Is windows 10 S as bad as I think it is?

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KarsusTG

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I have been looking into a tablet I can use for light work/notes/document editing and I read that there are windows tablets being released with the Snapdragon cpu's. They are about to release (August time frame) a Snapdragon 850 designed exclusively for laptop use that will be functionally equivalent to a mid grade i3u cpu or low end i5u cpu, but provide 20 hours battery life and sim card integration.

That being said, it's locked to android or Windows 10 S with the option to upgrade to pro. I thought Windows 10 S died, but Microsoft just released a new SDK that allows developers to recompile their programs to be compatible with arm cpu's instead of completely re-developing them.

So is windows 10 s as bad as I have read and do you think it will get better with the ability to quickly rebuild apps for these chips?
 
S is a mode, it's not tied to CPU architecture, it just means that apps have to come from the store. If the device is S mode enabled you should be able to move to Pro for free. And you should be able run Win32 32 bit apps from arbitrary sources. The biggest issue for these early Windows 10 ARM devices and Win32 apps has been performance but that will very much depend on the app in question.
 
There's rumors of late that Sprint will give people with Snapdragon powered Windows 10 devices (tablets, laptops, maybe even smartphones, I have no idea) free cellular data (not sure how much but I know it won't be unlimited that's for damned sure) so if nothing else I would say that's at least one plus to owning such hardware - that is, if they actually honor what the rumors are claiming, of course.

I can imagine that some people will find Windows 10 useful to various degrees - would I love to have a laptop-style device that can run Windows apps (at least the ones I care about) and get me 15-20 hours of battery life, with free cellular data (even limited)? I suppose, depending on the pricing of the device which is where I have the big problems.

I mean, look at the Pixelbook from Google. It's a ChromeOS device and it commands a princely sum for it, that's insane to me even in spite of the hardware it's made from. I just can't imagine myself using such a piece of hardware at that price knowing it won't run Windows, period. I'm sure someone out there could probably hack it to work but, if I'm going to spend that kind of cash on a laptop, it's going to be a real laptop running a real computer OS meant for the more serious tasks.

I'm not a Facebook/YouTube/Twitter/Instagram/Pinterest/basic web surfer, I'm a power user, always have been, always will be, so such limited profile devices are effectively useless to me.
 
heatlesssun said:
S is a mode, it's not tied to CPU architecture, it just means that apps have to come from the store. If the device is S mode enabled you should be able to move to Pro for free. And you should be able run Win32 32 bit apps from arbitrary sources. The biggest issue for these early Windows 10 ARM devices and Win32 apps has been performance but that will very much depend on the app in question.
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Ya, I meant the devices with the snapdragon 850 are only going to come with android or 10s. Right now, you have to run Win32 apps through a kind of emulator, but with the new SDK, apparently that hurdle has been overcome and recompiling with it allows the software to run native on the arm cpu.



Tiberian said:
There's rumors of late that Sprint will give people with Snapdragon powered Windows 10 devices (tablets, laptops, maybe even smartphones, I have no idea) free cellular data (not sure how much but I know it won't be unlimited that's for damned sure) so if nothing else I would say that's at least one plus to owning such hardware - that is, if they actually honor what the rumors are claiming, of course.

I can imagine that some people will find Windows 10 useful to various degrees - would I love to have a laptop-style device that can run Windows apps (at least the ones I care about) and get me 15-20 hours of battery life, with free cellular data (even limited)? I suppose, depending on the pricing of the device which is where I have the big problems.
Click to expand...

That would be great, but I can't see how Sprint would make money off it. 20 hours of life though. That is fantastic.

Tiberian said:
I mean, look at the Pixelbook from Google. It's a ChromeOS device and it commands a princely sum for it, that's insane to me even in spite of the hardware it's made from. I just can't imagine myself using such a piece of hardware at that price knowing it won't run Windows, period. I'm sure someone out there could probably hack it to work but, if I'm going to spend that kind of cash on a laptop, it's going to be a real laptop running a real computer OS meant for the more serious tasks.

I'm not a Facebook/YouTube/Twitter/Instagram/Pinterest/basic web surfer, I'm a power user, always have been, always will be, so such limited profile devices are effectively useless to me.
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I am too and really, most of us are. But lets face it, I have 10-12 hour days on campus and I am working 2x16 hour shifts at work. My workstation laptop is amazing, but I don't get that kind of battery life even with two batteries and most of the time I don't need the power of a Xeon CPU and ECC ram. A small tablet I can keep in a daily carry bag that doesn't need wifi and will make it through shift no matter how much I use it would be awesome. Not to mention traveling.
 
You could always look at a Chromebook too. The Windows 10 store is pretty awful and 10 S only allows you to use apps installed from that.
 
heatlesssun said:
These devices aren't limited to the Store though ARM versions of apps will run better on them than emulated x86 ones. https://www.windowscentral.com/hands-built-windows-qualcomm-snapdragon-850-arm-processor. These things could get interesting as the performance increases and as more native ARM apps appear.
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That's assuming he updates to Pro which kind of negates getting W10 S and what the OP is intending to use the laptop for.

That at x86 stuff doesn't run well at all from what I have been reading. It struggled with even running Chrome browser.

Same news site -
https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/20/...ways-connected-qualcomm-pc-review-asus-novago
 
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AltTabbins said:
That's assuming he updates to Pro which kind of negates getting W10 S and what the OP is intending to use the laptop for.

That at x86 stuff doesn't run well at all from what I have been reading. It struggled with even running Chrome browser.

Same news site -
https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/20/...ways-connected-qualcomm-pc-review-asus-novago
Click to expand...

Obviously you'll get better battery life and performance with native ARM apps, I was thinking the ability to run some Win32 apps as needed on occasion might be useful. The 850 is a bit more powerful than that 835 used in The Verge review you referenced. It's early one with these devices and how useful they become will depend on how many apps get natively compiled. There's nothing stopping Google from compiling an ARM version of Chrome and it wouldn't have to be distributed through the store.
 
heatlesssun said:
These devices aren't limited to the Store though ARM versions of apps will run better on them than emulated x86 ones. https://www.windowscentral.com/hands-built-windows-qualcomm-snapdragon-850-arm-processor. These things could get interesting as the performance increases and as more native ARM apps appear.
Click to expand...

That is what I am thinking. If it's just a matter of recompiling a native windows app to make them native ARM I could see this getting much better very quickly. Especially if we are actually going to get a solid i3U performance.


heatlesssun said:
Obviously you'll get better battery life and performance with native ARM apps, I was thinking the ability to run some Win32 apps as needed on occasion might be useful. The 850 is a bit more powerful than that 835 used in The Verge review you referenced. It's early one with these devices and how useful they become will depend on how many apps get natively compiled. There's nothing stopping Google from compiling an ARM version of Chrome and it wouldn't have to be distributed through the store.
Click to expand...


Really what I am looking for is something in the area of a galaxy tab S3/S4. Can use it as a tablet, but have a keyboard if I need it and can do light tasks efficiently from anywhere. A chrome OS tablet along these lines would be perfect. I setup that chrome OS VM from a previous tab and it's almost exactly what I am looking for.
 
KarsusTG said:
Ya I saw that. It has a rockchip processor though.. Apparently it's missing an instruction set or something to side load android apps as well.
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As far as I can tell, it hasn't been released yet. Its definitely on my radar though. I think a chrome tablet is the next evolution of the android tablet. Ive been wanting to get a chromebook for a while to play around with but might wait off to check reviews on this.
 
There are plenty of good ARM powered chromebooks out there. Windows on ARM offers nothing those machines won't already do much better. As an added bonus you don't have to worry that the platform will be abandoned 6 months later.

I'm all for the world switching to ARM completely... but tablet style windows s mode arm devices. Just buy a chromebook... you can get a real decent ARM powered chrome books like the Samsung chromebook plus, the Samsung just got Linux app support as well. If you want one of the best laptops you will ever see spring for a pixel book. (of that one isn't arm powered still really nice machines)

MS is way late to the party... give them a cycle or two and see if they are still even selling them.
 
ChadD said:
There are plenty of good ARM powered chromebooks out there. Windows on ARM offers nothing those machines won't already do much better. As an added bonus you don't have to worry that the platform will be abandoned 6 months later.

I'm all for the world switching to ARM completely... but tablet style windows s mode arm devices. Just buy a chromebook... you can get a real decent ARM powered chrome books like the Samsung chromebook plus, the Samsung just got Linux app support as well. If you want one of the best laptops you will ever see spring for a pixel book. (of that one isn't arm powered still really nice machines)

MS is way late to the party... give them a cycle or two and see if they are still even selling them.
Click to expand...

I have been sooo tempted by the Pixel book.

I agree that arm is ready. I was just reading the A76 is something like 40% faster than the previous generations. If they are making leaps like that, it's going to feel like the golden age of upgrades again.
 
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