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About LinkBacksRead more.Less than £230 for a touchscreen, convertible Windows 10 PC.
Read more.Less than £230 for a touchscreen, convertible Windows 10 PC.
That was looking like a device that might interest me right up to the point I ran into a red-line no-no .... Win10.
Oh well. Put Win7 on it and I might go for it. But Win10? Not a chance.
Seems expensive to me considering a linx 10 with keyboard is ~£130? Got be honest I was surprised how good a atom based eMMC tablet can be - I picked up a 7" 32Gb EMMC 1Gb RAM Connect 7 refurb for £38 and its very usable...
The netbook lives on >.<"
The Linx 10 has some really annoying shortcomings compared to the ASUS (and HP Hybrids)Originally Posted by cheesemp
The Linx speakers are woeful, to the point they are useless.
Screen quality is not comparable either. I've has the three side by side.
Build quality - Although all three are budget devices and not surface quality, the Linx really feels like thin plastic.
I don't believe the Linx has USB c or wifi 5Ghz support.
Personally I think the HP range is bes under £300 at the moment. Similar specs to the Asus for their basic model but USB 3 C and full size USB 2 on the tablet are big bonuses and also front facing speakers. Also HP do different specs - one with 32GB emmc + 1TB hard drive and one model with 4GB of ram.
What's the beef with Windows 10? - have you even used as your main system for a few months. It obliterates Win 7 and 8, such a great OS. So easy to use, honestly don't get the Win 10 hate when more and more people keep adopting with great performance, interface and new systems.
For the price I'm almost tempted to buy one and put Win7 or a Linux distro (assuming there are no weird ASUS drivers that break support,) on it myself.
You must be new here. Most people's issues are privacy related rather than usability.
Windows 7 is the new Windows XP. We know how hard it was for some folk to upgrade from Windows XP to almost anything. Some folk just love to be a stick-in-the-mud dinosaur that continues to propagate malware because of their unpatched piece of trash.What's the beef with Windows 10? - have you even used as your main system for a few months. It obliterates Win 7 and 8, such a great OS. So easy to use, honestly don't get the Win 10 hate when more and more people keep adopting with great performance, interface and new systems.
Having upgraded a few tablets from 8.1 to 10 with these specs I can say Windows 10 is not a good option for speed and resources.
Personally I like Windows 10 for the most part, but it is slower and more hungry than 8.1 and these tablets with limited hardware do struggle more with the new OS
You are aware that Windows 7 is still actively supported by both MS and major hardware & software vendors? It's the de facto standard desktop OS for enterprise and while that support continues I don't think that will change.
XP was outdated & unsupported when it became unsafe, neither is true (yet,) of 7.
It might be great for you, but it's an utter non-starter for me. The first issue is privacy. The second is forced, automatic upgrades which, at most, I can defer not reject.
Performance for me is absolutely irrelevant. My existing systems are quite fast enough for the purposes I use them for, an increased performance is akin to replacing a Mitsubishi Evo with a Ferrari when all you want to do is a mile and a half to your local shop.
As for "getting the windows hate", as a technology journalist for upwards of 25 years, do you really think it's "Windows hate" for the hell of it? My entire personal and business computing infrastructure has been MS-based since my first MS-DOS system in the early 80's, and I've been using Windows in a work (test and development) environment since Windows 1. I don't dislike Win10 for no reason, and it's caused me a LOT of hassle, not least is over a year spent evaluating and testing Linux as an alternative, before coming the the conclusion that I can shift most of my business needs to Linux (which meant not just testing Linux, but alternative Linux-based software) while because of the time involved in writing entirely new database applications and porting data over, keeping those legacy systems on old Windows systems, which for security reasons means expanding my air-gapped network and putting the legacy systems behind the air-gap.
But regardless of interface, performance and "new systems", MS have made it explictly clear they are changing the entire release basis for Windows, and the way it's "monetised", without being at all clear about precisely what they intend in the medium, never mind long term. But the underlying principles in the OS have changed, the T&Cs have changed, the level of intrusiveness has changed and the combination of the sum of those parts is that personally, I dare not carry on using it even if I was inclined to, which I am not.
And yes, I know you can, theoretically, lock down privacy aspects if you're prepared to spend enough time turning off sufficient options, and services, etc. But then, as MS have the right to change services and interface and 'features' at whim, and users have agreed to that, you are at risk of ANY update, and remember for most of us they are automatic, mandatory and at best deferable, every single update has the potential to reset any of those services you've disabled, or introduce new ones you had no warning of.
I don't know what you use your PCs for, but if it's domestic purposes, it's probably gaming, web browsing, email, online shopping, online banking, etc. For me, I have a lot of confidential client data relating to projects I'm involved in or services I offer, some of which is commercially very sensitive, and which if it gets out could both ruin my reputation and get me sued. I am NOT entrusting that to systems that can remotely update and reconfigure with my knowledge, let alone permission.
Yes, I'm extremely angry with MS, because recent versions of Windows (starting with Win8) have been significantly changing course but Win10 just goes completely over red lines for me, and is utterly unacceptable. Unless MS dramatically reverse their direction of travel, which I regard as possible but about as likely as the sun changing course one day and setting in the East, no Win10 (or later) device is going on my network, now or at any time in the future, and that includes not just PCs, but tablets, phones and, yes, Xbox's too.
If "more and more people keep adopting" Win10, that's their choice. And their risk. But unless MS change course, and I don't believe they will, what everybody else does has no bearing on my decision. If you like it, great. But I don't, and I'm certainly not buying new devices with it on, like this Asus. That simply isn't going to happen, and me changing that decision is even less likely that MS changing their strategic decision because, having spent all the time and effort adapting and changing my systems, and work processes, to switch to Linux, even if MS did switch back, it would not be enough to make me do so. Linyx works perfectly adequately for me, so they'd have to switch back AND give me sufficiently good reason to go through that test and evaluation exercise all over again. I can't see them changing back, never mind coming up with a sufficiently good reason to convince me to do so as well.
And some people still have WinXP systems for extremely good reasons, one of which is me. And I'll give you a solid gold, diamond encrusted guarantee that my XP systems are not propagating malware.
Some XP system owners may be stupid enough, or ignorant enough, that they are doing so, but I am not and mine aren't. That is 100% certain.
And consider this. If I've migrated some Win7 systems to Linux, then those XP systems aren't still on XP either because I don't know how to upgrade them, or am too lazy to do so, or am ignorant of the issues. They're still on XP because of a considered, rational decision.
Out of curiosity, are you angry at MS for the change of course or because they haven't been very clear that they intend to change course and how?
It strikes me that if a company wants to move their products in a given direction then that's up to them, and I can choose to move with them or stop purchasing their products. As long as they're clear about it and don't try to sell me an apple (no pun intended,) when it's clearly now an orange.
What happens when someone's will for privacy turns to paranoia?
Oviously your hate for windows 10 means you cannot ever use a google product. Infact I doubt you can use any of the major search engines.
Mainly because they've been unclear. Yeah, they're entitled to decide to change product direction, but to do so in a way that so adversely affects customers that have been using and relying on their products for decades is .... annoying. There's nothing to stop them doing it, but I don't have to like what they've done, and I certainly don't like how they've done it, which I regard as at best, being obscure, and at worst, downright deceitful.
spacein_vader (24-11-2015)
Depends what you're being .... careful .... about.
There's a huge difference between taking control over the configuration of my PC, as MS have, and data acquisition, warehousing and mining, as Google do. It's misleading to conflate reactions to the two.
Nothing I do is paranoia. What it is is concern for my privacy. It would be paranoia if I believed Google, for instance, had bugs installed in my home, of if I thought they cared a jot what I, personally was doing. They don't.
But it's the height of naivity if you, on the other hand, don't think Google (and MS, among many others) aren't interested in collecting every scrap of data on every single person they possibly can because, collectively, that data is hugely valuable. The Holy Grail is to get the maximum granularity of data, on absolutely as many people as they can.
Every individual byte of data adds to that granularity, though clearly, some items are more valuable to a profile of each of us than others. There's not much point in a pizza place in London advertising to residents of Manchester, or Moscow. But, if Fred's pizza can get a list of people living within 5 miles of them that order takeaway pizza at least once a week, they've narrowed down their auduence for an ad campaign hugely. If they also know that you order at 7pm on every Tuesday, and have a penchant for pepperoni, anchovy and asparagus, they can target you for a special at 6pm on Tuesday. Personally, I just want them to leave me the bleep alone and not pester me with ANY offers, special or not. (see note)
And of course, that applies to millions of other scenarios, and relies entirely on someone accumulating that data on you, me and everyone else.
It is not paranoia to think that companies are doing this, because I know for a certainty of several that, to my personal knowledge, absolutely are.
It's also a subject for upcoming legislation tightening controls on these companies not just on whether they can collect such data without our explicit permission, but what they can use it for without explicit, and informed consent. And by informed, I don't jyst mean they they'll use it, but for marketing, promotions, cold calls, etc. Some EU legislation is due to kick in in, IIRC, 2018, that will put a crimp in such uses based on assumed consent, on 'explicit' consent that isn't genuinely informed.
On more specific points, the only Google service/product I use is one Android tablet, but I use it via an ISP that does not track to me personally, without access to internal allocations of a 3rd party company (and I don't mean my ISP), and there is NO personal data on that tablet. I don't use Google search, even on that tablet, and other systems are .... carefully routed. I certainly don't use Google services for music, video, maps or GPS, email, I don't use Google apps for WP, etc.
I'm aware that there's no way of absolutely protecting personal data that's consistent with anything resembling modern life, but what I can (and do) do is keep and loss of privacy to an absolute minimum. I don't put anything out in public without thinking about it, and being comfortable that whatever it is, it's worth it for what I get.
For example, occasionally I buy something online but never without considering alternate products or sources first. I buy from OcUK from time to time, but never online. I do, however, periodically find myself in or around Stoke for other reasons, so I have popped in and bought in person, and for cash. And cash is how I do all my supermarket shopping.
Why? Because minimising my privacy loss is not a one-off decision but an ongoing process. Every time I pay cash, it's one less piece of information ending up in retailers, banks and credit card company's databases. As data warehousing and data mining has been going on for decades, but significantly accelerating in the last decade or do, those thousands of transactions over all those years adds up to a lot of data not given away. And so, going forward, each transaction obscured from databases is one more tiny, minuscule victory in keeping as much privacy as I realistically can.
What I don't accept is the concept that because I can't mask absolutely everything, I shouldn't bother to mask anything at all.
I can't maintain absolute privacy, and short of living utterly off-grid, nor can anyone in a modern country. But I can, and relatively easily, minimise the extent of my privacy loss.
So, two different issues, with a bit of blurring in the middle. My dislike for the compromises MS are trying to force on us with Win10 are one issue, and privacy invasion by snooping into our personal data by Google et. al. is another .... with an element of overlap.
My primary objection to Win10 is about data security and the OS and commercial model they're moving to, not personal privacy and intrusion. A secondary concern over Win10 would be personal privacy, but it's academic for me as Win10 is a non-starter on my primary objection without getting as far as privacy issues.
Note: My local pizzeria asked for my mobile phone number when placing an order "in case of problems". I gave it to them, on the explicit condition that that was the ONLY purpose it was used for, and not under any circumstances, adverts or text messages. So what happened? Yup, pestering text ads for 'specials'. After I'd asked for them to delete it, on five separate occasions and they didn't, I told them, face to face in the shop, precisely what I thought of them and that that was why they'd lost me permanently. I haven't been back since.
In fact, I worked out I can make my own pizza, end up with a nicer pizza, and have it take significantly less time to make it than to order it and get it delivered. I haven't had a order-in pizza in years.
Do the pizza shop care? Probably not, but it's about £20 a time a couple of times a month, they lost over it. Call it £500 a year. It also costs me about a fiver to make my own, so I get better pizza, save about £375 a year, and no longer get pestered by their blasted texts.
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