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Dell hybrid XPS 18?
http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-18-1810/pd
I am in the market for a tablet. I might be moving to a place where I would probably spend more time outdoors. Screen space is most important. It's mainly for Hearthstone and web surfing. Possibly casual games. Don't want to sacrifice everything for just to get the cheapest largest screen i can. Under $1,000 is preferred. I'll have a couple $100 of wiggle room if cost can be justified. $1500 is absolutely the line that can not be crossed. Uncomfortable but it's why I am looking now so I can just think on it. I won't be buying until early-mid August.
I've never owned a tablet or smartphone. Given that Android has been in the mobile market for a lot longer does it have more mobile games than say Windows 8.1? I assume windows 8 would be the way to go though? More stuff just works?
Sony has their version
Will an I5 make a huge difference over an I3 in one of these tablets or should I be looking for one with an AMD chip for integrated graphics? I do have my current pc which I may or may not get rid of that I got help with on here. Just a general reminder. I5 4670k GTX 770.
I've paid attention to the posts that come up here often but I know stuff changes so fast. Just for anyone willing asking for all my options if anyone might be willing. Thank You in advance.
Comments
Screw Intel for Tablets. You get some good news with power, but a lot of bad news with graphics performance. I think the MSI W20 $549.99 is the best tablet you can get right now.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152501
Still that big of a difference in integrated graphics? Rather not go below 15 inchs but I don't want a laptop. Being able to dock is fine. I am not on the move a lot. Lounging outside or something like that. Not hiking everywhere with it.
EDIT to add. I was actually looking for MSI but I haven't been able to Google anything larger than the average tablets for them. and Thank you.
You should start by picking which operating system you want: Windows 8, Android, or iOS. I'm not aware of any big Android or iOS tablets, though. Actually, with iOS, I know that they don't exist, but I'm not sure about Android.
The Dell tablet you link is Ivy Bridge, which means high idle power consumption, low battery life, and for that matter, high power consumption period. That also means it needs to be thick and heavy in order to be able to cool it so that it doesn't promptly fry or throttle back severely if you play games on it. And the battery life under gaming loads is going to be very, very short.
If you want a Windows tablet, there are four choices for internal hardware that aren't trivially stupid: AMD Mullins (ideally A10-micro 6700T), AMD Temash (e.g., A4-1200), Intel Bay Trail (e.g., Intel Atom Z3770), or Intel Haswell. And Intel Haswell is pretty close to being trivially stupid in a tablet because 15 W is an awful lot for a tablet; the rest of the options listed have at least one option under 5 W.
You should strongly prefer AMD Mullins over AMD Temash. The problem is that there don't seem to be any Mullins tablets available just yet. Laptops based on the chip have been out for weeks, so tablets should show up any day now.
The choice between AMD Temash and Intel Bay Trail is basically one of AMD has better graphics and Intel a faster CPU. The Intel chip is 32-bit, which caps you at 2 GB of memory, and that will be a problem for some games--but such games might not run well on a tablet, anyway.
If you're willing to wait for Mullins tablets to show up and grab something with an A10-micro 6700T, then it's highly probable that that will be the best tablet chip at basically everything until its replacement comes in a year or so.
HP used to have a Temash-based detachable with a 13 inch screen (meaning, you can use it like a tablet, but it also comes with a keyboard that you can attach), but they've pulled it from their web site. I'm hoping that's because it sold out and they're going to replace it with a Mullins-based equivalent system shortly.
Have you considered Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro?
I got my wife an i3 version with Intel HD4400 and it's even capable of running GW2. The only downside is that it's somewhat thicker (and heavier) than normal tablet. Otherwise, it's a great piece of hardware.
Agreed performance may become an issue as more things come out. I do understand your issue with the screen but I would make sure you also consider beyond today as well.
With so much money I'm not willing to compromise so much with what's currently out, I guess. I saw the ASUS Transformer P1801 and thought it could be an option but then read that the 730m (which is probably junk anyway) is in the dock and not the tablet. So basically even if the Tegra 3 was ok. I am paying for hardware I don't want or need. So it's ruled out.
I don't really have a preference on operating system. Hearthstone and browsing. Hearthstone is suppose to be coming to Android. I really appreciate it the information. A little shocked that I decided I want something and there's actually nothing on the market that even says "Buy me." Usually I am a late adopter of everything. LMAO.
With such money I'll wait for something with a A10-micro 6700T to show up in a larger tablet / all-in-one as I really don't want to go under 15". If I find one with an AMD chip I'll bump this post in the future and ask about it. Just a little shocked that there's a void in the market.
I saw those and something like that would be fine but it looks like I want a AMD after what's been said.
EDIT: I'd like to clarify because I said earlier I didn't want a laptop. If it has a AMD chip that is acceptable and a touch screen that can face outwards which meets size requirements. I am ok with a laptop at this point (compromise). I really wasn't expecting the market to be void on anything I wanted. I am usually years late to the game when it comes to tech.
Definitely noted. Thank You
I'd submit that having a 15 W chip inside is an awfully large drawback in a tablet. That forces it to be thicker and heavier in order to not fry under load. Haswell rather than Ivy Bridge means you can get decent battery life at idle, but you're still going to drain the battery in a hurry while gaming.
That's a Temash-based tablet. It is AMD, but it's last generation, so you'd much rather get Mullins if you can. The CPU cores and GPU are basically the same from Temash to Mullins, but the former had everything at a fixed clock speed, while the latter can use turbo aggressively as appropriate. Mullins is on a newer, better process node, too. The difference between having the CPU stuck at 1 GHz and having the option to turbo a single core as high as 2.2 GHz as appropriate is enormous.
That's a really weird device. It's basically two computers in the same box, as the CPU, GPU, and probably memory will be completely independent for the Android version from the Windows one.
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Intel's idea of what a good tablet chip ought to be is available in Bay Trail, but Intel's GPUs have historically been awful. They've been better of late, but still way behind AMD. Intel is still promising their next generation Cherry Trail later this year, but I don't particularly believe them.
AMD's idea of what a good tablet chip ought to be got delayed. They only have so many engineers available to work on stuff, and after making Jaguar cores, decided (sensibly, in my view) that it was more important to get the PS4 and Xbox One chips done right and delivered on time than to build a good tablet chip around them. So they built a bad tablet chip around them instead--which was still decent enough in severe budget laptops because the CPU cores and GPU were very good for that market segment. Building a good chip would have to wait a year, which is why Mullins devices are just now showing up.
Yep definitely going to wait. It's to small of a screen AND after reading up on the A 10 Micro 6700T you posted my mind is firm on it. I'll compromised from a tablet to a laptop if I must to meet screen size requirements with that chip. Just miffed about the void in the market. I figured there would be so many choices that I wouldn't be able to make up my mind. Go figure.
There's laptops already out with that chip? I haven't found anything.
My advice to you is to avoid dell like the plague. Their stuff is just not good.
Lenovo and Asus are far superior.
Since when is Tuesday a direction?
Yes, there are quite a few laptops out using that chip. Without looking too far:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834258986
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314561
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834317597
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834258777
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834258892
Those are all higher clocked, higher wattage laptop versions of the chip. A TDP of 15 W is no big deal in a laptop, so there's not much point in throttling the chip back to 4.5 W like AMD does with the tablet version. But it's exactly the same chip. A bunch of chips come back from Global Foundries, AMD tests them to see how fast they can run and be stable at which voltages, and then puts the chips into different bins intended to run at different clock speeds and be sold at different prices. That's why there are three different clock speeds among the five links above.
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The nice thing about desktops is that once the hardware you want is out, you can get a computer with the components you want. In a laptop, you have to wait for someone to assemble a laptop that at least gives you the configuration option that you want. In a tablet, you have to wait for someone to assemble the exact tablet that you want.
Guess that explains why I couldn't find anything. .......and with one post there goes my problem of not having anything to think about. I'll still wait for the tablets to show up. If the price gap is as huge as it looks like it could be, a laptop with a outward facing touchscreen might be the better option for me if I can find one that cheap. I got a decent budget but wow.
Man you are pure awesome. Thank You.
If you plan to use it only as a tablet, never with keyboard + mouse, I'd suggest getting the largest Android tablet you can find. Android and its programs and games are all designed to work with touch screen, whereas Windows games are usually designed for keyboard + mouse.
Personally I'd never switch from Windows to Android on my home PC, and would never switch from Android to Windows on my tablet. Using a program that's designed for the controller you have just feels so much better.
EDIT: Some large Android Tablets:
Lenovo's 19.5 inch N308: http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/desktops/essential/n-series/n308/#features
EDIT 3: I accidentally listed two "tablets" that require power cord. Deleted those from the list. Sorry
I know absolutely nothing about Tegra's. I've seen Quizzical post about them but I don't recall to much of it. I'd have to do some searching.
Tegra is not a problem. It's a lot slower than good Intel/AMD/Nvidia solutions built for Windows and desktop PCs, but Android is designed more towards mobile devices so that you'll never run into anything that would have high system requirements.
But there's a bit of a problem with that tablet, it's cheap and poorly done. Battery life is poor and the display is bad.
If you want Android, that's pretty much what you're looking for. That's why I said you need to start by picking which OS you want--but remember that that will dictate which software is available.
Tegra is Nvidia's version of ARM chips. They tend to run hotter than a lot of competitors, but we're talking a fraction of a watt here. That's a huge problem in cell phones, but not a problem in a 19" tablet.
Tegra 4 basically consists of, take 4 of last year's state of the art ARM Cortex A15 cores, add a GPU roughly equivalent to a high end GeForce 7000 series card from 2005, and combine them into an SoC that only uses a few watts. The only ARM cores better than last year's Cortex A15 cores are the Apple Cyclone cores in an iPad Air, though there will be Cortex A57 cores coming from a bunch of vendors soon. I wouldn't worry too much about that, though; Cortex A57 will be a huge deal in servers because it's 64-bit, but less so in the consumer space.
The GPU architecture, on the other hand, is rather dated, as it's DirectX 9.0c era stuff. But then, they're still making DirectX 9.0c games today even for Windows. And in Android or iOS, archaic GPU architectures are basically what you get. Nvidia and AMD are trying to move Android GPUs into the modern era, and both will have modern architectures in ARM SoCs available shortly. Imagination has a top end version of its GPU able to handle modern graphics APIs, and ARM has announced intentions of doing the same. Several years down the road, that might well matter--but you might have replaced the tablet by then, anyway.
I've never owned a smart phone before. My experience with Android is very limited. Like seriously limited. No preference here. I just assumed it would be smarter to go with Windows 8.1? I got my desktop for real gaming. Sitting pool-side browsing or playing something like Hearthstone is what I had in mind on this. Maybe a movie.
Edit: Windows 8.1 is my choice. Trying to future proof.
Ok I am doing another edit because I understand what Tegra is and that Tegra 5 comes out if not already out this year. I still think Windows 8.1 at this point.
I can and should put this on hold until the A 10 tablets are out. Hopefully it won't be long.
Sorry for asking this question, but are you certain it's wise to sit besides the pool holding in your hands a tablet that's 50cm wide and weights more than 2kg like that Dell XPS 18 does? If you're also planning to use it for gaming, then you'd need to hold all the weight with one hand to have the other hand free for reaching the center of the touch screen.
There's a reason why large tablets are so rare, usually people don't want to use anything that sized on their hands. With a laptop it works better because the keyboard can hold the screen in upright position. With a tablet you'll need to hold it in your hands, or have some kind of stand for it, or look down to your legs while using it.
Are you sure you wouldn't want either a small tablet that you can comfortably hold in your hands, or a laptop that has the keyboard part holding the screen up?
Personal pool not a resort or anything. Probably tables out there. Maybe even a bit of time on a sailboat. Just going to be outside a lot, Florida. Just not on the move and don't want to be constantly confined to my desktop for casual stuff like hearthstone or browsing ect indoors. I don't splurge on stuff like this much. Came across spare money and thought about it for awhile and figured "Fuck it why not." No worries about asking.
If you put a tablet without a stand on a table, that's like looking down to your keyboard. If you're sitting in front of normal desktop right now, try looking down to keyboard and imagining you'd have to stay in that position for two hours to watch a movie.
If you have a laptop (or a tablet with stand to hold it), then the screen can be in upright position like a monitor.
huh... those things are pretty bulky it looked like. Stand really wouldn't work in my lap if I am kicked back. If it docks into a keyboard to essentially form a laptop I guess? Or maybe a laptop that the screen can close but face outward to use like a tablet if I choose. When I play a game I'd like to use it like a tablet. Not talking any serious gaming on it.