I ve been using a Haswell-powered Surface Pro 2 on loan from Microsoft, and while it has many improv

I m looking for a good 7in or 8in tablet, and I don t know what to do. It doesn t have to have a super-duper HD retina display or Dolby sound. I use it mainly for Microsoft Exchange email, browsing, watching the occasional BBC video or live news etc, and running a few apps. I m not a gamer.
I have bought four Android tablets -- a Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 (Wi-Fi/3g) in 2011 and three Google Nexus 7 tablets, including new and old models -- and they have all had problems. This year I tried another 2012 Nexus 7. All was well for a few days until Android updated to KitKat (4.4.2 KOT49H), when I started having exactly the same touch screen problems as I had had with both 2013 units. Having frequently suffered from things being broken by Android updates, this has just made me sick of Android.
I also did something I thought I d never do -- consider an Apple device -- so I ve been reading up on the iPad Mini. The old model is now going for around 215, and I don t really want to go too much higher. However, I m not a fan of the Apple closed system or having iTunes installed: years ago it completely trashed my PC. Also, when I tried an iPad Mini in John Lewis, the video clips on the BBC News website wouldn t play. The sales assistant told me the only way to watch BBC videos was by using the BBC News app, which curiously didn t work. Brian
I m tempted to suggest a BlackBerry tablet as that may be the only one you haven t tried, and they are very cheap. However, the fact is that Android is the only real choice in the cheap tablet market ( 50- 200) apart from Amazon s Kindle Fire, and you already have one of those. Also, it s not much of an alternative in the sense that it uses a forked version of the open source part of Android, without the proprietary Google layer that provides access alprazolam to Google Play etc.
When it comes to choosing between an Apple iPad and a Windows 8 tablet, they are different beasts with different capabilities. You d usually choose an iPad to get access to the vast selection of high-quality apps, which have actually been designed for tablets rather than phones. You d usually choose a Windows 8 tablet because alprazolam it provides access to the vast selection of Windows programs. The Windows Store now has about 240,000 tablet apps and covers most needs, but it s still nowhere near the iPad s ecosystem.
I don t think there s actually much difference in terms of ease of use in tablet mode, once you have learned the specific edge-swipes that do special things in the Metro-sorry-modern interface. (If you won t learn those, you have no chance.) Most of the complaints about Windows 8 have been about using the tablet interface to access desktop features, and Microsoft is in the process of fixing those.
I ve been using a Haswell-powered Surface Pro 2 on loan from Microsoft, and while it has many improvements over the first version, the experience hasn t really changed the views I expressed when I reviewed it here ( Microsoft alprazolam Surface Pro review: a device of many talents ). It s amazingly versatile. For example, you can use it as a desktop with full size keyboard alprazolam and monitor -- or several monitors -- and its Wacom-style pen-operated graphics make it exceptionally good value for creative types. It also makes life simpler when you can do PC-level photo and video editing then switch to tablet-style viewing on the same machine. It s dramatically cheaper than buying a desktop, an Ultrabook, a graphics tablet, and a tablet. On the other hand, it s not the optimum choice for any particular function, and if you don t need all the features, it s an expensive option.
It s true that Windows 8 tablet hybrids can cost from about 350 to over 1,000, but new tablets with 8in screens are very much cheaper, and prices now start at about 250. (Or, for American buyers, about $250.) They can still do all the good stuff, such as supporting multiple monitors, alprazolam though usually without the high-resolution digitising pen input. The obvious drawback is that an 8in screen is very small for running desktop programs, especially if you don t know them well enough to use keyboard alprazolam shortcuts.
The cost savings come from the smaller alprazolam screen sizes and the use of 32-bit Intel Atom chips with 2GB of memory. However, the new Bay Trail chips are dramatically better than the old Atoms used in netbooks. For example, the Z3770 is roughly as fast as an Intel Celeron 1007U or a low-voltage Core i3-4010Y, and ahead of old staples such as the second-gen Core i3-2375M. Of course, the extra efficiency of Windows 8 helps as well. Cheaper Windows?
You may know that netbooks were cheap partly alprazolam because Microsoft offered manufacturers a special version of Windows XP called Home Edition ULCPC for ultra low cost personal computers . The rumoured price was closer to $15 than the usual $45, but it was basically free money for Microsoft -- XP had reached the end of its very profitable life -- and netbook manufacturers preferred it to free