I have owned a number of Atom-powered tablets. I would not classify many of my memories as fond.
My original HP tablet was powerd by a single core atom. The Fujitsu Q550 also had a single-core Atom. However, it was the Vivotab Note 8, with its “blazingly fast” quad core Z3750 Silvermont Atom that really made me fall in love with a tablet and even consider using it as my main device. It didn’t hurt that the Note 8 had a Wacom pen in a garage the way God intended.
My love for the Note 8 prompted me to buy the Surface 3 when it was released but the quad-core x7-8700 Atom, faster on paper than the Z3750, was bogged down by the higher resolution of the S3. When the Go was released, I stepped up to a Pentium and never looked back.
That said, the line between love-and-annoyance is actually really about price (how romantic, I know). My two Atom devices were a $100 compute stick and $300 VivoTab Note 8, both performed admirably as a TV media streamer and side-tablet.
Now had I paid $200 more for each, I don’t think my memories would have been nearly as rosy. Thinking about this, it’s interesting how it’s the low-price items that actually allow you to stretch your legs and actually experiment; to enjoy hardware for what it is, rather than what you want it to be.
All the 4GB ram 64 bit Baytrail /Cherrytrail Atom devices runs worse than the 2GB ram 32 bit Windows variants, from my own experience and a few users here. Those Atom seemed badly optimized for 64 bit Windows. Still keep my Asus Note 8 as bedside entertainment device. I wish intel didn’t give up on power efficiency to chase raw power, which just seem to be diminishing return.
WOA 7cx still doesn’t seem too appealing with its 400$ price tag that is significantly more expensive than the base iPad. And the Windows advantages (running any desktop applications) just doesn’t seem to apply well if the emulation run as slow as atom, and use more power for emulation so the battery advantages is negligible. An actual good old Atom tablet would be more useful at that point.
Now if any bigger art program like Krita and CSP create a native version, that could probably change my mind. But again I’m already running Krita and CSP on my Samsung tab S7 Fe which would probably have better digitizer and screen than whatever 400$ entry level WOA they can push out.
Again not official but based on various sources, but historically fairly accurate ones, the 7CX 3rd gen or whatever they decide to call it is allegedly a fairly radical redesign that specifically addresses performance issues (turbo-ing especially) over the original 7cx.
And in fact the second gen 7CX which was short lived and only appeared in a couple of chromebooks was a much better performer that the first gen; albeit Qualcomm swerved too far IMHO away from power efficiency to achieve that result.
What I’ve heard from those that have allegedly seen them is that the 3rd gen 7cx is actually a bit more performant than the first gen 8CX which makes sense give the Surface Go demographic and as @bronksy has noted in other threads the 8CX of the Pro X was more than satisfactory for most uses.
I absolutely agree. In November I purchased an 8GB/128GB SP X (SQ1) & immediately upgraded the SSD to 512GB–it was extremely simple & easy to do so. I’ve used it regularly since and couldn’t be happier.
My retiree needs are certainly less demanding than most:
While this is good news, I don’t understand the refusal to make an 11" tablet with “big-boy” power. Small, to the ODMs means weaker and namby-pamby. What many of us have been asking for since the release of the Surface 3 and then the Go is a small tablet in size only, with all the internals of a 13" Pro. I will watch with anticipation to see if the promise of an 11" Pro materializes.
I’m not certain, but I suspect that someone at MS is looking at sales figures of the iPad Pro 12.9 versus the 11 and Samsung’s Tab S series where in both cases the larger (or in Samsung’s case the middle model Plus) are by far the biggest sellers especially in this last generation.
Now I’d argue that it has more to do with the MiniLED in the 12.9 Apple’s case or OLED in Samsung’s S8 plus that is the primary driver versus standard LCD in the 11 inch variants.
OTOH especially on the Windows OEM side there seems to be a growing consensus that “serious work” requires a minimum of a ~13 inch display to be accepted in the market. Not saying I agree, but just relaying things I’ve heard.
With modern tech especially “the tyranny of the masses” is a greater truism than it’s ever been and even applies to the pen discussion too.
Can’t say I’d disagree with the first assumption if it was the user’s only piece of equipment, but I can’t even imagine using a 13" laptop as your full time device - you would have to have a decent size external monitor at home for full time use. Therefore, the portability of the 11" for truly PORTABLE work should be factored in more by the vendors. I would admit that if it were a week long journey, and I knew I’d have a project that was ongoing or coming up, then only having an 11" device would not suffice.
As for the tyranny of the mass market, seems only Lenovo (Yoga Book 9i, various Android tablets) and HP (Dragonfly, Folios) are willing to cater to niche markets.
Real world sales figures don’t back that up, where the large majority of users, regardless of the size, use their laptop as their primary and ONLY display. The large majority of standalone displays are still sold with desktops and more specifically recently, gaming rigs (or wannabe) which is why even the low end models (though they generally are less prevalent that they used to be) are now including “gaming” type features such as variable refresh rates.
There are other factors that might make actual usage versus new purchases higher such as using the same display with multiple generations of a laptop, but it’s still more broadly true that laptops are by far the biggest selling PCs and are used “as is” so to speak.
Hifihedgehog
(Hifihedgehog - Waiting for Surface Pro 10!)
159
Well, if the rumor mill is right on the money, there will be: an 11" Surface Pro 10. You just will have to pay the Qualcomm NUVIA tax for it, and no doubt $1000+ at retail.
Hifihedgehog
(Hifihedgehog - Waiting for Surface Pro 10!)
161
It did. The focus seemed geared to ARM here and the slow 7xc in the Go 4. I was just pointing out that the NUVIA option in the Pro 10, albeit pricey, would be the best bet.
