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Tablets

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Scott_AW

With the iPad making depute, I'm sure a lot of you are excited to develop on a tablet system.  I personally don't think the future of the current generation of iPads is too rosey though.  There's a number of issues, lack of camera and any kind of usb or card reading input.  Content is controlled through app stores and that can be swing or miss to get something in there.

Of course there's competition raising, currently I heard of the JooJoo, which is about a $100usd cheaper then the iPad and has various inputs that the iPad lacks.  However its has a special browser based OS so I'm not sure if glbasic can do anything for it.  If its based off linux, maybe but glb's staff would know better than I.

Now HP has there own tablet coming out soon, running off Windows 7 with a decent amount of features, camera, and inputs.  I can see a lot of nice possibilities for this, cost $50usd less than the cheapest iPad.  Now with a window's based tablet you can do a lot more, with lots of other libraries and engines already working for windows.  One thing I find most appealing is that the Slate is running of an Intel Atom, and has comparable specs to the netbooks I use in my developments.

As far as I know, all three of these have accelerometer's.

There's is another low-cost tablet pc that's more of detachable netbook, which tablets are just netbook's with touchscreens and no keyboards.

This in mind, I would be thinking that HP could probably sell their tablet cheaper, I'm sure its base cost is less than that of the iPad, which I think is like ~280usd to build.  I assume that the Slate probably cost less  than 200 to produce, as that's the value of the cheapest comparable netbook, so HP may have a nicer profit margin than Apple.

Just some food for thought.
Current Project, Orbital Contract Defense
http://gamejolt.com/games/adventure/code-name-ocd/9887/

BlackShadow now open source/resource(requires duke3d)
http://gamejolt.com/games/adventure/black-shadow-3d/9885/

Kuron

Although tablets have been around for many years, I am glad to see them making a comeback.  With the advances in processors like the Atom and improved ARMs, you can finally get decent battery life and still have good performance. 

IMHO one of the best tablets will be the Eee Pad.  ASUS is good at making things of quality and keeping it affordable.  A couple of weeks ago, ASUS announced there would be an ARM based Eee Pad running Chrome or Android and there will be a Windows based Eee Pad which "may" be using an Atom.  ASUS has previously said the prices should be around $500.

Freescale has a nice ARM based tablet in the works that can run Linux, Chrome or Android and is expected to cost $200.

I think the Archos 7 Tablet (due to hit soon) also has a lot of potential based on how good the Archos 5 was.  I think the 7 is supposed to be around $250.

Tablet PCs have certainly progressed since the first one I had back in the early 70s.

QuoteAs far as I know, all three of these have accelerometer's.
OT, but I built a small accelerometer/gyroscope device that plugs into a USB slot on me Eee and it works great with GLB.  I made this for my own use for my games.  I am building one for a friend for his Wiz, although he doesn't use GLB, it should work with GLB on the Wiz since I recently found out GLB can use static libs.

Kuron

Newton was doomed to fail.  Apple had what could have been a very good platform, but they never finished the developer tool (Dylan) and with no developers to support it, it faltered.  By the time Apple got their head out of their bottom and came out with NewtonScript (actually quite good, even had a GC IIRC) no developer would touch it.  Jobs seems to have learned from Sculley's mistake.

Scott_AW

Didn't hear about the Archos series before.  I knew there are a few tablets running arms that are pretty cheap too.  However I still like the idea of them using ATOM processors instead of ARMs due to the limits the latter has.  I know Asus is one of the more reliable brands, but I'm wondering about charging 500 for a device that runs an ARM instead of an x86 chip.  Power consumption I'm sure comes to mind.

There's another tablet I saw, but forgot the name that was going for about $300usd, but it was more like a netbook with detachable screen that contained all the goodies, the keyboard acting like a dock.

Reguarding iPad, I've seen that they were pretty quick to pop out a keyboard dock of their own, but its pretty much an overpriced keyboard with no usb ports or anything special.  At $70usd its kind of rip-off since you would be forced to get only that type of keyboard.

Now I don't want to come off as an apple basher, but it seems like they may Newton their iPad with their old habits of in-house-only development.  At least (for now) they've been more open about allowing third party software development.

Another thing I'd like to see soon is those nifty color e-ink display's I've heard about, and possibly tablets using OLED non-glare screens, I've kind of gotten hooked on them.
Current Project, Orbital Contract Defense
http://gamejolt.com/games/adventure/code-name-ocd/9887/

BlackShadow now open source/resource(requires duke3d)
http://gamejolt.com/games/adventure/black-shadow-3d/9885/

Kuron

#4
Scott_AW:  I have been very impressed by the Atom.  My main dev machine is an Acer AspireRevo nettop with an Atom and an Ion in it.  Awesome system for $200,  The only thing I added was a 2GB stick to it.

Scott_AW

I used to use an Acer Aspire Netbook myself.  Now I've moved on to an MSI Wind Netbook.  The acer was an 8.9" display, reflective, the MSI has a nicer, 10" LED lit non-glare screen.  Aside from screen size and a few minor things, they're about the same.  Maybe the MSI is faster with a more updated Atom and intel GMA.

Those Revo's are pretty neat, essentially the same thing as the Netbook, but the ION is nice addition.  Also nice that you can attach them to some LCD displays.
Current Project, Orbital Contract Defense
http://gamejolt.com/games/adventure/code-name-ocd/9887/

BlackShadow now open source/resource(requires duke3d)
http://gamejolt.com/games/adventure/black-shadow-3d/9885/

Kuron

Quote from: Scott_AW on 2010-Apr-12Those Revo's are pretty neat, essentially the same thing as the Netbook, but the ION is nice addition.  Also nice that you can attach them to some LCD displays.
ASUS makes some nice Atom based AIOs, but I don't like having the monitor built in.  The Atom has hyperthreading, which plays nice when using threads in GLB ;)

Wampus

With accelerometers and resolutions of 1024x600 or 1024x768 on the upcoming PC tablets I guess anything developed for them would work just as well on the new iPad.

I have an Asus Eee 901 myself and I love it. The Ion sounds cool...but I can't see much point of boosting the processing & graphics power of netbooks. I can buy a laptop for that. For netbooks I'd be more interested in extending the battery life, making them tougher and reducing the weight.

Kuron

#8
Quote from: Ragaril on 2010-Apr-14I have an Asus Eee 901 myself and I love it. The Ion sounds cool...but I can't see much point of boosting the processing & graphics power of netbooks. I can buy a laptop for that.
Many folks use their netbook for internet access.  With the internet being what it is, it is very hard to use the more popular internet sites unless you have a decent graphics card/chip.  Even on my net system, Youtube vids crawl on my GeForce4 MX 4000, but fly if I swap in a better GFX card.  Also, you need to remember that OSes have changed and Vista and 7 (which is popular for netbooks) are GPU dependent for everything being displayed.  This is why Ions which were first appearing in Nettops (often used as whiteboxes) have started moving to Netbooks.  Ions are also great at power consumption.  Of course we could get rid of flash, and then we could go back to surfing the web at blazing speeds using Lynx with a dial-up connection using Kermit protocol. =D

Scott_AW

Netbook's may not be powerhouses, but they handle pretty well.  Their low-cost, which is decreasing as models are ranging from $200-260 at the lowest for new units.  With the low price it can grab a larger audience and open doors for less developed nations. 

I see a lot of benefit with netbooks and tablets being made with the Atom since it will provide a pretty good standard.  Although personally I would like to see AMD come out with Netbook worthy CPUs soon if they haven't started already.  I've always preferred AMD over Intel since they have less shady practices in their history with chips.

Kind of interested in ARM still, I would like to play around with Android and CE based OS systems.  ARM units I believe are cheaper than the ATOM, but with several drawbacks.
Current Project, Orbital Contract Defense
http://gamejolt.com/games/adventure/code-name-ocd/9887/

BlackShadow now open source/resource(requires duke3d)
http://gamejolt.com/games/adventure/black-shadow-3d/9885/

Scott_AW

Since you bring it up, I found this really good article on the upcoming choices.

Including details about the $35 india tablet and the possibly $75 OLED based tablet.

http://technologizer.com/2010/08/12/ipad-alternatives/
Current Project, Orbital Contract Defense
http://gamejolt.com/games/adventure/code-name-ocd/9887/

BlackShadow now open source/resource(requires duke3d)
http://gamejolt.com/games/adventure/black-shadow-3d/9885/

MrTAToad

Gernot might have to hurry up and get multiple mice on Windows 7 running :)