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| Thread ID: 139693 | 2015-06-12 21:18:00 | Windows tablet user experiences | Webdevguy (17166) | PC World Chat |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 1402601 | 2015-06-12 21:18:00 | Hi all, I have negotiated a deal for our IT dept to provide The mobile sales staff at work to begin field testing a Windows Tablet running Windows 8.1 when they are out on the road. They will only be accessing our company website which is pretty old. I'd be interested to hear forum members feed back on their experiences with Windows Tablets. Cheers. |
Webdevguy (17166) | ||
| 1402602 | 2015-06-13 00:41:00 | what would you like to know? | nmercer (3899) | ||
| 1402603 | 2015-06-13 01:09:00 | what would you like to know? Just general experiences based around typing on it, portability, security, usability/mobility, printing to wireless printers etc.. |
Webdevguy (17166) | ||
| 1402604 | 2015-06-13 02:08:00 | They are light, portable, have good battery life, and interface well with MS networks. Printing is the same as for any windows PC because despite the tablet name that is what they are. The only real downsides are screen size for some applications and a lack of serious CPU power for heavy tasks unless you buy a high end i5 or i3 tablet and honestly you can buy a much better and cheaper laptop at those kind of prices which is a better all round workhorse. I don't know how robust they are, only time out in the field can really answer that. I know our field staff at work are very hard on laptops and manage to break things you wouldn't expect to break. I think android does touch better than MS but for general use windows is more flexible. I wanted a surface but the peripherals were too expensive so I went with an acer aspire switch 10 instead, comes with a 500GB hdd and a keyboard dock for less than a base model surface. Typing with the onscreen keyboard is ok for some things but at other times the keyboard can obscure what you're trying to type and is a little awkward, having the keyboard dock is a definite plus and effectively makes the tablet into a 10" netbook and is about as useful as you'd expect a netbook to be. If you are using a tablet without a keyboard dock I'd recommend using the new style apps and browser because they are more optimised for small screens and touch displays. For example if I tap into the address bar on the desktop version of a IE or FF it just selects the field and I have to manually launch the keyboard from an icon and may cover the part of the screen I'm trying to edit but in the version of IE you can launch from the start screen in tablet mode if you tap on the address bar it also auto launches the keyboard the way it does in android and is less likely to get in the way. Having a keyboard and a cordless mouse makes the whole thing more usable though. The quad core atom is surprisingly good as long as you don't expect it to play 3D games or do heavy multitasking and the thing boots fast and runs smoothly. Battery life is just ok, I watched 4 hours of netflix on battery on mine and it had about 10% battery left. Apparently the very similar asus T100 is better in this respect. I've even hooked mine up to a 24" full HD screen and used it with a wireless keyboard and mouse and it makes an ok desktop replacement in a pinch. Another option I went with was to buy AMI's duos for US $10, it's an android OS that runs on top of windows and works really well on my windows tablet. It gives me the option of using android apps from the play store as well as windows apps and works really well but to be honest I rarely use it. When it's running though you wouldn't know it was a windows tablet. So that's my long winded opinion :) |
dugimodo (138) | ||
| 1402605 | 2015-06-13 02:21:00 | Thanks muchly, that's exactly the type of feed back I was looking for. I'm pretty sure we will be getting the cheaper model (more "cost effective") so at least we can know what to expect. The work being done on it will be entirely web based - taking customers name and address details on an existing web form and using a web based plotter. |
Webdevguy (17166) | ||
| 1402606 | 2015-06-14 08:42:00 | we rolled out a bunch of Samsung tablets at work, we got the most powerful version available at that time. Staff are using the stylus, king soft office and dropbox to access,fill out and save basic documents, Daily checklist, task observations, weekly audiys, etc. Works a charm, as a comparison I sourced an i7 powered Surface with optional keyboard (this is as we were looking to transition from kingsoft and dropbox to MS Office and share point/one drive, complete fail as MS crippled MS office for Android and android access to business accounts on sharepoint/onedrive) My opinion from using both "tablets" daily, I'd only take the surface if it was purchased a replacement for a laptop, and at that I'd only go for the most gruntified model, If I were looking for a tablet then for me the Samsung is a much better choice. Lighter, easier to use, easier to look after. plenty of fire power. |
Metla (12) | ||
| 1402607 | 2015-06-14 09:14:00 | The latest comparison between Tablets www.neowin.net Everyone has different requirements and price points |
Lawrence (2987) | ||
| 1402608 | 2015-06-14 11:27:00 | I'm actually inclined to agree with you Metla, regarding choosing the Samsung tablet over the Windows tablet but being that this is a work situation and this is still a trial period I'm going to go with our IT dept recommendation now and take what wins I can get. Im not in any management position, I'm just the worker in our branch with the most technical knowledge who took the initiative to get the ball rolling. The tablet will only be used on the company website and won't be creating any documents or doing any other heavy lifting. |
Webdevguy (17166) | ||
| 1402609 | 2015-06-14 21:38:00 | do you know what is completely failed and crippled on Microsoft Office for Android with business SharePoint/OneDrive I use it everyday and I can't quite work out what your problem might be. we rolled out a bunch of Samsung tablets at work, we got the most powerful version available at that time. Staff are using the stylus, king soft office and dropbox to access,fill out and save basic documents, Daily checklist, task observations, weekly audiys, etc. Works a charm, as a comparison I sourced an i7 powered Surface with optional keyboard (this is as we were looking to transition from kingsoft and dropbox to MS Office and share point/one drive, complete fail as MS crippled MS office for Android and android access to business accounts on sharepoint/onedrive) My opinion from using both "tablets" daily, I'd only take the surface if it was purchased a replacement for a laptop, and at that I'd only go for the most gruntified model, If I were looking for a tablet then for me the Samsung is a much better choice. Lighter, easier to use, easier to look after. plenty of fire power. |
nmercer (3899) | ||
| 1402610 | 2015-06-14 22:59:00 | do you know what is completely failed and crippled on Microsoft Office for Android with business SharePoint/OneDrive No, I just get confused and blame Microsoft. Windows Word for Android doesn't support the stylus on word documents(this is using the stylus directly on the document, not converting handwriting via an input box into written text), while it does have a function to write in a layer over top of the document it cant save it as a .doc instead incorporating it into onenote which in regards to our requirements is of no use at all.. When you fire up word on the surface there is a stylus tab and full functionality. Clearly this has been removed for the Android version. Which is why we use Kingsoft office on the Tablets, which overall is an excellent office application, its fast, solid,simple and has beautiful stylus integration.When you save your document you get to nominate a so called "cloud" based option, at this point you can select one drive and enter in the account details. I can login and save to a personal onedrive account no problem at all, but when I enter in my business account credentials it claims no such account exists, even though I can log straight into office portal using a browser or windows office on the tablet and access the onedrive. Funny enough after reporting all this to the IT consultancy firm who put it all together they took away one of the tablets and then took two weeks to tell me what I already told them.....which for them is a world record. |
Metla (12) | ||
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