More iPad alternatives

the iPad is out and it seems that it is very popular as it sold over 300000 units in its opening weekend. I have been talking about alternatives to the iPad already here, but every day I come across more and more of them.

So here are a few more.

It seems that the windows versions are getting more attractive. Not only that they are running windows 7 (which just sold more than 100 million licenses a couple of days ago), but they also support multitouch, flash and everything else that windows supports out of the box.

GBook tablet

1.2GHz Intel ULV SU2300 processor with integrated Intel graphics and 2GB of RAM – it looks like you can put a 2.5 inch HDD or SSD in it for storage. it will run win 7 and the multitouch panel supports up to 10 touchpoints – no word on price or release date yet, but definitely an option to keep your eye on

Should I buy an iPad?

The hype about the iPad has been huge and Apple sold 300 000 devices on opening day and over 1 million applications have been downloaded already.

Even Amnesia jumped on the band wagon and we are having an internal competition and the first price is an iPad.

So let’s say I won’t be the lucky one winning the iPad, should I go out and buy one anyways?

if you read this blog on a regular basis you will know that I  like to look at some things from the funny angle, but at least you know now that the iPad is blendable and it is powered by an iPhone. 🙂

I found a few more options and posted them here

We all know that the iPad is not the first tablet on the market and there have been alternatives around for some time now.

take the Modbook for example

you provide the unibody macbook to this company and for US$900 they will turn your 2500 dollar macbook into a tablet that runs full OSX with flash and multi-tasking support.

 

and then there is the Viliv X70 which has been around for over a year now

 

it runs WindowsXP, has GPS, USB, SD card slot and 3G

 

but if those devices would be the only alternatives I wouldn’t think twice and go straight with the iPad

Fortunately new devices are basically introduced every day so there are more options.

 

so it looks like that all different Operating systems will have tablets coming out to I will show alternatives based on that.

Steve Balmer showed the HP Slate off and I was excited to see it and couldn’t wait to know more about it

so finally there are more details available and on paper it has some advantages over the iPad:

1.6Ghz CPU, 1080p playback, card reader, USB port, 2 cameras, supports flash and multi-tasking

another windows alternative would be the Archos 9 PC tablet

 

Next on the list is Linux and this time the tablet is coming out of Germany and is called WePad (how innovative)

coming out of Germany it should be a nice piece of equipment and it has again a few things to offer that the iPad can’t match

larger screen, 2 USB ports, supports all ebook formats, flash support, access to the Android market place

UPDATE: the makers of the WePad announced its availability in August this year with 2 different versions: 16GB version for Euro 450 and a 64GB version that is capable of full HD for Euro 569

Speaking of Android my next choice is probably my favourite – ICDs Gemini

as i said it is running Android OS, has a 11 inch screen which can be resistive or capacitive, a 5 axis accelerometer, card reader, voice calls, SMS, MMS, Wireless N, FM radio, IR, USB port, 2 cameras, GPS, dual speakers and microphones, HD video. email support and flash support

unfortunately there is no release date or price yet, but this little gem looks pretty awesome – there is a great comparison on engadget here

another Android alternative that has been talked about is the Notion Ink Adam

 

Then there is the browser based OS tablet that was born out of controvercy called JooJoo

it has a bigger screen, 1 GB of Ram, USB port, flash support and camera, but everything else I read about it didn’t convince me at all – it seems to have early release issues, but hopefully they will be solved with software updates

 

There are plenty of rumours about Chrome tablets that are coming out – supposedly Google and HTC are working on a tablet based on Chromium

all you can really find online are concepts by Google so there are no hardware specs or release dates or prizes

UPDATE: Google CEO Eric Schmidt has confirmed that his company is developing a tablet device based on the Android operating system. The New York Times reports that Google has “been working with several hardware manufacturers,” and “hopes to make its own apps marketplace available for new slate-like devices.” reported on mashable

So if I have to sum it up, there are plenty of alternatives to the iPad. For me the ICD Gemini is my favourite at the moment and I would love to get my hands on one to really give it a test drive (ICD if you are reading this, please send one my way)

 

But of course this is just my opinion and everybody should make up their own mind. I would love to read your opinions so please leave them in the comments below.

@maniac13

The future of the multi touch interface

Everywhere you go now you see touch interfaces, phones with touch screens, computers based on touch screens, maps in shopping centres are touchscreens and Windows 7 will support multi-touch.

Something we saw in Minority report would give you aching arms after a while and a tablet would just destroy your neck.

So the guys at 10/GUI came up with their own version of the future of Multi-touch and I think it is rather nice. It will take a while to get used to but so did the mouse when it first got introduced.

check out the video:

  Here is the site

Windows 7 and Twitter a/c for @MicrosoftHelps

A big couple of days for Microsoft as they launch Windows 7. Below are links to the launch in New York and link to the You Tube channel for Microsoft Australia ads where Amnesia Razorfish helped run the social efforts. Well done to the guys locally for a massive effort yesterday.  We love the new operating system and have glowing reviews from the staff on Windows 7 already.

New York

Australia TVC’s

@MicrosoftHelps twitter account

Build your own Mini surface

i was doing some research today about Multitouch on Windows 7 and I came across this article here on how to Emulate a multi-touch device for Windows 7.

All you need is a webcam, a cardboard box, some tracing paper and a photo frame.

I thought, surely we have all that in the office somewhere. After a short stroll around the office I was able to gather all of the above and within 1 hour we had it all up and running.

and it works

So I wanted to thank Szymon Kobalczyk for his blogpost and for making my Friday a little bit more exciting.

Now I am even more excited about all the stuff we will be able to do with Windows 7.

Windows XP Mode for Windows 7

Windows XP Mode dramatically changes the compatibility story for Windows 7 and, we believe, has serious implications for Windows development going forward. It is a host-based virtualization solution like Virtual PC.

XP Mode consists of the Virtual PC-based virtual environment and a fully licensed copy of Windows XP with Service Pack 3 (SP3). It will be made available, for free, to users of Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions via a download from the Microsoft web site.

XPM does not require you to run the virtual environment as a separate Windows desktop. Instead, as you install applications inside the virtual XP environment, they are published to the host (Windows 7) OS as well. (With shortcuts placed in the Start Menu.) That way, users can run Windows XP-based applications (like IE 6) alongside Windows 7 applications under a single desktop.

I remember the days when I cursed MS for not being compatible with my beloved XP programs. This way it might just work from the start 🙂

found here.

Windows 7 fight Vista and XP

As I stated in my previous post here, Win 7 seems to be more stable and faster than Vista.

I now found this very in depths article on infoworld that is taking it to the next level of testing for Multicore systems.

According to the article, Microsoft’s new OS has a clear multicore scalability advantage over both Windows XP and Windows Vista, especially on less I/O-bound tasks like our multiprocess database workload.

In the meantime, you certainly won’t lose anything by moving from Vista to Windows 7, and you may even gain a few seconds here and there, thanks to its better kernel tuning.

Like Vista, Windows 7 chews up a lot more CPU cycles per transaction loop than XP. It also uses more RAM than XP when it just sits there waiting for something to happen, but honestly, these days RAM is so cheap and most machines come with 4GB anyway.

I still stick to testing it a bit more – my experience so far is definitely positive (might be because I am on Vista) but if you want to read the full article, click here.

My Windows 7 experience

I installed a pre-beta of Windows 7 a while back in a Virtual machine and back then I already had the impression of it being more stable and faster then my host environment.

now I recently got my laptop back which had some issues with its display and needed repair and I decided to install Windows 7 on it to give it a bit of a closer look.

Here I will be talking about Installation, User Experience, things I like and things I don’t like.

Windows 7 – Tips and Tricks

I have been playing with Windows 7 since it was Pre Beta and every time I play with it I am impressed.

For example I ran the pre-beta in a virtual machine on my Vista PC and it ran faster and more stable than my Vista computer – go figure.

Anyway one of my developers found a blog post of Tim Sneath who is talking about Windows 7 Secrets.

You can check it out here but I wanted to share my favorites with you.

The Problem Steps Recorder

As a System Admin I always run into the issue that when somebody come to me with a problem that they can’t explain to me how to replicate it.

The Problem Steps Recorder provides a simple screen capture tool that enables you to record a series of actions. Once you hit “record”, it tracks your mouse and keyboard and captures screenshots with any comments you choose to associate alongside them. Once you stop recording, it saves the whole thing to a ZIP file, containing an HTML-based “slide show” of the steps.

This will make my life a lot easier 🙂

Specialized Windows Switching

Another feature that power users will love is the ability to do a kind of “Alt+Tab” switching across windows that belong to just one application. For example, if you’ve got five Outlook message windows open along with ten other windows, you can quickly tab through just the Outlook windows by holding down the Ctrl key while you repeatedly click on the single Outlook icon. This will toggle through each of the five Outlook windows in order, and is way faster than opening Alt+Tab and trying to figure out which of the tiny thumbnail images relates to the specific message you’re trying to find.

ISO Burning

Windows is finally able  to burn .iso images straight out of the box – you can double-click on any DVD or CD .ISO image and you’ll see a helpful little applet that will enable you to burn the image to a blank disc.

 

there are heaps of other pretty cool tips – so check it out here.

I personally can’t wait for the final release.