

Lenovo reveals 27-inch touchscreen AIO-tablet Windows 8 PC - jpxxx
http://www.neowin.net/news/lenovo-reveals-27-inch-touchscreen-aio-tablet-windows-8-pc-testing-39-incher?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

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jpxxx
I don't even know how to process this. It's 17.8 pounds with a 2 hr battery
life. It runs Windows 8, but then also runs a custom UI on top when flat, but
then also runs Bluestack Android apps.

And it's $1700 and comes with a HDD. The optional SSD is 64GB.

And the intended use case is your five year olds painting on it? WHAT.

~~~
kenjackson
Actually sounds great to me.

It's not meant to be something you put under your arm, but for it to be your
family's main computer. And is portable within the house, e.g., set up in the
kitchen or the living room -- w/o requiring power. And can also be used as a
tabletop computer.

I wanted a Sony Vaio Tap 20, but I may hold out for this now.

The Android emulation though is not needed. Toss that.

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SirPulse
We have the Sony and its a blast with the kids. Got it just in time for the
holidays and with 4 kids playing on it together was fun. The apps were limited
on win8 though. With android apps, I can imagine it will be even more fun!

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jpxxx
In practice, does it remain stationary and tethered to the power cord? Or is
the portability useful?

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SirPulse
It was more fun when it was in the middle of the room with the kids playing
either setback joyride or fruit ninja. Its stable on stand but only as much
fun as any other desktop. (not much for the kids)

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jpxxx
[http://news.lenovo.com/news+releases/lenovo-pioneers-
interpe...](http://news.lenovo.com/news+releases/lenovo-pioneers-
interpersonal-computing-with-first-table-pc.htm)

OK, found the press release. It's running Windows 8, then a custom UI shell
when laying flat.

Apps are from a Lenovo-rebranded Intel AppUp store, Bluestack Android, and the
Windows App Store. Also includes a handful of custom electronic gameboard
pieces, and it comes pre-loaded with Miscellaneous Other Stuff.

Ships summer, $1,699 base price likely.

This sounds like a UX apocalypse, but if everything's properly bound into the
Windows 8 Metro UI, maybe it'll feel seamless.

Gods, I don't know. I'd strangle for a 30" table iPad, so there has to be
something to this concept. But a two inch thick iMac with a fan and HDD lying
on its back? Arf.

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dgudkov
Where did you get information about fan? And if HDD will be solid state
nothing wrong with it.

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jpxxx
The marketing shows it powered by a full Intel Core-series chip, and I haven't
heard of anyone successfully doing a fan-free design with anything in that
family.

The default HDD will be a physical HDD. A SSD is optional, at least according
to the story.

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FiddlerClamp
Excellent idea for boardgames and family games. I know quite a few DMs who
would die for this.

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jpxxx
Amen. Board games, PDFs, proofs, comps, mass image review and management, oh
man... the things you could do with this real estate.

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johnpowell
The resolution is 1920x1080, the same as my 21" monitors.

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supergauntlet
Really? I was hoping it would be 2560x1440.

The 1920x1080 screen resolution really needs to stop being the only choice as
far as desktops.

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patdennis
Did anyone else notice how laggy the display looked when she spun the roulette
wheel? I hope that's not system wide.

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uptown
Presumably these won't be owned by the same households as those in the
Chromebook commercials ... where people are stepping on the computer, and
tossing spaghetti about? A 27" screen with a narrow hinge holding it up that's
designed to be pressed by children? What could possibly go wrong?

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eliben
No, that would be the richer variant of those families. Chromebooks go for
$200. $1700 for this beast is a whole different league.

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wiradikusuma
the guy laid down the device while holding his coffee. i wonder what
protection they put for coffee spills. and they put it on the floor, how
strong is it if kids accidentally step on it?

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ctdonath
I've long wanted a touchscreen desktop. Not a desktop computer like we use the
term now, but as the display IS the whole desktop.

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zem
sounds like it would be nice to build into a desk (i.e. have a recessed cavity
in the desktop so that the touchscreen is flat with the surface of the desk).
you could do the "office of the future" thing the science fiction movies are
always speculating about.

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Zigurd
There is an interesting part of this video that illustrates just how hard
multi-user multi-touch is to do right: Note that the scene of the girls
"fingerpainting" is faked.

Why fake it? Drawing programs are very modal: You have one brush, with one set
of properties. You have one selection you can move or operate on. One property
sheet to edit. Etc. Except for games with their own interaction framework,
most OSs assume one user with one selection in one document at a time. It may
seem like a trivial change, but true realtime collaboration on a single screen
seems to demand a UX system designed to support that.

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uptown
"Why fake it?"

Because the shot is setup to appear as if you're looking up at the girls from
inside the device.

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Zigurd
This is interesting, but is it usable? Do you have space on your table? Would
you snuggle up on the couch to watch a movie with someone with this held
between the two of you? Does it fit down your hallway without turning it
sideways? Would you need a butler to carry it and hold it just right for each
task?

This is just an object lesson in why Windows 8 is an answer to a question
nobody asked.

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jpxxx
This is exactly the question I want answered. The idea of a 30" piece of glass
running multitouch software is intoxicating. Microsoft tried and shipped it
but the units were so barkingly expensive and shitty to set up they went
nowhere. Actually using one was marvelous though.

A quick and dirty extrapolation of iPad's design up by 5.2X gives you 7.5
pounds (and the obligatory 10mm thickness and 10 hour battery life). This
doesn't have to be a fan-driven HDD-bearing poke-ass monstrosity. There _must_
be software experiences that are materially better at these colossal sizes.
And it's clearly technically possible... but the whole Windows hardware idiom
is anchoring this down into goofy territory.

If it can be made "properly", does it have a place in the real world? I want
the answer.

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Zigurd
Two things about that:

1\. And it's clearly technically possible...

2\. If it can be made "properly"...

Consider how hard it would be to turn any particular app that assumes a single
user into one where two people can operate on the same "document" or "world"
at the same time. I figure you need a UX system with that concept baked into
it before you even start writing those apps.

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mtgx
As Mark Shuttleworth said, no OS has ever succeeded by emulating another OS
(why they chose not to build a Dalvik VM for Ubuntu phone). The fact that it
runs Android apps in this way is not going to make this thing a best seller.
If Android apps are the biggest part of the buying decision, then most people
would just go straight to an Android device, instead of dealing with such a
solution. This is why the Android emulator has also never worked for RIM (and
never will).

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bryanlarsen
One example of an OS that succeeded by emulating another OS is OS X. It came
with a well-developed OS9 emulation strategy. Even though it didn't get used
very often, the existence of a smooth transition strategy was key to its
success.

IBM has also done fabulously well emulating various old mainframe operating
systems.

Emulation strategies are never the be-all and end-all, but if you want to be a
"successor for X", you need to have an emulation story.

Emulation, virtualization and dual-booting are a very large part of the reason
of the success of OS X. A Mac is the only machine that will run OS9, OS X,
Windows & Linux software. So people buy one knowing that they won't be stuck
if they end up not liking OS X or needing a critical app. Then they end up
staying on OS X.

So to be a successor to something, you need to:

1) have an emulation or virtualization story so that people won't be afraid to
switch

2) be significantly better so people end up not actually using the emulation
or virtualization.

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runn1ng
>A Mac is the only machine that will run OS9, OS X, Windows & Linux software.

Technically, you are incorrect. You can't run OS9 on the Intel machines and
you can't run Windows on PPC machines.

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Tloewald
Not today but for six years mac os x shipped on powerpc and could emulate mac
os 9 and x86 (via several software emulation options).

You can probably find a decent "classic" option for intel macs if you look
hard enough, but that wasn't the original point.

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Tloewald
Anyone want to bet this actually ships?

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jxi
Wow, who would buy this? This just doesn't make any sense to me. It's not
really portable and it has terrible battery life. I would take a Mac Mini + a
nice Dell screen over this any day.

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duck
It is the perfect size to be portable within your house and I would think of
the battery power more as a way to easily move it between rooms without having
to shut it down.

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dakimov
A 27" touchscreen is not for work, it is for working out!

I once bought a notebook with touchscreen, and even have tapped it a few
times. In a while I have forgotten it had a touchscreen.

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dragonbonheur
I know this will get downvoted but judging from the comments, we've reached a
point where self-proclaimed geeks (from the Apple camp, the one that's
supposed to think differently) just can't handle innovation...

Downvote away (fan)boys...

