Any one planning on buying a new Ivy Bridge Ultrabook or Win8 Tablet?

[MarkShot]

I was just curious.

I'll be taking an old DELL laptop (2004) and an iPad2 on the plane with me to Taiwan.  (using the two for 3-4 months until our desktops get setup)

I was thinking about replacing the laptop with an ultrabook before leaving.  But I don't think the timing would work out and I don't think I will have the time needed to mess with it; setting it up.  (We need a Windows platform.  So, we'll take the dinosaur laptop for one final use cycle.)

Although the DELL XPS13 has gotten rave reviews.  I wouldn't want to buy an ultrabook without Ivy Bridge.  The new chipset is supposed to be the first integrated graphics on the mobo with good performance comparable with general purpose consumer desktops.  (That would make a very attractive and very light gaming platform with great battery life.)

And of course, by the holidays, there will plenty of Win8 tablets to choose from.  So, I think I'll just wait.  However, I was curious if anyone is buying an ultrabook or Win 8 tablet this Summer?

Thanks.

[eyebiter]

.

[MarkShot]

Yes, I am running XP on all systems.  There is still plenty of time until MSFT's drop dead date of 04/14.

I'll get a new gaming desktop in late 2013 with Win7.  Win7 sounds like the better gaming platform if you don't want to run on a tablet.  Win7 may well turn out to be the next XP.  (meaning that it will have legs beyond what anyone could have guessed)

Well, if anyone steals my 2004 DELL Inspiron 5150, they are clearly an idiot.  For me, it still gets the job done ... Web surfing, financial management, play videos, ...  Game wise I have two chess programs, RT2, and Tropico 1 ... they all play acceptable.  Except for the flight, I don't plan to carry it around with me.  (just leave it setup in the hotel; I have 2 month reservation while I take care of documents and go apartment hunting)  If I carry anything, it will be the iPad2.  Between it and my iPad2, I'll be okay without my aging desktop for 4 months or so.

But it is sinfully fun to start thinking of the new titles I will get later in 2013.  :)

---

I wondering when I buy if I should get an ATI card this time around?  It still want to be able to play CMBB/CMAK.  I heard that ATI cards don't need any hacks.  Also, I would like to play some MTW1 which again seems to have problems with all NVidia cards after the 4600 series.

[Staggerwing]

Re: CMAK-
Mark, I've had no trouble running the game on my Win7 box with an Nvidia GeForce GT430, and that is without the paid BF 'patch'. I suspect it is only certain Nvidia models that have compatibility issues so if you have a certain card in mind I'd try asking around if others with that card have any issues. I can't comment on MTW1 since I don't have it installed ATM and I'm not sure where my disks are.

[Bison]

Mark you and I will be researching new desktops for purchase around the same time I think next year.  We need to start up a thread over in the tech forum to geek out on tech research discussion.

[meadbelly]

I think there is a very high likelihood I'll upgrade to a win8/metro tablet in q4. I am impressed by what I've seen in terms of the new ARM based tablets and metro could be a game changer.

I am concerned about metro apps being available, so I'll also be interested in seeing what android tablets do in response. I doubt I will wait until 2013 for new android tablets tho.

[MarkShot]

Some early Ivy Bridge entrants:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/256725/acer_shows_off_windows_8_tablets_at_computex.html

http://www.pcworld.com/article/256723/lenovo_cracks_800_price_barrier_with_new_ideapad_ultrabooks.html

[Bison]

I wonder about game support for the new chipsets.

[MarkShot]

Well, Ivy Bridge is supposed to be the first integrate video on the mobo which offers performance comparable to consumer PCs (not gaming PCs).

COMPUTEX in Taipie is about to kick off.  There will be a lot of new models on display.

I think we'll ultimately get something.  I predict that it will probably be an ultrabook.  First, it is hard to do serious work without a real keyboard.  Second, with an HDMI port it can be hooked up to a desktop display when not in travel mode.

It will be interesting to see how these units run games and what that does to the 8-10 hours of battery life.  (like play an FPS and you drop down to 2 hours with a unit too hot to pickup from underneath)

[Bison]

You're getting a computer to do real work on!?!?! 

I think the battery life projections are always suspect.  Generally they are based on turning it on and doing nothing more serious than looking at the desktop.  I have a Macbook Air, which has a really good battery life if you are browsing the web.  Now do something like watch a movie and you go from 8 hours or so to about 2 and some change.

[MarkShot]

But with an iPad2 you can get 5-6 hours of video or gaming out of it.

[MarkShot]

Did that Macbook Air replace the Asus laptop that you were having problems with?

[Bison]

Did that Macbook Air replace the Asus laptop that you were having problems with?

It did for awhile, but I never put a bootcamp partition on it so I only had a few lite gaming apps.  I use it mostly for net browsing and movies for those times when my larger laptop is too much to carry or pack.  It's also used for the photo program.

[meadbelly]

My interest in a slate/tablet is not for gaming. (I'm upgrading sooner than win 8 for that!)

The primary needs I have for a mobile computing device is handwriting capture, keyboard, and MSOffice. Android doesn't do the first well as best I can tell, otherwise I might be in an ASUS transformer right now.

I'm looking at an ivybridge i5 for the alluded-to new gaming rig, but that's going to be a desktop. They seem to be at a better price point than sandy, at least at the moment, and apparently draw less juice.

[MarkShot]

Unless you are doctor or something similar, I wouldn't bother with tablets and handwriting capture.

I purchased WritePad which was one of the top rated handwriting Apps for the iPad:

(1)  Although a finger will work, a stylus is better.

(2)  It takes a real lot of practice to be able to write clearly and quickly ... a real lot.  Even though the program has a ton of great features ... very well designed.

(3)  Even though typing on a glass keyboard leaves a lot to be desired (like you cannot rest your fingers on the keyboard), my WPM is much higher than handwriting.

(4)  There are so many highly portable blue tooth keyboard options these days.  In fact, I thought Logitech just came out with one that doubles as an iPad smart cover, but also is very thin keyboard.

(5)  You can get Dragon Dictation for free.  It has tremendous reviews and professional reviewers say that you can easily hit 99+% accuracy.

So, at first, I really thought when traveling and doing anything but short emails, I would use my stylus and WritePad, but the learning curve was just too much.  I would have to be a student and using it to take notes all the time to have it make sense.  (But I did find the stylus much better than my finder for marking up ebook and PDFs.)

See:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/writepad/id293033512?mt=8

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dragon-dictation/id341446764?mt=8