door on the back), or just wait for the second gen release.
...man. I am flaky about my computer shit. :P
Nipple Clamp Scorpion Lady! Oh yeah!
