News - ASUS says it will abandon Windows RT tablet market

[HEXUS]

Weak sales cited as main reason for dumping Windows RT products.

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[kingpotnoodle]

"Shocking" - said nobody.

We just don't need RT when there are perfectly good Atom based Windows x86 tablets, cheaper tablets with Android etc

[3dcandy]

Indeed... I just can't see RT lasting much longer

[Roobubba]

I never saw the point of RT with Pro coming up behind it and the multitude of alternatives... and then they announced the price, and that even put Pro out of the equation. The products might have been amazing, but they weren't offered at a competitive or seductive price, and they didn't offer anything substantively different from what's already out there.

[abirawlinson]

i was going to get a windows tab but there's no point in the rt and the pro are to expensive i can go and get a cheap laptop for a hell of a lot less or even better keep using my smart phone to get on to facebook twitter youtube as thats all i would use a tab for

[crossy]

This has got me thinking. The Iconia W3 running proper Windows 8 is only £329 at Argos now and with the 20% Acer announced that's then down to less than £270. In which case how cheap are RT devices going to have to be to shift? Granted the Iconia doesn't have the tablet edition of Office that the RT devices have, on the other hand it's not exactly going to be difficult to slap on a copy of Libre (disk space permitting) and use a uSD for file storage.

Or even use it as a testbed for touch-driven Ubuntu after having removed the Windows 8 install... After all, a 64GB root disk is spacious for Ubuntu - heck, system I'm typing this on only has 30GB used, so perhaps even a 32GB W3 would be barely viable.

[kingpotnoodle]

This has got me thinking. The Iconia W3 running proper Windows 8 is only £329 at Argos now and with the 20% Acer announced that's then down to less than £270. In which case how cheap are RT devices going to have to be to shift? Granted the Iconia doesn't have the tablet edition of Office that the RT devices have, on the other hand it's not exactly going to be difficult to slap on a copy of Libre (disk space permitting) and use a uSD for file storage.

Or even use it as a testbed for touch-driven Ubuntu after having removed the Windows 8 install... After all, a 64GB root disk is spacious for Ubuntu - heck, system I'm typing this on only has 30GB used, so perhaps even a 32GB W3 would be barely viable.

Except the W3 has been universally slaughtered for a terrible screen and other flaws. I'd probably rather have a Surface RT at £279, but you'd have to take away all my other computing devices before I'd find a use for either...

[aidanjt]

What do you expect when you release a product whereby the only demand came from your management to begin with?

[crossy]

Except the W3 has been universally slaughtered for a terrible screen and other flaws.

But it's an Acer - I thought screen (and other?) flaws were part of that brands "charm". Certainly the two I had developed screen quirks quite quickly. Meanwhile my equally (if not more) abused Asus and Dell just keep "going and going and ..." (to quote the classic Energizer advert). Maybe a case of the old cliche about not "getting owt for nowt"?

[sirtrouserpress]

I never really understood RT as wasn't the whole point of windows 8 that it was stripped out enough to fully run cross platform, if so why was there ever an even more stripped out version?

[krazy_olie]

I think this was just Microsoft jumping on the ARM bandwagon. At time of of planning Atom chips weren't in a good enough state so it's understandable.

Not including the keyboard for free was a stupid move IMO.

[iamlorro]

I think this was just Microsoft jumping on the ARM bandwagon. At time of of planning Atom chips weren't in a good enough state so it's understandable.

Not including the keyboard for free was a stupid move IMO.

And because people aren't interested, there's apparently not many people making apps = not much of a reason to get it....


I know someone who has got one and they were keen on it as apparently it does run an RDP session okay - so you could connect to your PC and then do what you want.... but kinda doesnt make sense to buy something when you're connecting to the 'normal' desk box afterwards.

[amdavies]

Development on Windows 8 started before the release of 7 so ARM compatibility was probably seen as a necessity in case Intel wasn't able to produce a comparable product.

[Ksyruz]

It should be noted that the full windows can be run on really slim ultra books. Thus with Haswell CPU's reaching under 30w. Tables will have the full windows with large capacity storage.

[crossy]

It should be noted that the full windows can be run on really slim ultra books. Thus with Haswell CPU's reaching under 30w. Tables will have the full windows with large capacity storage.

That last bit (and I assume you mean "tablets" not "tables" - lol) can only come to pass once we've got high-density, cheap SSD's. I'll agree with you though that these "convertable" Ultrabooks (HP Envy X2, perhaps Leonovo Yoga) make a huge degree of sense. Perhaps in time these'll come down to the price point that the RT tablets were aiming for?

[Aidman]

I don't why people are so scathing of RT. As many of the Surface RT reviews said it is the only tablet available capable of being an actual laptop replacement mainly due to the inclusion of Office 2013. Ipads and Android tablets are fine for consumer services but the Surface RT definitely excels when it comes to serious work. Yes it was definitely overpriced at launch and the lack of Outlook in the initial release was a major mistake. However the RT 8.1 update that includes Outlook 2013 and other 8.1 goodness is due for release in Oct (beta already available) so expect a resurgence from MS on the RT front. They can't afford not to be a player in the ARM world so I don't expect them to give up on RT anytime soon. With better pricing and the 8.1 update RT will be a lot more attractive to serious users.