
Asus announces x86 Ivy Bridge Windows 8 tablet/laptop hybrid - ukdm
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/130364-the-answer-to-all-our-windows-8-dreams-the-ivy-bridge-asus-transformer-book
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morsch
Acer also announced 11.6 and 13.3in Aspire S7 Ultrabooks with 1920x1080
displays. Full HD at 11.6in -- 190 dpi -- seems almost excessive, but I'm not
complaining. Other stats (11.6/13.3): 9h/12h battery life, about 1kg/1.3kg,
and "800-1800 USD" (yeah I know).

Now please start selling regular sized displays with those kinds of dpi!

~~~
nodata
Acer or Asus?

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morsch
Acer: <http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/03/acer-aspire-s7-ultrabook/>

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polshaw
Very impressive hardware design from Asus: full-HD display and dockable GPU
too, remaining impressively thin and all from 11". Although I can see it
seriously struggling with heat (noise?), battery life and price.

Will be very interesting to see if they have been able to manage these issues
to make it a useable option in tablet-mode.

It's pretty much what I would design as the perfect device-- in theory.

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tseabrooks
This is exactly it. "In theory". Prior to iPad, then before MacBook air...
This is exactly the device I wanted apple to make (And in many ways I still
do).

Sadly, when you wrap your head around things like battery, heat, and the like.
You realize it might not be the dream machine you're looking for. For Asus'
and MS (and my) sake I'm hoping this thing kicks ass. If it does I know I'll
be considering it.

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jcurbo
Gotta get this news out before any Apple Ivy Bridge-related announcements next
week, I suppose.

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CurtHagenlocher
Or maybe there's some kind of annual conference for hardware manufacturers in
Taiwan where it would be natural to announce new products. Such a conference
might even have existed for, oh, thirty years or so.

The world does not revolve around Apple.

~~~
jcurbo
You have a point, but this product is a direct competitor to both the iPad and
Macbook Air, both tough nuts that other companies have been trying to crack.
Given expectations that major Macbook Air upgrades are coming as early as next
week, based on Ivy Bridge, getting a word out before the Apple hype starts
seems like it could do nothing but help competitors.

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rbanffy
I really don't get the "wimpy Atom" thing. I run Ubuntu 12.04 with Unity (with
visual effects) on a first-gen Acer Aspire One with a first-gen Atom processor
and, while I won't be playing games on it anytime soon, it runs very well. So
well, in fact, it is taking me months to effectively move my main computing to
my newer i3-based laptop.

It still starts Emacs in under 5 seconds (and, considering my init.el, that's
quite an accomplishment).

I'm not sure I'd be that much more productive if I could start Emacs in under
a second.

~~~
ajross
Relative to Ivy Bridge, the Atom core is dog slow. On L1 cache bound
benchmarks, it's routinely about 2x slower per clock (it runs about the same
per clock as an ARM A9, FWIW). And the size of the L3 cache on SNB/IVB means
that many tasks actually get much faster, relatively, as they start to spill
out of L1/L2. If all you do is editing, you really aren't likely to care. But
things that tax the CPU, like big web apps, tend not to work well on Atom
boxes. Atom looks closer to an iPad or a smartphone in that regime than it
does to a desktop CPU.

~~~
rbanffy
It plays video well enough. I never hooked it to the big tv to check whether
it does 1080p at 60fps, but, apart from that, it works well enough. In any
case, the Atom should not be the processor doing the video decoding and
rescaling - that's what GPUs are for. Flash is very slow and Gmail is not very
snappy, but that's the extent of my problems with it. I'll probably replace
its battery, give it a small SSD and use it when I really need something
small.

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johnchristopher
I wish there were more 13" screens with a 1600x1200 or 1440x900 resolution.
Whether it's too much density (1920x1080 11-13") or not enough (1366x768
13-16").

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rbanffy
You can always use more pixels to show the same amount of information.

I don't think many people will ever run xterm with the default font on a 1080
13" screen.

~~~
johnchristopher
It's indeed easier to downgrade from high-res to low-res. Although non-native
resolutions tend to have a blurry render.

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programminggeek
Battery life on this is going to be terrible and so is price. The article was
probably right that it will land in the 2-4 hour range. For ultrabook type
specs you'll be paying ultrabook prices. This won't likely be a $500 machine,
more like $800-1000. So, $500 iPad3 or $800 for Windows transformer tablet?

Sure it will sell, but not in any kind of volume like the iPad.

I'm sure Apple could have build this, or still could, but they likely didn't
because they coudln't hit mainstream pricing. Nobody has the volume or the
operational excellence to compete with Apple on price, quality, or volume
without sacrificing profit margins.

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dagw
_So, $500 iPad3 or $800 for Windows transformer tablet?_

Full keyboard, proper general purpose OS, running a fairly powerful CPU and
GPU and offering all your standard set of I/O ports. This is not an iPad
competitor, but a Macbook Air competitor, that can also be used as a tablet in
a pinch.

~~~
rbanffy
> proper general purpose OS

That's debatable ;-) but I concede your point that Windows is more "general
purpose" than iOS.

> Macbook Air competitor

Won't run OSX. It's not a competitor unless you plan running Windows 8 on your
Macbook which is not very smart.

And iPads can use Apple's wireless keyboards, so, for US$ 50 more you get a
really good keyboard you can use with your desktop computer too.

~~~
dagw
_Won't run OSX_

No, but it will run most of the apps that I run on OS X, or apps of equivalent
functionality, so who cares. I bought my MBA because it offered the best
hardware for my needs at the given price point, not because I'm a slave to OS
X.

 _iPads can use Apple's wireless keyboards_

Sure I can get a keyboard for the iPad, but I still can't (easily) run most of
the apps I need to get work done.

And as an aside, I'd be fascinated to hear your argument as to how Windows is
less general purpose than OS X

~~~
rbanffy
> will run most of the apps that I run on OS X

Good for you.

> I'd be fascinated to hear your argument as to how Windows is less general
> purpose than OS X

For me, at least, it's a pain to develop software on Windows. If I did Java
development, it'd be relatively painless, but having to rely on Cygwin to have
an environment that approximates the servers that will actually run my code is
very suboptimal.

Don't think I'm a slave to OSX - I'm not, but I'd have a very hard time being
productive in an environment that's completely alien to the software I write.
Actually, for work, I prefer Linux, but a Mac is fine. And I can play with
Xcode and iOS development on it.

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dagw
Personally I'm far more intrigued by this:
[http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/04/asus-taichi-notebook-
tabl...](http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/04/asus-taichi-notebook-tablet/)

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moron
Hopefully it is better than the dreadful tablet/laptop hybrids MS hawked a few
years back. That standard is painfully low, though. They were awful.

