

Are Windows 8 tablets an expensive bag of fail?


Lenovo's IdeaPad Yoga 13 starts at $1,099

Source: CNET

Comments     Threshold


bad time
By invidious on 10/11/2012 9:23:29 AM , Rating: 4
If you try to market convertible laptops as tablets but still price them as laptops you're gonna have a bad time...

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By theapparition on 10/11/12, Rating: 0
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Dummies Windows 8 Tablet Contest

Total Approximate Retail Value: $350.00 USD*

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10.6" screen
32gig I bet the 64gb one is more
.27 inches thick
built in keyboard/touchpad
Micro Sd slot
USB 2.0 slot
MiMO antenne


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Most analysts fail.

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The real question is what the performance looks like.



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It amazes me how many people still don't get it!

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The Pro models will be inline with the Macbook Air.


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Is it cheaper to buy a laptop and a tablet?

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By NellyFromMA on 10/12/2012 12:59:19 PM , Rating: 2
Tablets don't have to be relgated to neutered electronic devices that are only for media consumption.

And, as it turns out, MS offers on eof those too.

Idk, I think analysts would just rather see another party lead and they know their say has marginal influence in the eyes of the media who also have a favorite that isn't MS.

Let consumers decide. They seem pretty excited to me.

MSRP Prices...

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I think the RT's are going to struggle against the iPads.


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These Aren't Traditional Tablets


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Who are these tablets for?
By jnemesh on 10/11/2012 11:08:04 AM , Rating: 2
Is Microsoft aiming at mass market adoption, or are they going for corporate users?

For the individual, what advantage do these products give you over the competition? The RT tablets are aimed at the mainstream market, but have a higher price than the competition, and have very little in the way of software for you to run on them. The full Windows 8 tablets are going to be VERY pricey in comparison to similarly equipped laptops, thereby limiting their sales potential to early adopters only.

For the people who need these for work...they are already buying laptops if they need Office or other business applications. Enterprise sales will be limited because corporations don't want to retrain their workforce.

I see these staying in the niche market. It will be VERY hard to MS to sell a $499 tablet when you can buy a Nexus 7 for $199 (or less) and an iPad for $249 (rumored price of the Mini) or $399 (for an iPad 2).


RE: Who are these tablets for?
By andrewaggb on 10/11/2012 11:53:34 AM , Rating: 2
I kinda agree. I want a windows 8 tablet but in my experience so far...

netbooks suck, owned 2, an atom one and an amd c-50 one. The amd one was better in every way, better display, higher resolution, more ram, way way way better gpu. Both sucked. Mostly because they had slow hard disks and because working on a 10" screen sucks. And I really wanted them to be good enough to do some work on the road and they weren't.

the ipad is a better experience. It's got instant startup and surprisingly good performance. But it totally sucks at anything productive - like writing an email or comment. so much so it infuriates me and I just grab my laptop (which with an ssd and now windows 8 boots pretty fast).

I think the surface has potential, in that I could write a comment or an email without taking up half my screen and open a real word document, etc.

But I think the reality is, if you buy a 10" tablet and hope to run visual studio (like I did with netbooks) you're kidding yourself. Now the lenovo 13" yoga I'm sure could do it all, but it weighs way way more than a normal tablet and I have no experience using a 13" tablet (is it too big?). So that would need a hands on.

Anyways thats where I'm sitting. I don't think anything less than 13" is suitable for work, and stuff in the 13"+ size is losing the thin and light profile that currently defines the tablet market. I'd love to be proven wrong.

RE: Who are these tablets for?
By jimbojimbo on 10/11/2012 4:44:44 PM , Rating: 2
Your comparison is poor. You say you like the iPad because
It's got instant startup
then you state that the boot up for the laptop is acceptable. Shut down your iPad all the way and then turn it on and you'll see it's NOT instant. Put your laptop in standby and start it up and it'll be a bit slower starting back up but a full OS's standby is much more dormant than a tablet's standby.

As for work it really isn't the size necessarily. Full Windows8 tablets will have VGA ports so you can plug in a monitor and get a much bigger desktop to work with.

Personally I've been using a Note 10.1 since it came out and it's perfect. I use the hell out of Photoshop Touch and because it's so portable I can take it anywhere I know I'll have to wait and do my thing then. The SPen made it immediately more productive.

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Well duh



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My take on it...
By bill.rookard on 10/11/2012 12:57:09 PM , Rating: 2
Pricing will be critical. While you certainly can get a $300 laptop these days, generally, it's gonna suck pretty hard. It will work, but will be slow, clunky, and a mess. When you hit $600-700, they're generally much better (with notable exceptions). When you hit the $1000 mark, they're damn good (again though, with notable exceptions).

The market for the tablets though is markedly different. Yes, you can get a $100 tablet, but like the cheap laptop, yeah, it's gonna suck. The problem is that once you hit the $300-400 mark (iPad2), well, that's been defined as 'the best' (and the sales generally prove it). Unless you can beat it in every metric that counts, you have a very difficult time justifying a higher price for what winds up being a similar device.

So - with the iPad, a dozen or so hours of life, lots of apps, good screen, light, yes there are flaws in that it's a media consumption device and anything beyond basic productivity becomes difficult.

Compared to the specs I've seen though for the x86 Win8 tablets? Somewhat lower battery life, heavier, lots of apps (x86 compatibility FTW!), better productivity. But - at double (or more) the price.

Thus it appears they're aiming this at somewhat more professional users - but this ultimately is somewhat more of a niche market vs the consumer oriented tablet. I see this being great for IT guys who need to walk around and have great mobility for monitoring stuff and such, but if you can (for the vast majority of people) hit the huge consumer market square on in terms of price and usability (which the iPad has done) you'll sell a ton of devices.

When you can almost buy a somewhat decent laptop AND an iPad for what what they're looking to charge for just a straight medium spec x86 tablet, there's definitely a pricing issue. Yes it would combine both devices in one, but a tablet STILL isn't as good as a full blown notebook/desktop for productivity.

In that vein, a big question becomes: what of AMD? They generally provide a solid chip, albeit at a slight power penalty (their revised Z60 seems to be a contender though) at a much lower price. While Intel offers their Atom chips (which are blown away by the AMD Bobcat cores) they're pricey - especially for their premium binned ULV parts. Meanwhile if Hondo (AMD's Z60) offers 'close enough' power usage with much better performance at a MUCH lower price, well, I think tablet makers would be foolish not to consider it if it can reduce their BOM while offering enough performance.

They need to face facts: The market is VERY sensitive to pricing right now, and Apple has a huge advantage on that for one big reason: vertical integration. They make their own chips (well outsource the fab but it's their design). Their own OS. Their own app-store. All profits remain in-house for the most part and they can discount as they like. The rest of the companies are integrators - chips from AMD/Intel, parts from all over, OS from MS - and all the associated markups that come with it for those individual companies to profit. The net result is more fingers in the pie, and a higher price for the x86 tablets.

RE: My take on it...
By GeorgeOu on 10/23/2012 5:03:52 AM , Rating: 2

No. The Acer W510 with Win8 and Clover Trail is $499. Not double the price of the iPad.


Missed point


By BillyBatson on 10/11/2012 3:02:58 PM , Rating: 2
I will never buy a windowsRT tablet unless it is ~$200
I will most likely be buying a Coreix win8 tablet or ultrabook early next year once here are enough models to compare

I don't quite agree.
By Visual on 10/12/2012 5:59:31 AM , Rating: 2
I am prepared to pay more than for competing "tablets" that only run phone-grade apps in order to get a real computer. And I think a lot of people are too.

Granted, IVB tablets are not for everyone. A big majority only want to run a webbrowser and a video player. But there are also those of us that would appreciate being able to run any windows game too, or running a drawing or image processing app with a real wacom pressure-sensitive pen, or cad/cam software and so on.

And even between those that just want to use a browser and a video player, there are people willing to pay for a screen resolution that will fit a website unscaled in portrait orientation, or fit a fullhd video.

Just like in laptops there is a range of prices from under $500 to $5000, you can expect there to be various specced tablets at various prices.

Yes, the lower-end devices with unusable resolution, Atom or especially ARM CPUs and lacking an active digitizer should really be much cheaper than they are announced now. Not that I'd want to buy one even if they were, I want a real computer. But that's probably where the big sales volume is going to be.

In the higher end of the spectrum, the prices are more reasonable. I think that the expected $1100 price point for the Ativ Pro (and Surface Pro, if it weren't being delayed 3 months for no good reason) is a good price, especially if it includes the dock. Similar specced convertibles were upwards of $2000 a generation ago, and I was even willing to pay it for a T901 with dedicated graphics... turned out Fujitsu didn't want to sell that outside of USA. I also payed $1100 a year before that for a tm2 with a really terrible screen. So I expect the Ativ Pro will be quite a big success among people that actually want a computer as opposed to an oversized phone.

Hell, even today's convertible prices aren't much lower. Thank God Lenovo came to its senses and lowered their x230t... But Fujitsu is still pricing its T902 at the same 2k. Probably just to make the bunch of outdated last-gen hardware it also sells, or maybe the Q702, seem more appealing... That Q702 btw is pretty much what the Surface or Ativ Pro are gonna be, just with Windows 7 (but you get 8 free when it launches if you buy a pc with 7 now anyway) and a crappier resolution. And its price ranges quite wildly, from 1k without dock to 1.7k
You can see why I am excited by the Ativ Pro now, I guess.

Wrong analysts, as usual

- built-in keyboard
- usb peripherals
- word, excel, powerpoint

And here are the downsides versus the ipad :
- less apps at launch





Tablet prices


