windows 8 tab

emt16

I'm looking to get a tablet to take down notes in college. I recently converted my laptop to w8 and am looking at getting a w8 tab. the only problem is they are a bit to expensive for me at the minute.
I was looking at the Acer Iconia w500 and upgrading it to w8.
Does anyone have this tab and upgraded it. I'm just wondering if this is the smart thing to do and also will the stylus work on the upgrade (windows RT doesn't support stylus)

Thanks

Overheal

Any touch screen will support a capacitive stylus (the rubber-tip); of those, the Adonit Jot Pro is the best capacitive stylus I've seen. Check amazon.

Of x86 tablets, I have upgraded from 7 to 8 on mine. Works fairly well, but I don't have perfect driver support for the hardware buttons (namely the Start button and the Rotation Lock). Not a terribly big problem.

If you're looking to take notes in class, and this is your primary goal, I'd rather steer you toward the Android-based Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, or the Windows 8 Samsung Series 7 Slate (link). Both support Wacom digital pen tech with their screens, on the latter I just use Windows Journal and push my notes to Skydrive. Either one will give you a stellar note-taking experience, especially for math and science classes. The styluses of the Note and Slate are interchangeable (as should really be any of the Wacom pens), so if you buy the Note 10.1 you can buy the pen for the Slate separately and get the better writing experience, since the slate pen has an 'eraser' tip, instead of having to go and select the eraser brush every ten seconds. Compared to capacitive screens/styluses these offer you far more accuracy and natural writing, since you can rest your hand on the screen and it wont interfere with the input (when the pen is on/near the screen, touch response is disabled).

_Kaiser_

emt16 wrote: »

I'm looking to get a tablet to take down notes in college. I recently converted my laptop to w8 and am looking at getting a w8 tab. the only problem is they are a bit to expensive for me at the minute.
I was looking at the Acer Iconia w500 and upgrading it to w8.
Does anyone have this tab and upgraded it. I'm just wondering if this is the smart thing to do and also will the stylus work on the upgrade (windows RT doesn't support stylus)

Thanks

I had a W500 and upgraded it to Win 8 Pro and it ran fine. It won't set the world on fire (RAM isn't upgradeable as it's soldered to the motherboard but there's YouTube videos of people replacing the SSD etc if you wanted to that way).

It ran fine for me - used it as a web browser, light Office work and HDMI out to the TV for streaming etc

emt16

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

I had a W500 and upgraded it to Win 8 Pro and it ran fine. It won't set the world on fire (RAM isn't upgradeable as it's soldered to the motherboard but there's YouTube videos of people replacing the SSD etc if you wanted to that way).

It ran fine for me - used it as a web browser, light Office work and HDMI out to the TV for streaming etc

so all the drivers work fine. Did you have to clean space on your hard drive or was there enough room

Capt'n Midnight

emt16 wrote: »

(windows RT doesn't support stylus)

Thanks

:eek:

they are really trying to kill RT at birth aren't they ?

I just can't see any reason for anyone to use RT unless the tablets are price competitive with Android and they aren't. It's like windows CE tablets all over again.

Advice to anyone considering RT, wait a little while and get the full version unless it has the apps you need today and you don't mind being locked into it.

BTW Blackberry were handing out $100 per app to developers who ported an app. They now have 100,000 apps

IMHO people want either something that will run all their favorite windows apps OR an ipad at android prices, they don't want something like an android at ipad prices

Overheal

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

:eek:

they are really trying to kill RT at birth aren't they ?

I have to call foul on that. There is no way for them to remove support for a capacitive stylus. It mimics your finger, the technology doesnt know the difference.

Torqay

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

:eek:

they are really trying to kill RT at birth aren't they ?

And quite successfully so... 3 major partners have jumped ship already. Lenovo, Samsung and HP have officially ditched their RT tablets. Only Dell is still offering their XPS 10. RT is pretty much dead. And I doubt an inexpensive 7" tablet will resurrect it, too dominant are Google and Amazon in this market segment.

Overheal

Truth. Microsoft should have been playing to it's leading edge from the start, which was the ability to run regular software on a tablet, which is frankly what consumers have wanted all along. Even on iPad and Android there aren't many "Killer apps" that scream Wave of the Future.

Torqay

Overheal wrote: »

Truth. Microsoft should have been playing to it's leading edge from the start

And which "leading edge" is that? Microsoft has no leading edge in the tablet market. Rather than promising cash to developers, they should have used their mighty war chest ($3.5Bn?) to massively subsidize their tablet (as it has been rumoured). Had Surface been available in big numbers before Christmas for $199 (promo offer or subscription-based), nobody would have bought a Nexus or Fire HD and they would have cut hugely into Apple tablet sales as well. Yes, it would have been p***ed off the "partners" but look where they are now, gone, most of them. Had they sold 10 million units instead of one, RT would be all the rage now and they would be making a tons of cash from apps/content sales. Now RT is bound to experience the the same fate as CE, Surface the same as Zune, yet another MS failure.

Overheal wrote: »

the ability to run regular software on a tablet, which is frankly what consumers have wanted all along.

With a gazillion of Android and iOS tablets and smartphones already out there, I'd say consumers have long since realized that they do not necessarily need "legacy apps" (the new "regular software"?) or indeed Microsoft Office on their mobile devices.

_Kaiser_

emt16 wrote: »

so all the drivers work fine. Did you have to clean space on your hard drive or was there enough room

Worked fine. I clean installed it though (always do with a new OS) and had no problems with one exception. The auto-rotation driver/software was a bit iffy but not a major problem.

Capt'n Midnight

Torqay wrote: »

And which "leading edge" is that? Microsoft has no leading edge in the tablet market.
...
With a gazillion of Android and iOS tablets and smartphones already out there, I'd say consumers have long since realized that they do not necessarily need "legacy apps" (the new "regular software"?) or indeed Microsoft Office on their mobile devices.

Legacy code wins , if all else is equal.

Windows RT is lock in to one of the smaller range of apps for any current tablet and very little future unless it's a lot cheaper than windows 8

Windows 8 on a tablet means you could potentially port over your old computer (in a virtual machine if you had to)

yes you can get stuff like Dailyvoyager for android to record video while driving
But windows has http://www.ispyconnect.com/ which will do numberplate recognition http://www.ispyconnect.com/plugins.aspx

Overheal

Pro Launches February 9th:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57565211/microsoft-surface-pro-hits-u.s-and-canada-on-feb-9/

It will come in 64 and 128GB options; i5 and i7. The Stylus is digital, and is designed to integrate with the magsafe type system: so when not in use, you can clip the pen onto the side attachment port of the tablet.

Highly considering my options for selling current devices for this unit. Seems to fold in all the best features of the stuff I'm using right now

Torqay

Finally...

And they have something rather unique here, no other 10" tablet comes with a 3rd gen Core i5 yet. Closest competitors are the Iconia W700 and the Lenovo Yoga. Surface Pro is priced somewhere between the two, let's see how that plays out.

The Iconia comes with a BT keyboard, IMO a better choice than Microsoft's docked keyboard (which has to be purchased separately) and it can be used in portrait mode when docked (although Windows 8 is not exactly a portrait mode-friendly OS).

Funny enough, Microsoft now offers a mouse as accessory. I wonder why, maybe quality control have realized that a touchscreen is utterly useless on such a small display with 1920x1080p in desktop view? Something Iconia users were complaining about, and they have an 11.6" display.

Capt'n Midnight

Torqay wrote: »

The Iconia comes with a BT keyboard, IMO a better choice than Microsoft's docked keyboard (which has to be purchased separately)

some of the prices for keyboards for those devices are insane

Torqay

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

some of the prices for keyboards for those devices are insane

The Iconia W700 comes with a cradle and BT keyboard for $899, MS is asking for $120/130 on top of that, another 70 for the "optimized" mouse. Now that will buy you a Lenovo Yoga... tough call.

Overheal

Torqay wrote: »

Finally...

And they have something rather unique here, no other 10" tablet comes with a 3rd gen Core i5 yet. Closest competitors are the Iconia W700 and the Lenovo Yoga. Surface Pro is priced somewhere between the two, let's see how that plays out.

The Iconia comes with a BT keyboard, IMO a better choice than Microsoft's docked keyboard (which has to be purchased separately) and it can be used in portrait mode when docked (although Windows 8 is not exactly a portrait mode-friendly OS).

Funny enough, Microsoft now offers a mouse as accessory. I wonder why, maybe quality control have realized that a touchscreen is utterly useless on such a small display with 1920x1080p in desktop view? Something Iconia users were complaining about, and they have an 11.6" display.

he says its not for portrait as I'm reading in portrait...

this site is great on Portrait by the by.

and the mouse has been on sale for yonks. Its not new

Torqay

Overheal wrote: »

he says its not for portrait

Didn't say "not for" but not the most portrait-friendly OS.

Overheal wrote: »

this site is great on Portrait by the by.

Not talking about a website but the OS and the start screen in particular, which is really set up for landscape mode over portrait.

Overheal wrote: »

and the mouse has been on sale for yonks.

Two months... and the price is ridiculous. You get BT mice with higher precision for a lot less.

Overheal

Torqay wrote: »

Didn't say "not for" but not the most portrait-friendly OS.



Not talking about a website but the OS and the start screen in particular, which is really set up for landscape mode over portrait.

is there a more portrait friendly OS I'm not aware of? I actually spend the majority of my time in portrait, reading, handwriting and browsing.

Two months... and the price is ridiculous. You get BT mice with higher precision for a lot less.

So don't buy it.