OT [Slightly] Ipad Air replacement

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

Hi The Ipad is a little long in the tooth and I find it's inflexibility coupled with the inability of the inbuilt keypad to respond in poor lighting, frustrating.

I need something similar, but without the dross. The Ipad "apps" are for the most part a poor imitation of what I use on the web using a laptop to access the various websites.

Windows 10 is on the works stuff and it's got all the useless overheads of the Ipad.

I really need something as close to XP or Linux as possible, allowing file handling and storage in the conventional fashion.

Ideally a dual boot to say, Windows 7 or Linux would be ideal, along with the possibility of adding a mouse and memory as and when....

The portability of the Ipad can't be faulted, so I would like something with a detachable keyboard.

Once again I have left my £40-00 storage device plugged into some clients HMI, and really I want to cut my losses and go for another netbook/ notepad.

Does anyone use a physically small dual boot, or Windows 7 system, I would be grateful for any pointers.

Regards

AB

[Brian Reay]

There is a 'promised Psion replacement' around - I posted a link a few weeks back.

It is supposed to dual boot- Linux and AN Other, similar to the Psion 5 (so palmtop rather than tablet).

[Tim+]

Eh? Why would lighting affect a touch screen?

Never had any problem with mine under any lighting conditions.

Tim

[GB]

I have an ipad Air, too. I have a bluetooth keyboard, but rarely bother, and I can access exactly the same websites as on my desktop.

I have no idea what that means. W7 was good, but W10 is similar, and it runs faster than W7 did.

Why not get Linux then?

Get a surface?

[John Rumm]

Perhaps not quite what you had in mind, but something like the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Convertible Laptops might suit. You can detach the keyboard and use them as a 12" tablet in touch mode, or use the keyboard in a standard laptop config. Light "ultra portable" class devices.

They are traditional PC architecture so can be setup to dual boot whatever you want[1] (they tend to come with win 10 preloaded these days). Price wise not as silly as things like the MS Surface laptop.

[1] Although note that getting Win 7 on to modern devices can be more hassle due to lack of native driver support for USB3 hardware.

[whisky-dave]

On Tuesday, 13 February 2018 01:00:04 UTC, Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp w rote:

What has a keyboard got to do lighting. I don't think any keyboard changes it's responce due to the light falling on it.

So don't use them I don't. I don;t like the Argos app or even the applestor e (hardware app) so I don't use them.

Id use XP or linux then on a laptop.

Perhaps a notebook then, maybe one of those cheaper chromebooks might do.

yuo wouldn;t have that problem with an iPad. ;-)

Not me.

[Chris Bartram]

Consider Lenovo Yoga, Thinkpad T-series, or MS Surface. Surface is the closest match but they're not cheap, and Win 7 or Linux may be a struggle, but generally you'll struggle a bit for W7 unless you buy secondhand, refurb, or NOS. Remember W7 ends support relatively soon.

I've just got a Thinkpad T470s, dual-booting W10 & Ubuntu with very liitle mucking about and full hardware support. Obviously not a removeable KB or touch screen, but light, small, and capable.

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

I do, quite often. I can only tie it down to ambient lighting because moving into another room stops the effect.

The problem is "bounce", I end up with two to 4 characters appearing when inputting text. This will happen for around 10% of the input sometimes.

I have a bluetooth keypad, but this still does not resolve the other issue, which is the text going "invisible" after a paragraph, when using outlook.

AB

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

I bought the Ipad because of an assumption that the reason websites were getting so un-navigable and lacking in information was because they were written for smartphones and the like.

I find it's the opposite, for banking, I quite often have to phone or in most cases connect using the website. This is for all the banks I use. It seems that they cannot cater for anything slightly outside the norm. Including applying to Lloyds for a credit card.

Not mine, it's slow, and the clutter on the "desktop" is a dammned nuicance. 90% of the imagery that comes along with 10, relates to programs that I would never, ever use.

With W7, I have a virtually clear desktop and an instantly navigable menu structure.

I think that's the answer, XP did everything I wanted actually, but times move on I suppose.

Linux with a KDE interface is probably the optimum. I use it on the home PC, but I still find it necessary to drop to Windows for the odd task, so a total divorce isn't the best idea.

I would have found the file handling capabilities of Windows or Linux beneficial with the Ipad, but I would guess that my approach may be somewhat amiss, as most people dont seem to have problems.

Thanks, I'll look into it.

Thanks for the pointer.

AB

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

That sounds good from a size point of view.

I suppose it ignores the port completely does it?

Too much to hope for that it would merely drive it to a USB 2 configuration?

I will look into it.

Many thanks

AB

[whisky-dave]

So there's nothing else differnt between these two areas just the lighting. Have yuo tried typing in the dark ? Or better still covering the sensor which is top left, the small hole to the right of the audio plug. ?

[Peter Johnson]

I've just got one of these:

It will do as a reserve if my pc goes down and will work as a tablet when required.

[Tim+]

Um, are you using it connected to an external power supply, in particular a non-Apple branded one?

I get this if I plug my iPad into a combined USB/mains socket or another cheap usb power supply. Never when plugged into the original Apple PS. Certainly never on battery power.

What you have I?ll wager, is a PS problem, not an ambient lighting problem.

Tim

[The Natural Philosopher]

its an apple problem. They are shit, thats all

[dennis]

So remove them.

As do I with win10

[dennis]

I bought the wife the 1010 version and its pretty good. You wouldn't want to run XP or W7 on it though as they use more resources and would run slower.

She is happy enough doing mail, web surfing and the odd low graphics game.

There isn't much storage on them though unless you put a big microSD card in.

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

I gave it an hour or so, and did some research on the internet, but as I only use the works laptop for PLC/ HMI work now, it's the law of diminishing returns.

Office gave way to Libre Office or whatever it is now.

Life's too short...

AB

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

Do you know, I can't remember!

It is possible that it was on a PSU, simply because it's when it's being charged, I would do my keyboard acrobatics.

I try to avoild the keypad on the move.

I'll check, thanks

AB

[John Rumm]

Lots of modern PCs have done away with the south bridge chipset that supported the legacy USB hardware (its now built into the Platform Controller Hub that talks to the CPU via the Direct Media Interface).

Win 7 can talk to the modern Platform Control Hub hardware once booted, but does not (natively) include the drivers to install from it. That's not so handy for ones that don't have an optical drive, and have most peripherals on USB. So you can get to the odd situation where the BIOS can boot from a bootable USB flash drive, and then get stuck at the prompt to push a key to continue since it won't recognise the keyboard at that point or any other device from that point!

The fix is to create a bootable USB install image, but to slipstream the USB drivers into it as well. Then you can install Win 7 normally. Its just a bit of extra faff getting there.

The hardware is not backward compatible from a driver point of view.

[John Rumm]

The 64GB version might be tolerable, but beware the 32GB netbook style ones that are still out there. After the first few system updates they run out of space! (I know someone with a HP atom based laptop where it in effect became useless due to lack of space - there was not even a standard format of SSD in it that could be upgraded)