Windows 8 Tablet owners

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Lounge' started by MicroByte, Nov 8, 2013.

  1. MicroByte

    MicroByte Well-Known Member

    Figured I'd give this a shot to see if there were any other Touch Arcader's that are also Windows Tablet owners. I was a big iOS fan for the longest time, but when Windows 8 devices started coming out, I started to get interested in them more. The RT was not for me, I wanted something with full x86 compatibility, but those tablets are not cheap.

    However, it's been a year since Windows 8 was released. With that brings more options, especially now that Intel released their Bay Trail processor designed specifically for tablet use. These offer more power, but great battery life and can be found in some new Dell, ASUS and Toshiba products.

    I was initially interested in the Dell Venue 8 Pro given my love for the iPad Mini. However, with the mini, my biggest things was that I wished it would do more. A bluetooth keyboard helped, but it's not the same and still felt limited.

    Ultimately, I decided on the Asus T100. It's a full windows 10.1" tablet with full x86 compatibility, plus comes with a decent sized keyboard and touchpad. It's priced at $400 and has been well worth the cost so far. I love that I can have a small netbook/notebook setup and just pop it out for a full tablet experience whenever I want.

    I admit, I bought it more for the gaming aspect. iOS used to be exciting, but new releases just don't seem to appeal to me. Couple that with all of the Free to Play and IAP and it becomes old fast.

    With the T100, I installed Steam and have been playing some older PC games using the 360 controller like Halo, Half-Life 2 as well as some newer games like Torchlight II and Minecraft. In case you are wondering about game performance, it's impressive considering the price and size of the device. Here are some links to some videos of game play on it:

    http://www.youtube.com/user/th3drow/videos
    http://www.youtube.com/user/BrueComputing/videos

    Android is an alternative, but wasn't for me. I owned 2 android devices, one being the Shield, and it just felt too close to iOS with less polish.

    I guess I started this thread for a couple of reasons. One was to see if there were any other T100 or Windows Tab users on TA and another to offer a perspective from someone who used to love iOS, but is burned out with it.
     
  2. expleo

    expleo Well-Known Member

    Jul 23, 2012
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    Computer Guy
    Norway
    well, i love my pad, but I also love my new surface pro 2 (ironicaly enough the devicve I now use to finalise an ipad game im developing)

    appstore has far wider range of apps, but on my surface I can now code as well as play tjose gog games and other non ios titles ftl, dungeons of dreadmore, old time rpgs etc etc.

    with hdmi conectors, keypad etc, the price got a bit steep (could have picked up a new macboc air instead), but hey hey.. i just love the way tech has moved since my first 286 'ibm compatible" computer with 20mb harddrive. (and my first 48k sinclair spectrum :)
     
  3. MicroByte

    MicroByte Well-Known Member

    I was dying to get a Surface Pro for the longest time, but they are pricey. Even with the price drop, they were still $600 - $700 and battery life was pretty bad. The Pro 2 came out and looked amazing, but still had a very high price point. Then came the Asus T100 and it was perfect. Compromise on the power, but also compromise on the price.

    Curious, what are you using to develop iOS games with on your Surface? Are you writing in C# and then porting to OSX?
     
  4. expleo

    expleo Well-Known Member

    Jul 23, 2012
    159
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    Computer Guy
    Norway
    yes, its a pricy beast. just perfect for me though, but I can understand many people prefering a pure tab and a laptop. but for my habits, its super :) ipad for evning surfing, mac mini for mac stuff, and a pc workhorse, + my new toy on the go, surface.

    actualy I code in c++ (must be built on mac though), other options I can think of would be to hire apple in the cloud and work online, or perhaps sdk such as corona could be used ( code on pc build on mac). but i have not tried that
     
  5. iPadisGreat

    iPadisGreat Well-Known Member

    Dec 10, 2012
    2,391
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    I have an Asus Vivotab Smart LTE, running Windows 8. Unstable piece of crap that has problemsmupdating both the official Microsoft patches and the Asus patches. The LTE is extremely flakey and only works intermittently randomly.

    If I did not need a portable Windows box at that point in time, I would never have bought it. Gathering dust now...
     

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