Not without your iPhone being on the same wifi network.
Not exactly the same thing and even if it could make calls, it just ends up being "little more than a giant iPhone" still not anywhere near as productive as it can be. A for effort though.
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Microsoft Announces Intel Atom-Based Surface 3 With Windows 8.1 for $499
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Not without your iPhone being on the same wifi network.
Not exactly the same thing and even if it could make calls, it just ends up being "little more than a giant iPhone" still not anywhere near as productive as it can be. A for effort though.
The noise is starting to get to me, too. The fans are still pretty quiet (though not as quiet as they used to be), but I think one of them has a worn ball bearing or something. For the last couple of months, it'll randomly start making this "eeeeeee" noise for a few seconds. It's kind of annoying.
One computer I was deeply considering was the new Alienware Alpha. I normally don't like Dell all that much, and Alienware computers tend to look...yeah, there's no better way to put it...really stupid. But the Alpha is pretty minimalist and sleek considering the brand, and it's packs a big punch for such a tiny computer. It's a little bigger than a Nintendo Wii, uses a desktop CPU, has user serviceable ram and drives, and, from what I hear, it's dead quiet
The only thing that kept me from taking the plunge is that Dell screwed around with the Geforce GPU too much, and now it won't take Nvidia reference drivers. You have to wait for Dell to release driver updates themselves. This might not be a problem for some, but I took issue with it because I don't want to be stuck with something that doesn't have any software support if Dell loses interest in it.
Starting at only 499 pounds and Windows 8(not the RT Crap) that is a very good deal! 
The Surface 3 beats the Ipad in every single category.
I bet since Microsoft announced the Surface 3 now there will be a lot more people buying a lot lot more Windows 8 tablets like the Surface 3 than Ipads.
I think Surface 3 is great and i can't wait to try this out when it comes out in stores.
And i am happy they reintroduced the 10 inch model back because the 12 inch Surface Pro is too big for me and not that portable.
I really like what Microsoft are doing to there Surface(and Pro) line up and it is getting better in every generation and it is more attractive and more appealing than the Ipad and i am glad Microsoft ditched Windows RT because it did not make sense and it did not ran the desktop programs.
And with that said i can definitely seeing me buying and using a Windows Surface(or Pro) tablet in the future and it might be my next Windows 8 tablet who knows.
The Surface 3 beats the Ipad in every single category.
I bet since Microsoft announced the Surface 3 now there will be a lot more people buying a lot lot more Windows 8 tablets like the Surface 3 than Ipads.
I think Surface 3 is great and i can't wait to try this out when it comes out in stores.
And i am happy they reintroduced the 10 inch model back because the 12 inch Surface Pro is too big for me and not that portable.
I really like what Microsoft are doing to there Surface(and Pro) line up and it is getting better in every generation and it is more attractive and more appealing than the Ipad and i am glad Microsoft ditched Windows RT because it did not make sense and it did not ran the desktop programs.
And with that said i can definitely seeing me buying and using a Windows Surface(or Pro) tablet in the future and it might be my next Windows 8 tablet who knows.
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I'm not looking for excuses to defend Apple's insufficient Office apps, I was addressing the statement that was made that "Apple is miles ahead in the software department", which just isn't true. Working in the IT field for many years, I just don't EVER see anyone on a Mac using iWork. Period.
I am actually worried about that part the most.
Everyone is expecting Win10 to be better that 8.1 in every way, but from what I can see in the tech preview so far the tablet mode is nowhere near as good as it is in 8.1 .. which doesn't bond well for machines such as this one.
I really don't know what MS are doing.. trying to cover the desktop and the tablet UX in one product is a tall order, and they almost had it down with 8.1 .. they just needed to give us an option to turn off the tablet mode whenever needed.
So I am hoping that they can fix the tablet mode in Windows 10 before they roll out the free upgrade from 8.1 for the Surface line... otherwise there will be a lot of unhappy peeps out there.. once again..
A better question to you is, have you used any of the latest generation Atom's? They're actually quite fast when combined with SSD storage in a device. Last gen Dell Venue 11's perform great using the Atom. Office apps, games such as Minecraft work fine, and from what I hear, the newest gen Atom chips are even faster.
It's a new processor, so it can't be THAT bad. Must at least be useable. But this thing doesn't seem very fast for the price. That is, it's low price but even lower performance.
Neither a decent tablet nor a decent notebook IMO, but they are persisting. Apparently analysists are claiming they will in time capture a fair chunk of the tablet market, which really shows you that people are not so smart and junk sells if you advertise enough.
How do you know this? Quad core up to 2.4Ghz isn't fast enough for you? Have you used a device with SSD storage and this new Atom chip already so you know what you're talking about?
I didn't think so. Maybe you should actually USE a device before having an opinion?
It's an impressive price, but it looks incredibly chunky compared to an iPad.
Mostly, though, I won't even use Windows 8 on a full-power workstation--why would I enjoy it any more on a tablet? I'm sure some people like that OS, but I have never personally met one of them--the amount of unbridled hate for it by its own users surpasses even Vista. Heck, my entire University's IT department has said a flat-out "no" to Win8.
Mostly, though, I won't even use Windows 8 on a full-power workstation--why would I enjoy it any more on a tablet? I'm sure some people like that OS, but I have never personally met one of them--the amount of unbridled hate for it by its own users surpasses even Vista. Heck, my entire University's IT department has said a flat-out "no" to Win8.
To be fair, on a touch device, it isn't nearly as bad as on a desktop.
However, the pure schizophrenic nature of the UI still makes it cumbersome to use at times.
the biggest issue is the confusion over configurations. Metro has one set of configurations, Control panel has a completely different set of configuration.
it FEELS like two OS's that are grafted together, rather than one OS that works seamlessly.
however "unbridled hate"? usually only people who repeat such nonsense haven't used it themselves. For the most part, on the desktop, you're in your standard windows desktop 95% of the time. which operates exactly like any previous windows version.
In terms of what I quoted, this offers professional users no added productivity over an iPad other than screen size.
The target market is the same regardless of it running 'windows' apps. Its not like you are going to be running pivot tables on a 1 million row Excel file on this thing.
Atom processors in the past have been below i3, i5, and i7 in benchmarks. Obvious because it's their low-end processor. You can buy laptops with a non-Atom processor for around that price. There's no opinion at play here; there will be comparably priced laptops that will simply have better specs unless there's a sudden change.
Also, the clock speed doesn't help with comparison to other CPUs at all.
I hear ya, you have different needs than I do. Personally the only reason I keep my desktop is because I'm an occasional closet PC gamer, otherwise I see no reason to keep that dinosaur around. If I have to do extended typing I dock my SP3 and have a full size monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. Then I can just undock it and carry it anywhere. That is truly powerful IMO rather than limiting myself to something as primitive as the ipad.
I kind of agree with you, but I think the stage we are at is having one computer for everything in your smartphone. smartphones will be powerful enough to be docked and used as full desktops, and there will be interesting things done with foldable screens. Tablets are a temporary stepping stone to this realization IMO.
Either you want to load very heavy programs or a million chrome tabs or this is BS .
Bedcause for what you woudl normaly use this 2GB certainly 4GB is more then enough.
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No? Its fully windows 8.1 that means all the advantages for any company or user. Aka this is a normal PC that can be normally integrated in the network. Unlike an ipad.
And about 0,0001% of professional user do this. Pointless. office, exchange intranet,... all runs perfectly on these without any compatibility issues.
Add to that all the group policys ,security,...
You're kidding, right? There are so many more things you can do with Windows and Windows apps that you cannot do on an iPad (easily or at all) using iPad apps. Printing is a good example. Connecting to an office network and server shares is another. Being able to run the same apps on your mobile tablet that you run on your desktop PC...that's kind of handy.
Not sure what you think "professional users" do but they don't do it on iPads.
Well this new Surface 3 is exactly the kind of device I always wanted the iPad to be. I will finally have a tablet that runs true desktop apps. Looks like back to Windows for me.
yeah this is scary, the tablet mode in Windows 10 is complete junk, and this is from a MS fanboy who absolutely loves Win8.1. It's still early in the tech preview so hopefully MS adds some stuff back into the tablet side of Win10. The way I see it is worst case scenario I stay with Win8.1, it's still a fabulous OS for tablets.
I hope you don't take this the wrong way Henry, but most of the time it's not what you say, but how you say it. There's nothing wrong with not liking MS. It's a personal preference. We all get that you're an Apple fan. It just seems that you take any criticism of Apple, or support for another vendor as a personal affront against either you, Apple, or both. It is possible to like Apple AND not like everything about Apple. It's also possible to like another vendor's product better than an Apple product and still like Apple. It's not an either or proposition. You may feel that way as well, but your writing sometimes comes across with a tone of "with us or against us"; any criticism gets labeled under "hater".
Just my .02