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HP envy x2.
I know it uses an atom processor. I don't play those 3D games. I use it mostly for documentation, pdf, coding, compilation, and communication. Most online reviews have been harsh on this thing because its not an i7 core. For my purposes it works great. I even play starcraft on it. If you work a lot with PhotoShop or autocad, don't get this. Strangely enough, compiling programs works fine.
I have the Sony VAIO Duo 11 with an i7 8 GB ram & 256 GBP ssd. And with an extra battery slice, I'd say it approaches 8 hours on a charge. But it is too big and heavy for a tablet, and too small for a good notebook. And the slider keyboard is cramped. It works best as a very fast desktop when hooked up to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
I read a review on the Envy, and it seems the best of the Clover Trail bunch, with the highest performance and battery life. Almost makes me want one, lol!
What kind of compiling are you doing? In my case, I use Visual Studio 2012, which is probably up there with PhotoShop and Autocad in terms of hardware requirements. So the Clover Trail machines are likely out for me unless I relegate it to glorified mobile device, which certainly has its place.
Mickey Little from the Transformer Forums has dumped his Android devices and now has a Samsung Ativ 500T, which he really likes. It is a direct competitor to your Envy. I find it interesting that two high end Transformer users have defected to Windows 8 Clover Trail tablets. Windows 8 might have a bright future after all...
After trying out 4 different w8 hybrids, I sold the other ones and kept this one. At the time, I only meant to use my envy x2 on the go. Who would have thunk there was a burglar eyeing my place. They went straight into my home office and took my desktop and a few other electronic items in that room. Insurance cleared it, so it was fine. I was going to get another desktop, but kept procrastinating. Then one day I really wanted to play starcraft. So, I took out an old big monitor from the basement and hooked up a mouse and keyboard. And voila, I got a working desktop environment. Surprisingly, starcraft ran great on this thing. That was a few months ago, and I'm still using this setup at home LOL.
For now, I've got no incentive to get something else, because this thing has worked for me in every situation. And on this thing, for now I use 2012 express. I'd imagine it's just as demanding as the full version. Compilation is a little on the slow side, but I use it as an excuse to get up and get some snacks and drink.
So, until I start needing to use something a lot more demanding, there's really no incentive for me to go out and get another i7 desktop.
I sold my tf700 months ago. I still keep a tf101 around even though I don't use it very often.
Why did I defect? Because there is just no comparison between w8 and android. People have a desktop for work, laptop to take around for work, and an android tablet to play games and surf the net. I'm different. I like to have one device that does all or most of that. Situation in my life has forced me to truly use my x2 for everything.
What really annoys me about android is something as simple as ctrl+b, ctrl+c, ctrl+u, etc. still don't work. The android team and android developers add a lot of gaming features to their apps and system tools, but they for some reason they are religiously against adding simple short keys like ctrl+b for document editing? I waited for 3 years for them to add those simple commands.
What's worse, android developers are absolutely the worst at responding to you. It's like they are up there high and mighty and don't care what happens to us lowly mortals. I bought thinkfree office for $10. It didn't have word wrap. So, when I type and the word reaches the end of the line the word wo
uld cut off and go to the next line like that. I emailed the dev company behind thinkfree about it. Got a reply a month later saying they will fix it in the next update. So, I patiently waited. 3 months later, they updated adding all kinds of cool features like sharing directly to dropbox. Still no word wrap. I don't care how many cool features it has, no word wrap means the app was comple
tely useless. Who's going to us
e a word proc
essor that keeps cut
ing off like that?
I spammed them with emails regarding this bug and 6 months later I got a reply saying they will fix it in the next update.
It took them 11 months after my first email to fix this bug. 11 months. 11 months. Think about that. 11 months. 11 months to fix the most obvious bug in a word proc
essing app.
And remember the browser hanging? We started noticing this bug 3 years ago. 3 years ago. It's been 3 years since we've been hitting the android team with inquiries about this bug. 3 years. The latest answer we got a few months ago was "we're working on a fix". 3 years. 3 years. 3 years. Think about that. 3 years.
Frankly, I'm through with android as a work system. Google wants to keep it as strictly a gaming platform, they can go ahead without me. What's the point with sticking with an operating system if the team behind it takes 3 years to response to a bug report? 3 years. 11 months for that system's app developer.
