Recommend a Win 8 tablet/laptop hybrid for business/web design?

Hi there
I think you missed the whole point of what I was trying to point out.

I agreed that on a smaller screen whether tablet or external monitor (a 12 inch screen comes into that category) -- touch is fine --- what I was saying is that if you are connecting up to a LARGE LCD screen say 40 inch TV screen you certainly wouldn't be near enough to the screen (or at least you shouldn't be) to touch it --not that you would want to either.

Also weight AND SIZE wise carrying around 17 inch laptops is just NOT for me -- what with airport security, airlines baggage policies, cramped space on planes and trains I'd never get anywhere with a 17 inch laptop. (I'm quite large BTW so space for me is at a premium).

Also once you start thinking 12 inches or even more than 10 inches -- are these things really small portable tablets are are they just another form of laptop.

The whole idea of a tablet I thought was that it's a small light or compact useful portable device which could be used stand alone - but capable of being plugged in to other accessories (such as external monitor, external disks etc) where available and even being able to connect into your work VPN or a remote server.

Once we start getting intoi the realm of "Super tablets" then the whole distinction between a "PC" and a "Tablet" becomes fuzzy.

As for ultrabooks --the latest bunch of them have nice I7 quad Cpu's, decent amount of RAM, USB3 port and can deliver very high quality Video out via HDMI so in any way whatsoever are not "Underpowered"

Cheers
jimbo
 
I think the realm of super tablets is already among us. The Lenovo Yoga is just one example. I think there was a Dell touch ultrabook with a swivel screen that can have an i7 in it.
 
Rumor has it that the Surface Pro might start at 800 dollars for the base model.....


too expensive, I prefer throw $ 1200 on a XPS 13 Dell notebook, or a Mac air, $ 400 more but at least I can do serious work with it.

And why couldn't you do serious work with the Surface Pro? It has basically the same specs as the base XPS 13 and Mac Air.
 
We recently got an XPS 13 at work and words cannot explain how much I HATE that damn thing.

My fellow IT guys all scoffed the XPS13 and elected for a far more functional latitude e6430. These small ultrabook computers give up way too much. Unless you travel a ton,.it just isn't worth it in my opinion.
 
Are you kidding me , compare my all time favorites XPS 13 and Mac Air to this Surface Pro toy .....lol
 
Rumor has it that the Surface Pro might start at 800 dollars for the base model.....


too expensive, I prefer throw $ 1200 on a XPS 13 Dell notebook, or a Mac air, $ 400 more but at least I can do serious work with it.

And why couldn't you do serious work with the Surface Pro? It has basically the same specs as the base XPS 13 and Mac Air.

Yeah, I don't understand why you're physically impeded from doing work. You have a tactile keyboard with a touchpad and mouse buttons. Connectivity is mostly same with the Surface Pro and the majority of ultrabooks, not even considering the Surface Pro is 10.6 inches of screen and makes it better for mobility.

The XPS 13 at 1,200 has an i7, unless if you're running MAJOR things like daily Photoshopping, VMs, gaming, and the likes on it and using it more over a desktop, OK. But an i5 is rather exceptional for the vast majority of everything and is standard place for ultrabooks, even apple.
 
too expensive, I prefer throw $ 1200 on a XPS 13 Dell notebook, or a Mac air, $ 400 more but at least I can do serious work with it.

And why couldn't you do serious work with the Surface Pro? It has basically the same specs as the base XPS 13 and Mac Air.

Yeah, I don't understand why you're physically impeded from doing work. You have a tactile keyboard with a touchpad and mouse buttons. Connectivity is mostly same with the Surface Pro and the majority of ultrabooks, not even considering the Surface Pro is 10.6 inches of screen and makes it better for mobility.

The XPS 13 at 1,200 has an i7, unless if you're running MAJOR things like daily Photoshopping, VMs, gaming, and the likes on it and using it more over a desktop, OK. But an i5 is rather exceptional for the vast majority of everything and is standard place for ultrabooks, even apple.

A 10.6inch screen might be better for portability, but for actually using it to be productive I gotta say I would want 13 to 15 inches. A co-worker uses a mba11, and the thing is app small it's like trying to work on a Nintendo ds.
 
And why couldn't you do serious work with the Surface Pro? It has basically the same specs as the base XPS 13 and Mac Air.

Yeah, I don't understand why you're physically impeded from doing work. You have a tactile keyboard with a touchpad and mouse buttons. Connectivity is mostly same with the Surface Pro and the majority of ultrabooks, not even considering the Surface Pro is 10.6 inches of screen and makes it better for mobility.

The XPS 13 at 1,200 has an i7, unless if you're running MAJOR things like daily Photoshopping, VMs, gaming, and the likes on it and using it more over a desktop, OK. But an i5 is rather exceptional for the vast majority of everything and is standard place for ultrabooks, even apple.

A 10.6inch screen might be better for portability, but for actually using it to be productive I gotta say I would want 13 to 15 inches. A co-worker uses a mba11, and the thing is app small it's like trying to work on a Nintendo ds.
Then a better solution, a Lenovo Yoga. :D It's 1,000 dollars.
 
As I hate about the XPS line. Slow cpus, no ability to dock, no hard drive activity light, no optical drive or ability to add caddy to media bay for second hard drive, no wired Ethernet port, ultra small form factors which are hard to work on, replacing batteries when they don't take a charge can be a real pain, giant touchpad without physical selection buttons so when I put down my thumb to click something my mouse moves and I either click the wrong thing or drag and drop files into other directories on accident....shall I keep going?
 
As I hate about the XPS line. Slow cpus, no ability to dock, no hard drive activity light, no optical drive or ability to add caddy to media bay for second hard drive, no wired Ethernet port, ultra small form factors which are hard to work on, replacing batteries when they don't take a charge can be a real pain, giant touchpad without physical selection buttons so when I put down my thumb to click something my mouse moves and I either click the wrong thing or drag and drop files into other directories on accident....shall I keep going?
Then why even consider an ultrabook for your purposes? I'd just buy a decent laptop, preferably one with touch and a stylus.
 
I don't consider them for my own purchases. I had to purchase them for others art work and have had to support setting them up and have found all of these things that I cannot stand.
 
I don't consider them for my own purchases. I had to purchase them for others art work and have had to support setting them up and have found all of these things that I cannot stand.

Are additional hard drives or optical drives something needed by everyone for use?

By the way, I do believe there are hard drive lights on ultrabooks, just that sometimes they're on the side and not in easy view.
This can't be done. I think this decision was really stupid.
 
On the optical drive front...I load the OS and image the machines. To boot from my win pe disks, or macrium boot discs, I have to get external drives, plug in cables and power, etc. Sure is nice when they just have a damn drive.

Secondary drive not needed by many. But.when we put in SSD for best performance, storage space is limited. My laptop only has an 80gb SSD.

the xps ultrabooks don't have hard drive led, or wireless led. I hate wondering if laptop it's doing anything or just dead when I cannot see a hard drive gronking away.

And not having wired Ethernet is just a tragedy. I choose gigabit wired over wireless every time.
 
On the optical drive front...I load the OS and image the machines. To boot from my win pe disks, or macrium boot discs, I have to get external drives, plug in cables and power, etc. Sure is nice when they just have a damn drive.

Secondary drive not needed by many. But.when we put in SSD for best performance, storage space is limited. My laptop only has an 80gb SSD.

the xps ultrabooks don't have hard drive led, or wireless led. I hate wondering if laptop it's doing anything or just dead when I cannot see a hard drive gronking away.

And not having wired Ethernet is just a tragedy. I choose gigabit wired over wireless every time.

Wouldn't it be more better, perhaps, to take advantage of the USB ports on ultrabooks and use USB flash drives? Not only nicer, more portable, doesn't scratch, and have LOTS more space for less money, they're also faster than using disks to install or image puters. I would imagine it would take minutes to reimage a puter with USB 3, which is what ultrabooks carry by default.

Now, if I should say so, all of what you say about YOU and YOUR preferences are what everyone should prefer?
 
On the optical drive front...I load the OS and image the machines. To boot from my win pe disks, or macrium boot discs, I have to get external drives, plug in cables and power, etc. Sure is nice when they just have a damn drive.

Secondary drive not needed by many. But.when we put in SSD for best performance, storage space is limited. My laptop only has an 80gb SSD.

the xps ultrabooks don't have hard drive led, or wireless led. I hate wondering if laptop it's doing anything or just dead when I cannot see a hard drive gronking away.

And not having wired Ethernet is just a tragedy. I choose gigabit wired over wireless every time.

Wouldn't it be more better, perhaps, to take advantage of the USB ports on ultrabooks and use USB flash drives? Not only nicer, more portable, doesn't scratch, and have LOTS more space for less money, they're also faster than using disks to install or image puters. I would imagine it would take minutes to reimage a puter with USB 3, which is what ultrabooks carry by default.

Now, if I should say so, all of what you say about YOU and YOUR preferences are what everyone should prefer?

I use an esata dock with a 2tb Samsung hdd. for my images. Esata is faster than usb3, but of course the ultrabooks don't have esata ports like the latitude notebooks. My docks that I own are usb2 and esata combos.

It's just the boot media that launches the imaging program that I am using which is on a CD. They could go on a usb stick, but I don't like using 2 and 4gb sticks for 200mb recovery utilities.
 
On the optical drive front...I load the OS and image the machines. To boot from my win pe disks, or macrium boot discs, I have to get external drives, plug in cables and power, etc. Sure is nice when they just have a damn drive.

Secondary drive not needed by many. But.when we put in SSD for best performance, storage space is limited. My laptop only has an 80gb SSD.

the xps ultrabooks don't have hard drive led, or wireless led. I hate wondering if laptop it's doing anything or just dead when I cannot see a hard drive gronking away.

And not having wired Ethernet is just a tragedy. I choose gigabit wired over wireless every time.

Wouldn't it be more better, perhaps, to take advantage of the USB ports on ultrabooks and use USB flash drives? Not only nicer, more portable, doesn't scratch, and have LOTS more space for less money, they're also faster than using disks to install or image puters. I would imagine it would take minutes to reimage a puter with USB 3, which is what ultrabooks carry by default.

Now, if I should say so, all of what you say about YOU and YOUR preferences are what everyone should prefer?

I use an esata dock with a 2tb Samsung hdd. for my images. Esata is faster than usb3, but of course the ultrabooks don't have esata ports like the latitude notebooks. My docks that I own are usb2 and esata combos.

It's just the boot media that launches the imaging program that I am using which is on a CD. They could go on a usb stick, but I don't like using 2 and 4gb sticks for 200mb recovery utilities.

OK.

I wonder though, there are 512 MB flash drives...
 
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