With the
initial underwhelming release of the Microsoft surface (the price is a shade
more than I hoped although probably not unreasonable, but with no GPS or NFC I
feel there is a missed opportunity), and the general feeling that the next wave
of devices should be substantially better, I had convinced myself not to get a
tablet for another six to nine months.
Then Saturday
evening I settled down to a little surfing on my more than capable laptop. Five
minutes in the screen flickered, then died.
Bugger.
Powering off
and even removing the battery failed to help, but something odd was happening,
the bios and boot loader screens were displaying, but as soon as the OS
selection menu should have appeared power to the screen would stop (as seen by
that completely black appearance where even the backlight is
off).
This was all
very strange and it looked like this would be my third laptop in a row rendered
useless by a failing graphics chip.
So Sunday saw
me reluctantly looking over the few details I can find on upcoming convertible
tablet/laptop convertibles.
Nothing I
could see grabbed me. Several look good, especially a couple of models from Acer
and Lenovo, but nothing without significant compromise from what I have
convinced myself I want (not necessarily need).
I consider
myself a power user, and compared to most this is probably true, but I came to a
realisation some time ago that for 90% of my usage something way behind the
bleeding edge would be perfect.
I
don't
play
games
seriously
on
my
laptop,
just
the
odd
puzzler
and other
simple stuff.
In
fact
the
main
need
I
have
for
a
powerful
processor
is
video
editing
and
encoding,
along
with
the
ripping
of
my
CD
collection,
and
even
most
of
this
can
be
done
adequately
on
a
mid
range
laptop
now.
I do run many
applications concurrently, and being a developer I also need plenty of memory
and a decent speed processor, but easily less than I probably think I
need.
What I want
is something along the lines of the Asus Transformer line, a mid range Ivy
Bridge i5, at least 4 but preferably 8 Gb ram, at least 8 hours real world
battery life but the more the better (12 hours or above would make me very
happy). But here's the killer - something that docks so I can have the kind of
setup that Mike Taulty wrote
about.
It looks like
I'm a little too early to get all this in a suitable package. It seems to me
that the technology is very close, but not quite there.
So I started
thinking about how I can manage without a proper laptop until something suitable
is a reality. I have the Xoom, and whilst
this is a marvellous device it doesn't quite tick enough boxes to work all the
time, in the same way that a Windows RT device doesn't (think development and
video tools).
All things
considered though it looked like the Xoom would need
to fill the gap until details of all the release devices were available,
possibly longer.
Then I got to
thinking - my laptop actually contains two graphics chips, perhaps one had
failed but the other was still working, hence why the initial boot screen
displays (although still looking a bit odd that it fails at the OS selection
screen). A quick jump to the BIOS revealed I can change the setting for graphics
from Switchable to force Discreet, after which I rebooted and everything works
fine again, soviet with power/performance being less than optimal
now.
Suddenly, and
to more relief than I'd imagined I have a working laptop again, but it has
revealed a few things about myself in the process: I've been looking forward to
getting a convertible tablet/laptop ever since my last Windows tablet died (from
a failing graphics chip) several years ago, and thought I'd rush out and get
something as soon as the new devices were released alongside Windows 8. However
it appears I'm actually a little more controlled than I gave myself credit for.
This is good.
Or is it just
that the devices I've seen so far have just not been particularly
compelling?
Either way,
in sure that when a device does eventually come out that meets enough of my
criteria, I'll get it.
But at least
now I'll be more sure that the decision wasn't completely rushed
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