Dell Gives Up On Windows RT

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Dell gives up on Windows RT? Judging by sales, I thought everyone had already given up on RT. :D All jokes aside, sticking with full Windows products is the smart move though.

"We are not planning to refresh our current line of RT products," Hand said at a Dell tablet and PC launch in New York. "We're really focused on full Windows products. ... The full Windows experience provides great capability."
 
While I'm sure RT sounded nice when they first thought of it, that store is a joke. One reason the Surface Pro is nice is because it runs "real" apps. When you take that away, you're left with a device that can only get apps from a store that is light years behind the competition.
 
Interesting devices. $300 for the 8" Venue Pro with a pen digitizer though the pen is extra it looks. The 11 Venue Pro has a TON of options and starts at $500.
 
I think that apps and RT is a good idea... but Microsoft needs to focus on that for their PHONES.

In my view the purpose of being able to run apps on the desktop or on tablets should be for convenience of unified experience between their phones and your serious devices.

That said, MS really needs to focus on full windows for tablets, with apps being a nice feature on the side.
 
Fact is Microsoft has enough money to burn to test and see just how stupid society has become. They feel society as a whole are nothing but stupid sheeps and sadly I agree with them. The tablet is is a joke of a device and can do nothing better for the most part than my note 2. For any more serious applications you need a keyboard and some sort of cursor control as a mouse for example.
 
How besides app support is it any worse than IOS? That is what it is meant to compete against

Exactly. It wasn't marketed as such, though (IMO). It is a Windows device that doesn't run Windows applications like the Windows device sitting next to it (RT vs. Pro).

From a Surface RT - iPad standpoint, the RT is great. Office, a bunch of apps (needs more support, though), easy to use, great hardware. But, I'd only get so far with it. A bit further than I can with the iPad, with Office installed, but still there is that productivity wall there. So, it's great for a tablet, but going beyond that requires Pro.

RT is MSFT's answer to the iOS on iPad. RT=iOS. Pro/8=OSX. I could say that my iPad cannot run my OSX applications, and it would sound just as silly. But, it was never implied or thought of that my iPad could run those. It has it's own ecosystem. That was where Microsoft messed up. In the case of RT, Windows != Windows OS. Just in looks, not functionality.
 
How besides app support is it any worse than IOS?
Windows RT has much higher resource requirements: storage space, memory, processor and GPU. That's not necessarily worse in design terms, since a newer platform can create suitable hardware specs needed to run the OS. What is worse in practical terms is that those higher requirements, and lack of manufacturing scale (and arguably old school software licensing revenue models) make Windows RT devices ridiculously expensive, even if it was otherwise on par with iOS.

Windows RT can be compared to iOS in numerous superficial ways, with iOS showing much more maturity at this point because it's been around longer and has more complete APIs for its target platforms. The problem is that while Apple has been able to successfully sell the idea of a subset of OS X + new mobile APIs by making usable devices and attracting developers, and the whole thing together as something new, Windows RT didn't follow the same route. iOS didn't look like OS X, besides a little of the bling, and didn't pretend to be OS X. Windows RT, unfortunately, didn't benefit from this being figured out already, and is a complete mess*.

I'd also argue that having a tablet interface shoved down desktop OS users' (and developers) throats, it created a lot of the bad blood against Metro. It was simple to avoid, and MS was having none of that. New Microsoft!

* side note: the desktop on Windows RT isn't too unusual. Windows CE also had a desktop, even on low res screens. lol
 
There's nothing inherently worse about the idea of the Windows Store compared with iOS. On the other hand there's a pretty massive discrepancy between the number of apps and the quality of those apps.
They're a pretty distant #3, so now there's a chicken/egg situation. App makers don't want to bother with Windows Store apps and people don't want to bother using it because there are so few good apps. Then you run into the situation of them charging for apps that are available for free as desktop applications. That's pretty discouraging, too.
 
I bought the Surface RT a few weeks ago and love it (got it brand new during the ebay fire sale for 199.00 with the touch keyboard :D) but I knew exactly what I was getting to. This is not a laptop replacement per say and having the desktop interface is nice but rather useless since you can't run any native window apps.
Like some one else mention this is Microsoft answer to the ipad unfortunately they did a piss poor job pitching Surface RT vs Surface Pro. The only complain I have is the lack of apps and overprice apps compare to Google play and app store (still waiting on pocket, flipboard, and Chrome which will probably never going to happen :'( ). But it definitely has a market.
 
Maybe that speculation is supported by this: Dell announces new (Atom-based) Android tablets 7" is $150, 8" is $180 (both: 16GB, 1280x800 IPS display) based on Clover Trail Atoms with Android KitKat, to complement the announced Venue Pro Windows 8.1 tablets based on quad core Bay Trail and Haswell processors, among other product announcements in the same PR.

Dell had the opportunity to announce any Windows RT 8.1 tablets and it doesn't look like that will be happening. Good.
 
Windows RT has much higher resource requirements: storage space, memory, processor and GPU. That's not necessarily worse in design terms, since a newer platform can create suitable hardware specs needed to run the OS. What is worse in practical terms is that those higher requirements, and lack of manufacturing scale (and arguably old school software licensing revenue models) make Windows RT devices ridiculously expensive, even if it was otherwise on par with iOS.

Windows RT can be compared to iOS in numerous superficial ways, with iOS showing much more maturity at this point because it's been around longer and has more complete APIs for its target platforms. The problem is that while Apple has been able to successfully sell the idea of a subset of OS X + new mobile APIs by making usable devices and attracting developers, and the whole thing together as something new, Windows RT didn't follow the same route. iOS didn't look like OS X, besides a little of the bling, and didn't pretend to be OS X. Windows RT, unfortunately, didn't benefit from this being figured out already, and is a complete mess*.

I'd also argue that having a tablet interface shoved down desktop OS users' (and developers) throats, it created a lot of the bad blood against Metro. It was simple to avoid, and MS was having none of that. New Microsoft!

* side note: the desktop on Windows RT isn't too unusual. Windows CE also had a desktop, even on low res screens. lol

You could have written while MS is a monopoly on the desktop their OS sucks so badly it failed on everything else , surprise surprise ....
 
Windows RT has much higher resource requirements: storage space, memory, processor and GPU.

Considerably higher storage requirements, but not necessarily considerably higher memory, space and processor requirements unless you think an Android device that runs like molasses is a fair comparison.

I'd also argue that having a tablet interface shoved down desktop OS users' (and developers) throats, it created a lot of the bad blood against Metro. It was simple to avoid, and MS was having none of that. New Microsoft!

And yet that tablet UI generally works fine with a mouse and keyboard.
 
And yet that tablet UI generally works fine with a mouse and keyboard.

It works, but not optimally.

The traditional desktop UI is primarily designed for keyboard/mouse and thus works optimally with KB/Mouse.

Metro is not designed primarily KB/Mouse and does not work as optimally as the one that was.
 
How besides app support is it any worse than IOS? That is what it is meant to compete against

The iPad isn't attempting to masquerade as a laptop (that is excluded from the richest laptop software ecosystem of all time).

Also 16:9 sucks.
 
It works, but not optimally.

The traditional desktop UI is primarily designed for keyboard/mouse and thus works optimally with KB/Mouse.

Metro is not designed primarily KB/Mouse and does not work as optimally as the one that was.

I understand that this gets said a lot and people will talk about mouse clicks and mouse travel but there really is a lot that just isn't that different. Web browsing in Modern IE 11 works very much like it does with a mouse and keyboard. Email, games, text editing, video playback, eBooks, etc. With a modern version of Office I think plenty of people will be able to perfectly productive with a keyboard and mouse and it not be that different from the desktop from an efficiency standpoint. What's optimal very much tied to what people are used to as much as anything.
 
The iPad isn't attempting to masquerade as a laptop (that is excluded from the richest laptop software ecosystem of all time).

Also 16:9 sucks.

Apple is placing a good amount of emphasis on the iPad being a productivity device. iWork is now free with new iOS 7 devices. Keyboards and styli are a top iPad accessories. The idea that an iPad can replace a laptop is certainly not anything outside of mainstream thought.
 
You could have written while MS is a monopoly on the desktop their OS sucks so badly it failed on everything else , surprise surprise ....

He could have if he wanted to write something stupid, but then you did it for him.

Windows Phone 8 is a better OS than iOS the only thing it lake is the same number of apps.
 
The iPad isn't attempting to masquerade as a laptop (that is excluded from the richest laptop software ecosystem of all time).

Also 16:9 sucks.

Blind hatred rawr! But really why does 16:9 suck?
 
Blind hatred rawr! But really why does 16:9 suck?

Neither 4:3 or 16:9 is all that great depending on what you're doing. I think 16:10 is better than both overall. 4:3 is great for portrait reading be lousy for HD video. 16:9 is great for HD video, not so great for reading in portrait though if you don't mind reading in landscape it's fine. 16:10 is great for HD video but somewhat better than 16:9 for portrait reading though not as good as 4:3.
 
Blind hatred rawr! But really why does 16:9 suck?
Wider-aspect tablets in portrait orientation are more cumbersome in the hand, even assuming equal weight distribution. Microsoft paid particularly close attention to weight distribution in the Surfaces, but they're still more awkward to handle than a 4:3 iPad.

You could also make the argument that web content tends to work better in 3:4, but it isn't universally true. It is, however, probably more likely that you would want something closer to 3:4 (and 4:3) for browsing the web than 9:16 (and 16:9) in most cases.

I love super-wide aspect ratios on a desktop (regardless of what everyone says, 21:9 is the tits), and in some cases even on a laptop, but on a tablet I rarely find it more advantageous to have a 16:9 display than a 4:3 display.
 
I'm thinking the Venue 11 Pro is going to be my next notebook/tablet device.
 
Apple is placing a good amount of emphasis on the iPad being a productivity device. iWork is now free with new iOS 7 devices. Keyboards and styli are a top iPad accessories. The idea that an iPad can replace a laptop is certainly not anything outside of mainstream thought.

Only an idiot would replace their laptop with an iPad or other similar device that restricts the user's freedom.
 
I get the strong feeling that Bill is behind some off the stifling of how RT fumbled as well of course as Ballmer. Maybe surety 2018 when he is gone MS will adopt more radical ideas and stop taking such odd stances on its supposedly innovative products.
 
Only an idiot would replace their laptop with an iPad or other similar device that restricts the user's freedom.

Then we are overwhelmed by idiots in this world because millions have done just that.
 
Only an idiot would replace their laptop with an iPad or other similar device that restricts the user's freedom.

Most people are probably more concerned with weight and battery life if the device does what is required.
 
Then we are overwhelmed by idiots in this world because millions have done just that.

It really depends on what they do for work. For some, it's just fine. They can do all the work they want with a good bluetooth keyboard and an iPad. For others, a full laptop may be required.
 
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