Atomic Testing

So, I’m currently typing this blog post on the first test machine that we’ve actually spent money on (as opposed to getting a temporary eval. model from a reseller).

It’s a Samsung Ativ Smart PC.  The entry-level Windows 8 tablet from Samsung running on a Clover-Trail Intel Atom platform, with a 64Gb eMMC (more on that later) and 2Gb RAM.  The dual-core Atom immediately felt like it was in a totally different league to the old Atom-based HP Mini netbook I used to have.

[caption id="attachment_259" align="aligncenter" width="567"] Samsung's Ativ and Intel's Roadmap for the Atom.[/caption]

It’s probably a testament to Microsoft’s work on keeping the system requirements for Windows from getting ridiculous like they had in the days of Windows Vista.  The overhead for Windows 7 and 8 isn’t really that different, which has allowed the lower-level hardware to catch up a bit.

There's a very tiny jitter in the start-screen when scrolling back and forth, probably due to the lower-power integrated graphics chip.  But said jitter is occasional, and so hard to notice that you have to point it out to people, and even then you can blink and miss it.  So no big deal there.

I’ve typed a few pages on this device and I' have to say, for a small machine the keyboard is fantastic, I’m able to type at the same speed as I would on my expensive desktop PC keyboard (sadly, it can’t help my poor spelling though).

It’s actually not shy on connectivity options either.  For those of us who don’t share the iPad’s “less-is-more” design ethic, there's welcome inclusion of one full-size USB port on the tablet and two on the keyboard.  Real work requires USB, so that’s great.  The tablet also sports a micro HDMI port and a MicroSD slot.  The other bonus feature is the S-Pen, a proper active stylus that’s pressure-sensitive and as accurate as a Wacom digitiser.  It lacks the eraser found on some, which is a small shame.

It’s got some bad that comes with the good though.  The buttons on the touchpad have nothing to indicate where the left button and right button meet.  The charger is tiny, which is great, except so is the connector, it’s one tiny pin isn’t very kid-friendly, and is likely to get bent.  The biggest disappointment though, is the way the tablet docks to the keyboard, the bizarre clip mechanism fails a lot on this test machine.  More often than not, you’ll pick up the tablet and the keyboard will fall off.  You have to be quite forceful to be sure it clips securely.

But this test machine wasn’t as much about the individual features of the Ativ as it was about giving one of these new Atom-based tablets a thorough test.  Which isn’t going so bad at the time of writing.  Nothing I’ve tried to do has made the device seem horribly underpowered, although it’s mostly been simple content creation and web surfing so far.  I don’t think it’s going to be quite so pretty when I try Photoshop on it, or try to edit a video.  But I’m happy to be proven wrong.

UPDATE: - Actually, I might be at least partly wrong, editing in Photoshop is doable with Web-sized images, and short video editing in Movie Maker can also be done.

Either way, I’m feeling positive about these little tablets.  We’d prefer our chosen machine to be an Intel Core i based unit, but if economic realities force us to look at the little-brother (or sister) from Intel, I don’t think it’ll be so bad.

It's All About the Pentiums

Well, it's not about the Pentiums and if it were it'd be all about the Core i5's, which makes that Weird Al song sound even more geeky (if that's possible).

What it is about actually, is the very fast and slick hardware we got our teachers this year.  That extra spend has made them eager to receive their new computer, and the brief but important introductory tutorial that goes with it.  That tutorial is key to making a Windows 8 rollout work.

Past the halfway mark with our Windows 8 rollout, and there's been no negative reactions to Windows 8 or Office 2013.  I firmly believe that's because we chose the hardware well, and understood the training that was needed.  The training has ranged from a simple 5 minute intro by the I.T. Dept. to a more comprehensive introduction by our E-Learning person.  Neither is particularly onerous, but the effect has been that Windows 8 and Office 2013 have been well received to date, and any comments we have received were positive.  Most of the positivity relates to the light and easy to carry form-factor of the Dell convertibles.  I hope that optimistic outlook continues.
So, I think we've proven something here; that Windows 8 is an easy switch with just a little bit of thought given to the user, and the right hardware (anything with a touchscreen, really).  It also proves that large amounts of the tech. press don't know what they're on about.  They might do well to stop judging Windows 8 on the old crappy desktop or Virtual Machine they're testing it on and get something it's made for.

Finally, this tentative success couldn't have been achieved without Apple and Google (and probably wouldn't have).  The acceptance they've created for touch-first interfaces lead to the initial reaction we saw quite a lot from teachers.... "oh, so it's a bit like a phone then?"

Dell Roadshow II - Try Harder

And try harder they have, but still not hard enough.

I got to attend yet another Dell Roadshow where they're showing off their Windows 8 devices again.  This time they actually had the newly released XPS-12.  I was able to play with it and ask all the hard questions about the supposed support for pen input. They tell me it will support an active digitiser, like the one on the Latitude 10.  I'll believe it when I see it.  Other than that, aside from being a little expensive the XPS-12 is a neat device.  It's robust and manages to pack that swivel screen into a package much the same size as the slimmest Ultrabooks.  Dell tell us that the swivel mechanism had been tested for 20,000 continuous repetitions and kept on going past that, and looking at it, I can believe that.

Other than that, Dell showed how expertly they've misunderstood Windows 8.  They have a couple of "companion" tablet offerings, The Latitude 10, based on Windows 8 running an Intel Atom processor, and the Windows RT based XPS 10, on Arm.  They've chosen to offer the latter with a keyboard dock and the former without.  This makes no sense.  Of the two, if I want one to be a primarily touch based experience with an onscreen keyboard, it's the RT device, as I'm going to be using Metro apps and they're made with touch in mind.  My Atom based tablet however can run legacy Windows software, which will benefit greatly from more traditional input methods.  So as you can see, they've got it backwards.  Way to go Dell!

[caption id="attachment_151" align="aligncenter" width="604"] Dell's new Windows 8 tablets, shown side-by-side. XPS-12 on the left and Latitude 10 on the right.[/caption]

Finally, the saga of the XT3 demo unit continues.  Dell have apparently sourced one for me, but the nice man at the Dell Roadshow informs me that they don't support it running Windows 8 and don't plan to.  In fact, they seem to think it and any successors may not have a future as a device anyway, so we can just about can that line of inquiry right now.

Chasing Geese

So, we have our first test machine for our staff machine rollout next year.  The idea here is that the teachers get something ahead of the kids that sets the scene for our 1:1 program next year.

The machine sent to us was the Lenovo X230T (pictured).  Interesting because it’s a traditional Windows Tablet PC form-factor with multi-touch capabilities.  Available in an i5 version (which is where we’ll be aiming), it seems to tick a number of boxes, on paper at least.  Probably the only issue is how well it runs Windows 8, apparently some schools have looked at it previously, and had trouble getting some drivers to work.  I’ve been told by a reseller though, that they believe the drivers are due to be updated for Win 8 soon, so I guess we’ll see.



It’s been handed to one of our teachers for a look and the impression has been overall quite positive.  The demo model didn’t have an SSD though, which we’d require if we were to buy it.

Whether it turns out to be any good or not, it’s nice to at least have it.  It wasn’t easy to get hold of.  We were originally told by one reseller that we could have it as soon as another school was finished, only to have that reseller spend weeks trying to track it down as it went from school to school, avoiding us like we had the plague.  When push finally came to shove we were told that the particular demo unit had been arranged by another reseller and we couldn’t have it.  We contacted said other reseller and had it in our hands within a week.

Needless to say, we won’t be hurrying back to that first reseller anytime soon.

Dell Roadshow

I've recently travelled to Slowbart to see what Dell have in store with their Windows 8 based machines.  I can't say I really feel any more enlightened though.

The Dell sales guys brought some pretty standard laptops and ultrabooks, and an old Windows 7 tablet, but not much else.  They had Powerpoint slides of the Dell XPS-12, which is certainly an interesting machine (although I wonder about the durablity of the hinge mecahnism), and a plastic mock-up of their Windows 8 slate (the Latitude 10, I think).

Anyway, it ws nice to be able to talk to the Dell people, and I certainly got some good information about availability.  That is, that it looks like we wont see anything until after the Windows 8 launch. I also learned that there will be a lot of Intel Atom based equipment coming out, due largely to Intels very aggressive pricing of this platform.  I'm told this is an improvement on the old Atom chips.  It would need to be.