tablet for work purposes?

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Chibisk

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Jan 28, 2014
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Hey all,
I'm a college student. I'm looking for a tablet for me to work on when I'm out since I only have a desktop. I've been looking specifically at the refurbished Microsoft surface rt and surface 2 rt. The only things I'll be doing on this tablet would be taking notes, opening pdfs, ppts, music, and youtube. I will not be gaming on here so I don't need a strong setup. I also understand that Microsoft will soon abandon windows RT since the surface 3 is out and it runs win 8.1 and soon to be 10, but the surface 3 is out of my ~$200 budget. Would the refurbished surface rt and 2 rt's be viable? Thanks
 
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nukemaster
RT will not run X86 software. RT runs ARM cpus.

If you can live exclusively with what the system comes with and Windows Store apps, then it is fine.

If you want to install ANY 3rd party software, this is a bad idea because it will not work.

I am also somewhat worried about future web standards support(with RT being all but abandoned). Microsoft is not always good for supporting old hardware(look at the Zune. It did not get to the top of the market so they dropped it released the HD version and dropped it. The hardware was solid too).
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nukemaster

nukemaster

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Nov 23, 2004
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RT will not run X86 software. RT runs ARM cpus.

If you can live exclusively with what the system comes with and Windows Store apps, then it is fine.

If you want to install ANY 3rd party software, this is a bad idea because it will not work.

I am also somewhat worried about future web standards support(with RT being all but abandoned). Microsoft is not always good for supporting old hardware(look at the Zune. It did not get to the top of the market so they dropped it released the HD version and dropped it. The hardware was solid too).
 
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C

Chibisk

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I mean, as long as I could use Word and download pdfs and ppts and view them along with accessing the internet, I should be fine. But like you said, if the RT is abandoned and I can't access the internet, I feel like I would have wasted money.
Are there any other ~$200 tablets that have decent battery life and good for my purposes?
 
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nukemaster

nukemaster

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I am not big into tablets.

200 is not allot(or at least not here in Canada due to our dollar not doing so great.)

Word(office in general) and PDFs should not be an issue. It is just the updates for IE that concern me(maybe it is not an issue. some websites have lots of backwards compatibility).
 
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nukemaster

nukemaster

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It looks interesting. I have to little table experience(hell last notebook I bought was in 2004. I just never got too big into mobile computing outside of school) to comment on how well it performs.

2 gigabytes of ram is pretty slim and 32 bit at this time does not pose an issue outside of some games(and maybe some specialized software), but at least Windows 8.1 should have support until about 2023(2018 for mainstream 2023 for extended support[security updates and such]).I am sure most devices will be pretty obsolete by them.

Remember that office is a 1 year subscription and will require paying to keep using it per year. OpenOffice or similar may be a better option since it is free.

This is all a game of compromise.
 
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gopher1369

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It performs pretty well. Quad core (Atom) processor and 2Gb of RAM with Windows 10 is perfectly fine for basic use. You can't really game on them, and multi-tasking can be painful, but for basic use it performs like a champ. It's biggst limitation is that the screen is only 1280x800.
 
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nukemaster

nukemaster

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My 2004 laptop has 1280 x 800 as well :)
Even the most entry level cellular phone is faster than it now(my entry level NAS may be faster).

I have never been bothered by that resolution on smaller screens, but that is just me.

Thanks for posting your experience with that unit.

It is pretty impressive to see how inexpensive a fully functional PC can be had for(part of this with Microsoft's Windows with Bing program allowing for FREE copies of windows for these low cost devices[this may be one such device].). Toss in the keyboard and it could replace a laptop(anything can replace mine[except storage space].).
 
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