Microsoft Windows 7 News

ExoPC Slate in Depth Review: Pt 4, Conclusions
Windows Phone Updates Explained
What Will 2011 Bring for Microsoft?
Make Windows 7 look like WP7 with Metro Home
Internet Explorer Loses Out In Europe – Firefox Now King

ExoPC Slate in Depth Review: Pt 4, Conclusions

Posted: 05 Jan 2011 12:54 AM PST

As I prepare to return the review ExoPC Slate it’s time to sum up my conclusions about the device. If you missed the first three parts of this review you can catch them at Part1, Part 2 and Part 3.

So what’s the ExoPC like to live with day to day? Obviously there’s been talk here in the article comments about battery life which I haven’t mentioned yet. The quoted battery life is 4 hours and this is accurate. It’s long enough for some light use on an evening but if you really want to put it to heavy work it might be worthwhile investing in the (forthcoming, currently in production) docking station. The battery is set to last two years after which time you’ll need an authorised service centre to replace it, but after two years anybody could be looking at a new tablet anyway as these things are bound to get some knocks during that time.

Then there’s the size and weight. I was mostly using this tablet, crashed out on the couch watching TV, for some light web browsing and email, but was also occasionally carrying it around too. The size and weight of this tablet are superb. It’s great when watching the BBC iPlayer to get full screen 16:9 video, which you can’t get on the iPad due to it’s 4:3 aspect ratio. On this point the ExoPC Slate scores highly (though you do look a bit like a warehouse foreman if you walk around with it cradled in your arm).

exopc 0111 400x225 ExoPC Slate in Depth Review: Pt 4, Conclusions

You would probably not want to use this out and about except perhaps for long train or coach journeys, but I’ve not seen anybody using an iPad or any other tablet outdoors either.

The screen is great, even after you’ve smudged it you can still see it clearly and not finger marks. This is something you definitely must have in a tablet. The graphics performance lets the tablet down a bit though as the graphics weren’t up to running the Surface Lagoon interactive pond program in the Microsoft Touch Pack, so complex games might be out.

It’s on the software and performance though that things aren’t quite so great. As the machine is non-upgradeable I found myself wishing that it had come bundled with a bit more than 2Gb of RAM. It has a dual-core Atom processor and a solid state hard disk which make it nippy, but pairing those with just 2Gb of RAM spoils the show and can make Windows 7 feel sluggish if you have a few windows open. If you already have a netbook and are used to the performance they offer then you won’t mind, but tablets aren’t falling into the netbook price bracket and so I hoped for more.

I’ve found, oddly, that I can actually live with Windows 7 on a tablet but the ExoUI still needs works and polish. That said they’re on this every single day and had yet more announcements as I was getting ready to write this article, more on those in a bit.

Of the few Windows 7 tablets on sale at the moment this is undoubtedly the best. It has the best build quality, screen, size, weight and interface of them all. If you want a Windows 7 tablet and can afford to be patient for a few months while they update their UI then I’d buy one as soon as they go on sale in your region. If you want the full whizzy tablet experience then you won’t get it here, at least not with Windows 7 on board, those people should get an iPad.

Windows 7 has clear advantages over the iPad in many ways however despite not being designed for a tablet and we’re now only a year away from Windows 8. Some of you I know are beta-testers for Microsoft like me and we can look forward to getting Windows 8 sooner rather than later. This again can make the ExoPC a compelling purchase.

There’s been fresh and recent news from ExoPC Towers however that not only is a new tablet coming later in 2011 with upgraded hardware, but that it will also come with a glasses-free 3D screen, and this is literally news that’s broken in the last 12 hours.

exopc3D 400x339 ExoPC Slate in Depth Review: Pt 4, Conclusions

ExoPC's Mock-Up of their 3D Interface for Later in 2011

I’m not so sure how a 3D screen will work with Windows but as ExoPC are claiming that in a few months you’ll be in their UI “90% of the time” perhaps it doesn’t matter. Upgraded hardware is definitely a plus though.

So in conclusion is it worth buying an ExoPC Slate. If you need a tablet and want the power that goes with Windows 7 then I’d say that the ExoPC is definitely the tablet to get. The only caveat is the occasionally sluggish performance, but as I said if you’re used to a netbook this won’t bother you.

ExoPC should also be supported as they are a start-up and we all know the perils that can befall such technology companies. They are doing excellent work though and I can’t overstate the fantastic build quality of this device enough. If they carry on like this then the upgraded UI in the spring and a new tablet later this year will be something truly special indeed.

Windows Phone Updates Explained

Posted: 04 Jan 2011 08:12 PM PST

If you’ve been following Microsoft latest leap back into the mobile market then you have probably heard about some of the updates that Windows Phone users are clamouring for. We’ve heard alot of “sources” report things that were far fetched and then debunked by Microsoft, but now we may have something to go on…

Well-known Microsoft tech journalist, Paul Thurrott, posted some explanations regarding the much-talked-about future updates for Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 OS. On his Windows Phone blog, Windowsphonesecrets.com, Paul goes into details about the supposed updates. Here is what he said:

The first update: "No Donuts"

The first Windows Phone 7 software update, codenamed "NoDo," will RTM in January, possibly this very week and in time for the CES keynote. But it won't ship to users until early February, once the carriers sign off on it. This update will include the famed copy and paste functional addition, support for the Qualcomm 7×30 smart phone chipset, a CDMA location stack, and a number of software fixes.

Fun fact: "NoDo" stands for "No Donuts" and could be so named because the a minor Android update was called "Donut."

This first update which will supposedly bring copy and paste should put to rest one of the two major gripes from many anti-Windows Phone techies, but third-party multitasking will still be the one feature they’ll get up on their soapbox for.

Major update: "Mango" … Sort of

While I'm not sure on the timing, the first major Windows Phone 7 update contains a piece called "Mango" internally; this will add Internet Explorer 9 with with the Trident 5 rendering engine, HTML 5 and Silverlight, and gesture support. This is the "75xx" code branch, which suggests that it could be called Windows Phone 7.5. (But probably won't be … It actually calls itself Windows Phone 7.2 at this time.). Internally, this code branch is referred to as the "entertainment" branch, which suggests other, non-IE functionality as well.

Note that Mango isn't the "next" Windows Phone update after NoDo. It's part of a future major update, and there could be other updates between NoDo and Mango.

The Mango update has been the most talked about updates which may not come until this fall or even later, but the addition of IE9 and HTML5 support will be a huge boost for the new platform.

Updating paradigm

In case it's not obvious, the first update above, combined with previous information about carriers' abilities to stop updates for "one cycle" only, suggests very strongly that Microsoft will never (or at least not normally) ship fixes for individual issues. Instead, it appears to be handling WP updates as it does with services packs in the desktop Windows world. This is, in my opinion, a huge mistake. Microsoft has plenty to fix in Windows Phone, and it should be doing so as quickly as possible, one fix at a time if necessary.

Many early adopters and those on the fence about Windows Phone 7 are concerned about the updating cycle that Microsoft will employ. Will they push updates or will they bow to the will of the carriers remains to be seen. Keep in mind that Microsoft has not confirmed these updates and probably won’t until their CES keynote later this week, but if I were a betting man (and I am) I’s say we’ll definitely get some more Windows Phone news when Ballmer takes the stage in Las Vegas.

Source: WindowsPhoneSecrets.com

What Will 2011 Bring for Microsoft?

Posted: 04 Jan 2011 08:01 PM PST

I’ve spent a sizable chunk of my new year reading about the future of computing, and I’ve read a lot of different things from a lot of different people. If I had to pick out a common thread, though, I’d say that by all accounts Microsoft has its work cut out for it. Tablets, smartphones, and cloud computing are all anyone wants to talk about, and the unfortunate reality is that Microsoft is struggling in most if not all of these markets. Now that I’m done reading, I want to spend a little time writing about the state of Microsoft, and just what its year could look like.

Windows: Worries on the horizon

On Monday we reported that, while Windows 7 share made a sizable jump over the holidays, total Windows market share was down slightly for the month of December to 90.29 percent. This is the latest evidence in a very slow, very gradual, but very definite decline for Windows, which stood at 92.21 percent market share a year ago. If we were taking bets I’d say that it will dip below 90 percent for the first time in years by the end of 2011.

I don’t think Microsoft needs to be wringing its hands just yet – Windows 7 is doing very well, and 90 percent of the market is still eighteen times higher than that of OS X, its nearest competitor. Many of the devices running Android and iOS, the operating systems to which Windows lost most of its share in 2010, belong to people who are also running Windows on their laptops and desktops. Windows is doing fine. It’s just that, well, 90 percent of the market can become 57.1 percent of the market distressingly quickly.

Internet Explorer: Continued decline

Yes, the bad news continues to roll in for Internet Explorer, which dropped below 60 percent share in September and has been losing share to Chrome, Firefox and Safari all year. For as long as computers are around, Internet Explorer is going to have a sizable share of the browser market cornered – my completely unscientific prediction that it will have above half the market for quite awhile and will stop losing share so quickly when IE6 is finally banished – but this rapid drop in market share from its total domination of the market just a few short years ago could be a prediction of things to come for Windows if things continue to go poorly.

That being said, Internet Explorer 9 is a pretty excellent browser, and its release may stem the flow of defectors. It’s a vast improvement over the poky Internet Explorer 8, and for the first time in quite awhile Microsoft is bringing some speed and innovation to the table instead of playing catchup with everyone else.

Windows Phone 7: A silver lining

Where Microsoft also needs to impress in 2011 is in its new Windows Phone 7 OS, which faces stiff competition from iOS and Android. The OS made its debut to decent sales numbers and generally positive reviews, and a few updates should give it most of the functionality that its competitors have. Virtually the same thing could be said for Android when it launched. In my view, Windows 7 has a couple of important advantages over Android that could help it succeed in the long run, if Microsoft can play its cards right: its more centralized update mechanism, and its more consistent interface across different phones and carriers.

Android updates are largely left up to the manufacturer, which means that many phones get updates belatedly or not at all. Android is also subject to a lot of vendor customization – phone manufacturers and carriers get the base Android OS from Google and slaps a bunch of carrier-specific customizations and skins over top of it. These two things have led to market defragmentation that’s only going to hurt the platform going forward, and if Windows Phone 7′s consistency can help prevent this, 2011 could be the year that Windows on phones stops being a joke and starts being a success story.

Tablets: The final frontier

I think a real, serious tablet competitor from Microsoft is on everyone’s wishlist for CES. I’m not talking about Windows 7 on some anemic Atom-powered slate, which everyone has already passed on, and I’m not talking about a glimpse at Windows 8, which may be too little and will be too late. Microsoft needs to showcase a tablet OS that runs on ARM hardware and is months away from shipping, not years. Using Windows Phone 7, an OS designed from the ground-up for touchscreens, as a base is a no-brainer, and I have no idea why Microsoft has been so reluctant to do so.

The iPad basically has the market to itself. Android tablets are trickling out, but they suffer slightly from the aforementioned fragmentation problems and it seems that true tablet support features are eternally destined to come in “the next version.” If Microsoft is serious about competing in this space, it needs to do it now.

Conclusions

Right now, Microsoft is a company with generally good products but sometimes poor marketing and execution. This is the company that used the ridiculously overwrought phrase “Always Delightful, Wonderfully Mine” to debut the do-or-die revamp of its phone OS. Try harder, guys. Or, better yet, stop trying so hard.

As is the case with any prediction or forecast, there’s no way to tell what will actually happen but sit and wait patiently. Windows is doing pretty well and Microsoft Office still fails to have a serious competitor – these are the markets in which Microsoft has traditionally dominated. These markets are where Microsoft will continue to perform well for some time to come. But if Microsoft wants to remain a serious competitor in 2011 and beyond, it’s going to need a slam dunk. Preferably several.

Make Windows 7 look like WP7 with Metro Home

Posted: 04 Jan 2011 07:32 PM PST

We’ve seen some interesting ways for users to spice up their Windows 7 desktop by adding themes and skins. After Microsoft unveiled it’s new Windows Phone 7 mobile OS, we even saw a very impressive way to take that theme to your Windws 7 desktop through Rainmeter’s Omnimo UI theme.

Now, we have another way to make our Windows 7 desktops look more like the Windows Phone OS using HTC Home’s Vista and Windows 7 desktop widgets. HTC Home dubs these widgets “Metro Home” and it is essentially a special version of HTC Home with a “dynamic interface in the Metro style.”

System requirements according to their website are:

PC with Windows Vista or Windows 7 (32 or 64-bit operation systems). The program also may function with other Windows operation systems, but we cannot guarantee that.
Internet connection (also possible through proxy-server)
Installed Microsoft.NET Framework 4

In the brief amount of time I played with Metro Home I found some oddities. First of all, the weather and temperature were way off. It’s currently 52 degrees where I live, but the metro weather widget was reading 3 to 11 degrees. Also, the pictures widget seems to be non-customizable, meaning that I couldn’t figure out how to point the widget to my personal pictures folder. The ability to separate the widgets and reorganize them is also a mystery. All in all, the widgets are very metro-esque, but the lack of customization is a huge drawback.

Metro Home is an open-source operation that is dependant on donations, so if you like the project and want to see them develop it even more, you might want to check it out here.

Source: HTC Home, WPCentral

Internet Explorer Loses Out In Europe – Firefox Now King

Posted: 04 Jan 2011 07:42 AM PST

It seems that the browser ballot screen in the EU isn’t doing any favors for Microsoft. The ballot screen was introduced by the European Union to give consumers choice when choosing a browser for their machine. Of course Microsoft were against it but eventually had to settle and agreed to roll it out onto new Windows 7 machines and existing machines using Internet Explorer as the default browser.

Of course this did not bode well for Internet Explorer, and since then it’s taken a dramatic slide for the worst. So much so that it is no longer the number one browser in Europe.

According to the analytics company StatCounter, Firefox had 38.1% of European market share in December, compared with IE's 37.5%. Internet Explorer has been slipping steadily since the browser ballot screen was introduced, but Firefox hasn’t been gaining market share from it. In fact the real winners in this situation are Google Chrome and Apple Safari. Google Chrome alone has grown from 5.06% last December (09) to an impressive 14.58% in December (10)

StatCounter's CEO Aodhan Cullen had this to say;

"This is the first time that IE has been dethroned from the number one spot in a major territory. This appears to be happening because Google's Chrome is stealing share from IE while Firefox is mainly maintaining its existing share,"

We are probably seeing the impact of the agreement between European Commission competition authorities and Microsoft,"

Now the situation isn’t a disaster just yet for Microsoft, the browser ballot screen isn’t in play in the US and the rest of the world, and in these markets, Internet Explorer is still the clear leader.

IE holds 57.1% total share, while Firefox comes in at a distant 2^nd place holding 22.8% of the market, followed by Chrome with 10%, Safari at 5.9%, and Opera with 2.2%.

However it is normal for Internet Explorer to drop a couple of points at Christmas time because of the large number of businesses and corporations that aren’t working over the holiday period, so it may well pop back up to the first spot when we get the figures for January later this month.

Either way, it certainly shows that competition amongst browsers is certainly heating up and Microsoft do have their work cut out to retain that number one spot. I say many are looking towards IE 9 with eager eyes to see how Microsoft will fair.

Source:

Statcounter