Nokia readying Win8 tablet for 2012 release?

The long-rumored Nokia Windows 8 tablet is set to debut in the fourth quarter of this year, according to the Taiwanese market-watchers at DigiTimes. Citing "sources at upstream component suppliers," DigiTimes reported on Monday that Nokia's ARM-based Windows 8 tablet would be based on a dual-core Qualcomm platform, have a 10- …

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

With innovative new 3 touch screen.

Or are they just going to fit ctrl-alt-del buttons?

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as I can install android and get a refund on my window lic I'll bite

As long as I can install android and get a refund on my window lic I'll bite. Will be fun. But seriously if windows 8 slips or the tablet version is as dumbed down as there mooting then haveing it able to dual boot an alternative OS would make sence if there in the business to sell hardware. That is what Nokia do right? Or they now the unofficial marketing company for microsoft!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: As long as I can install android and get a refund on my window lic I'll bite

Not likely to be any Android dice until Secure Boot has been blown wide apart and rendered utterly pointless.

[Richard Plinston]

Re: As long as I can install android and get a refund on my window lic I'll bite

Microsoft have guaranteed that neither of these will happen.

Secure Boot will ensure that no other OS could be loaded, either replacing or as dual boot. The MSApp store will guarantee that there will not be any co-existing Linux (ie running as an app) available.

It is likely that there will be no offer of a refund as it will be impossible to separate the hardware and software. As there will not be any retail versions of WOA there is no equivalence to PCs + Windows.

It is also likely that the target for the hardware is approximately iPad2 so it will be 3 quarters behind the market and priced somewhat more than the new iPad due to licence fees for Windows8 and Office (which is probably only a cut down version). Also there will not be the economy of scale that iPad and Android has.

There was a Windows 7 Intel tablet being offered here for only a hundred or two more than an iPad but the small print said that the software was only a trial licence. After a month or three the buyer would have to shell out another few hundred if they wanted it to keep working. I wonder how many did not notice the footnote. (it also would boot to Intel Android).

[dotslash]

gimme

Looking forward to the Windows Tablets :)

[Monty Burns]

@PXG

Why does it have to be dumbed down? I'm running the x86 version of Windows 8 right now on my Samsung Series 7 Slate (A rather classy bit of kit) and its the full consumer preview, no dumbing down here!

@Dotslash: from my week long experience, its excellent. Metro works perfectly on the tablet format. Even the on-screen keyboard is great! (If you've used Win 7 on tablet format, you'll know that was crap)

I honestly don't understand why the targets seem to be ARM based either. If I can build an i3 box at home with 8 gig of RAM and 100gb of disk for £200, why can't these OEM's with bulk buying power do this for far cheaper? Considering they also have manufacturing capabilities.... seems perfectly reasonable to me!

[Richard Plinston]

Re: @PXG

> If I can build an i3 box ... for £200

If you wanted a tablet the size of a small suitcase then you could do that. If it is using an i3 then the battery and cooling fans alone would weigh more than an iPad.

[Monty Burns]

Richard Plinston

"If you wanted a tablet the size of a small suitcase then you could do that. If it is using an i3 then the battery and cooling fans alone would weigh more than an iPad."

I suggest you go look up a Samsung Series 7 Slate right now. Its VERY far from the size of a suitcase, runs an I5, has a VERY spanky screen and I have never heard a fan on it yet (although, i'm told there is ONE in it somewhere).

Granted, its not as light as an iPad but its perfectly comfy on my lap or craddled in my arm whilst I tap with the other hand.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @PXG

This is the ARM version, from all accounts its dumbed down compared to the x86 version that your playing with now. Also comparing desktop compnents with mobile low-power components is wrong.

M$ are bringout out ARM based tablets as well as the usual x86 flavours for this new OS. Think of the ARM version being more akin to the current mobile operating system with regards to a comparision you might appreciete.

On a side note, I had a 100gb HD back in my old 8086 system.

[Richard Plinston]

Re: @PXG

> I had a 100gb HD back in my old 8086 system

I doubt that. It may have been 100_Mega_byte.

Early versions of MS-DOS only supported less than 32Mbyte. Later versions (4.0 and later) could support larger but the PC BIOS was limited to 528Mbyte (half a Gbyte). Later BIOS (and OS) could do more but by then the motherboard had moved on and no longer supported 8086 sockets.

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Large-Disk-HOWTO-4.html

Potentially you could have used a 100Gbyte SCSI drive, but what would you be running? Xenix-8086 ?

[Monty Burns]

Re: @PXG

"Also comparing desktop compnents with mobile low-power components is wrong."

I agree, in reality its not the best comparison but I was trying to make a point. My Sammy Series 7 Slate did cost nearly a grand and obviously, being an I5 will spank any Atom/ARM chip out there for shear grunt. My point was, if Samsung can do this at this price, its actually quite easy to do so, why can't WIntel Atom boxes cost £100 in slate format? MS would have to reconsider its licensing model though.

In non-tablet format you can already get them on Ebay for £100(ish) so ... with the much higher volumes tablets would shift, its perfectly do-able for a tablet to come down to this.

[Richard Plinston]

Re: @PXG

> I was trying to make a point.

Your point seemed to be that a Metro tablet would give more power, ports, etc than other OSes. Well, Linux could run on that machine, or on similar hardware, so that is a null example. The ports that you claimed are on the dock not on the tablet. It is a fact that Windows 7 _requires_ that much power, at the expense of battery life and/or mobility. Most W7 applications _require_ keyboard mouse so it will be docked most of the time.

While it is probable that W7 and W8 tablets will generally be more powerful than competing tablets, they will also be more expensive for equivalence in user experience.

> why can't WIntel Atom boxes cost £100 in slate format?

> In non-tablet format

I think that your ebay example does not have a tablet touch screen, or any screen or keyboard, nor does it have MS licence fees paid.

[Monty Burns]

Re: @PXG

Your reading in and commenting on stuff I never said. I didn't say Metro would be more powerfull, I was contradicting the fact that a suitcase of a computer would be needed as the S7S clearly isn't a suitcase.

First off - the only port my dock has (which is the size of cigar box btw, hardly big!) that my tablet doesn't is an ethernet port. It also has full size hdmi vs mini hdmi on the tablet - an adapter is £3 on ebay.

Second - and this is something very few people have got their heads round, touch at the moment only compliments keyboard and mouse, it does NOT replace. That WILL change as MS are now telling everyone "Metro is the new standard".... so you will use a mouse less and less as MS push out Metro Office for example. (You still need a keyboard of course!)

Third - You can easily get cheap chinese tablets (with colour resistive touchscreens!) for £60 on Ebay, they are utter trash but they can do it. So if these guys can do it without quantities of scale, why can't MS/Dell/blah blah do it WITH quantities of scale. I already said MS would have to look at its licensing.

Fourth - power. On another popular AV Forum we have already proved that an I3 HTPC when setup as identical as possible will do the same job as an Atom and use LESS overall power to do it (Using watt meters at the plug). Disagree all you like, won't change my opinion or the results of our experiments. This I5 will happily run for over 6 hours, not the greatest of course but better than some Atom tablets!

Finaly, I don't actually need the dock at all, other than to use it to stand the screen up, I have a bluetooth keyboard and mouse.

[Richard Plinston]

Re: @PXG

> £60 on Ebay

Why do you assume that these £60 tablets don't have 'quantities of scale'. Many of the different brands are actually the same product, such as the case of the MID701R.

And these are ARM tablets. With 'WinTel' the Intel CPUs are _much_ more expensive. Did you know that at the very low end ARM processors sell in the tens of millions for 50 cents each. The complete Raspberry Pi sells for $25.

It would not surprise me to find MS requiring £60 for WOA + Office on ARM and 'standard' OEM pricing for Window 8 and Office on WinTel tables/netbooks/transformers, so that alone might be more than the £100 price that you seek.

[WR]

Hanging for this.

Give me Office on a tablet with local storage and I'll be a happy camper.

Of course MS could always cock up the "local storage" thing like they did with WP7.

But I remain hopeful......

[Anonymous Coward]

Not so daft

You know what, I don't like W8 much but I see what they're getting at here. A reasonably large tablet that you can take anywhere with you, but when you get home it mounts onto a dock and turns into a real Windows desktop computer, with more power, ports, features and mouse/keyboard integration than you'd get from Android or iOS. You could sell a transformer-style dock for it as well so more money for the vendors. Storage would be difficult though: a 256GB SSD would be a killer on price grounds and a disk would wreck battery life. Maybe it should come with a Thunderbolt port?

[P. Lee]

Re: Not so daft

The question is, can they get Office to work on low-power ARM chips to the point where people won't mind using it? Office probably is the killer app in terms of getting windows onto a tablet. Plug the tablet into a dock and all the storage shows up in MS's newfangled libraries. However, I'm not sure people care. Will the Windows Admin allow you to use a tablet for personal use and even if you could, would you want to use an office machine for your personal stuff?

I PXE boot the office laptops at home to turn them into home machines. It works well over 100mb ethernet, never mind gig ethernet. That makes sure home stuff never leaks into work.

I'm waiting for the PVR guys (Topfield?) to wake up and realise that they have an always-on device with lots of storage. Home server anyone? Android x86? LTSP with local apps?

[Richard Plinston]

Re: Not so daft

> with more ... than you'd get from Android or iOS.

Certainly much more price, but why do you think that it would be more power, ports, features or mouse/keyboard ?

The Nokia device will be ARM so it will only do what WOA will support and that is not Intel applications. Due to WOA restrictions it will only use those ARM SOCs which have been identified as supported by MS (I think only 3 such). Apple and Android tablets could use any newer, more powerful SOCs that they want.

Ubuntu are already talking about dual Android/Linux systems on phones and tablets. Run the phone/tablet on Android UI and switch seamlessly (both run on the one kernel) to Linux when plugged into a dock or to a TV via HDMI.

This could be out 'real soon now' with proven software that has been around for some time rather than at the end of the year with stuff that is just out of beta (or not quite yet).

And most Linux software already runs on ARM, I had OpenOffice on my N800 ARM tablet some years ago. Ironically also a Nokia.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Not so daft

I love the elegance of ubuntu/android too! Trouble is, I think for now it's a pro-user niche product for geeks to fiddle with (but if google got behind something like it they really could give microsoft the vapours...). It needs a proper, consistent interface system for the docking and I'm not sure phone companies and phone manufacturers are going to get involved without a bigger backer than canonical. I'm eager to be wrong, but my fear is that what will result is a set of packages to hack your phone and some unreliable adapters no business would ever want to depend on.

Agreed on ARM/Metro, but I think they had to make a clean break if they wanted something that was touch-capable without a stylus. I don't like metro myself so I have no idea how well this will work when Metro apps come through. But I find the Tablet/PC convergence elegant, potentially amazing if they can make it fly.

"Certainly much more price, but why do you think that it would be more power, ports, features or mouse/keyboard ?"

Compal who will be making this thing have already made a 13.3" W7 slate concept product with a keyboard dock, proper ethernet port and a full-size HDMI socket.

[Richard Plinston]

Re: Not so daft

> 13.3" W7 slate concept product with a keyboard dock, proper

> ethernet port and a full-size HDMI socket.

That would be x86 and/or AMD64. Android and/or Linux could run on that. In fact it may even be said that the dock is a _requirement_ for running W7 or W8 desktop because the UI and 'legacy' applications will only run sensibly with keyboard and mouse and the x86 and 13.3" screen will require being plugged into the mains most of the time.

My cheap Android 7" has HDMI and USB that a keyboard will just plug into (with a mini adaptor). I can hook it up to a TV (or monitor) and keyboard and use the touch screen as a touchpad. It has WiFi so it doesn't need Ethernet, and that wasn't even trying.

So how will Windows have 'more' when others can build or use the same hardware, or more ?

In fact with WOA this is locked into the decrees that MS has made about the hardware including only 3 SOCs that can be used. Android/Linux is free to use more powerful ones that come available.

[Renato]

Re: Not so daft

> Due to WOA restrictions it will only use those ARM SOCs which have been identified as supported by MS (I think only 3 such)

I believe MS only supports those SoCs yet because they made the drivers for them, maybe in partnership with the SoC manufacturer. A bit like how Windows 2000/XP supported Intel's chipsets out of box.

It might work like that:

Chinese OEM wants to build cheap tablet, gets off-the-shelf hardware with builtin drivers for its SoC.

Finnish OEM wants to build expensive tablet, develops custom hardware and drivers for its board.

[pear]

All hinges on how good WOA is, the power users will lean towards the x86 tablets, whilst the ARM ones will be more plug and play, I have a feeling it'll be pretty good but it'll next dev support to do well.

[Manu T]

oh god more chinese cwap form compal

As if the horrible Lumia 800 isn't enough. Now comes even more crap from them.