Sunday 29 December 2013

TEGRA NOTE 7 TO HP

As I stated previously in my reviews of the tablet I now own I have a link from the Tetra Zone that announces what appears to be my tablet but badged by HP, Hewlett Packard.

I do not know how this works from now on, or in other words do EVGA continue making it for HP or do they now own the licence for the design and manufacture it at HP now?

I will try to find this out as I am interested to know the answer. I am also interested to see if they will announce larger versions? The was talk of a larger one appearing but I have not searched any more regarding these facts.

I will though be covering a number of things from January 2014 onwards as after a terribly long wait I will be in a position to do those I had hoped to last year.

The jury is still out on some of these things and January 2014 will reveal some much anticipated information that I will make those decisions upon. A number of facts will come to light during the first two months that will alter many things that I will do and achieve.

Several of these things will be to do with this blog but a few are too do with my health and some check ups, tests and ultrasounds that have been requested I had not foreseen. Plus there is the matter of a referral to Guy's Hospital's Fibromyalgia Department.

These things wool all set a precedent that will continue without 2014 that will ensure that many more subjects, items and gadgets will be covered.

Fingers crossed.

http://www.tegrazone.com

Wednesday 18 December 2013

STEAM OS IS MORE VAPOUR

Oh dear.

I had become quite excited by the fact that Half Life and Steam creators Valve announced they were working on Steam Operating System based on Linux.

For too long people have created Linux OS's that do not come up to expectations. After a long pause without using it myself I kept hearing a great deal about Ubuntu and decided to give it a go.

However after a nightmare few weeks I discovered that the very thing a Linux OS had going for it, speed and stability, was now terrible. The thing it missed previously, a good graphical user interface, was now quite good?!

The other thing is that of  proprietary drivers. The one thing an OS simply MUST DO is work. If you enjoy the fact that it dies not work immediately and have to tinker for days then your missing the whole point of the very idea and term of operating system. Basically because it is not operating making many look somewhat foolish.

When this involves a standard and necessary piece of hardware whereby there are only TWO companies, though it could be argued there are three, this is even worse! No is and buts but ridiculous. Linus users may love the idea it is a novelty but the fact is that anyone who creates a Linux OS dearly wants it to go mainstream. The End! When you have installed it into an already outdated laptop and the drivers do not work it is not really an OS, as you are not able to operate the system. In fact it was quite the opposite and my laptop over heated and shut down several times and I never even had games installed?! Good know how much extra per it sucked from the wall socket and I dread to think.

At a time when Microsoft have screwed up three out of for operating systems an opportunity appeared to pass the Linux bridge by. But then Valve, who must have spotted this, announced Steam OS.

Unfortunately though and from what I read in the report below I think Valve will not do as well as they think that they will? As some guys got to mess around with a beta version of Steam they discovered many things that have had me scratching my head...

1 Users seem to be locked out of many things, including repositories that are not Valve's...uh-oh!

2 It looks and feels exactly like the Stream client on Windows or other Linux machine...uh-oh!

3 To get to something resembling a desktop you had to alter something in settings...uh-oh!

They may have been one or two other things but the first thing I thought was oh dear it is that cash cow creation thing going on again. This is the one thing users do not like and many Linux stalwarts in particular. I asked a Linux guy once why he died not like posting for software and he simply said "so you can spend more on faster hardware" though I can understand this it is not really workable. They sound like socialists of the computer world?

Yes OK Microsoft, and Apple, are extremely greedy and much of their software is expensive. Though with Apple it is the hardware. But I do not think it sensible to expect to pay nothing for something that could take a few years to create for a team of people.

Well you could if the software was boosted with advertising. Oddly enough I saw the Amazon Kindle tested by a woman who inspects hotels and she went mad at the adverts that kept popping up. Yup would drive me batty too. Turns out you had to pay them a fee of £10 to have them removed. I did not like the sound of Tesco tablets nor Argos Tablets for the same reason and that the OS on these devices have Bern created by them. Even if things start of great you have no way of knowing if this will suddenly go downhill with an update? My guess would be YES!

Case in point, my faulty and used Motorola Atrix suddenly showed down after around 18 months and now runs slower than the Motorola Defy I owned before hand. But the Atrix is dual core 1Ghz while the Defy was single core and 800Mhz?!

Added to this I have even reinstalled the Operating System several times to cure it's various ills to no effect whatsoever. Yet when someone hands me their new phone and this applies to cheap single core entry level phones to they go so fast they make my Defy look like it is going backwards in time.

I really DO NOT like updates. They drive you bloody nuts to be updated for no real visually noticeable  improvement and seemingly every five minutes. Before long you do notice changes as the software starts paying up or refused to work altogether.

That leaves me with such a bad taste in my mouth I want to vomit repeatedly!!! Why? Because this behaviour is no different to that of pick-pockets stealing things from you in the street.

At least pickpockets have done excuse or other at times, like they are starving or drug addicts!! Not because a few million in a few years is not good enough or not fast enough.

Yes a very bad taste.

So Valve appears on first impressions to be going down that street of shame but I cannot say I am surprised. I never did like the Steam client and thought it would not work. Several years to early.

Let us hope things improve but after  reading this, albeit early report, I salt very much doubt it.

Maybe the price of twinkies have gone up?

In Depth: First look: Valve SteamOS - http://pulse.me/s/IgBRn

Monday 2 December 2013

VIDEO of ADVENT VEGA TEGRA NOTE 7 TABLET COMPUTER

Well here is the video I did of the tablet with the longest name in the WOOOOORRRRRLLLLD!

Lol.


ADVENT TEGRA NOTE 7 INCH TABLET REVIEW

I have a new tool for my trades.

It also doubles up as a new toy, love it when I but things that can truly multi-task!

Now this is a 7 inch tablet computer and how I came about getting it as well as how I found it is both weird and very lucky.

Make no mistake when I state this but this is one hell of a tablet for the money and though some have been put off with it for just one thing, it IS just one thing. Some have stated this is ugly but I think them morons and I think that the Apple iPads are bland and boring both the design and the graphical user interface. The iPad Mini being the only exception but still has the iOS GUI which has not changed one bit and not capable of having a decent desktop screen nor widgets.

As for it being ugly it looks like a giant HTC One in black which everyone loves the look of so there you go. But I will add that the body is not metal but plastic but it is a deep solid plastic. To get this point across I new it was plastic and one idiot reviewer stated that the tablet was "flimsy" and yet when I got it out of its box I had to look closely at the materials as it felt solid with a nice weight. Took a few seconds before I had decided that the speakers on the edges were indeed covered in plastic!

SO yes the speakers face you and there is also a BASS speaker on one side, many thought a microphone. Indeed I even removed an app that was downloaded automatically as I thought it had no microphone but indeed it does!

Now for the bit that some complain about, but only some, and that is the screen resolution of somewhere around 1280x800 so obviously not a 1080p screen. But here I have a 7 inch screen that is a higher resolution as the last TV I watched which was a 720p screen and listed as 'HD'. So it is higher than the normal HD and oddly higher than the XBox 360's resolution and more bizarrely higher than the XBONE, oops sorry my bad X-Box ONE lol.

DO I notice this? NO! The screen is perfectly fine and it is an IPS panel to boot. Yet you could argue that it could be a little sharper but at the price it cannot be faulted.

The CPUs inside is the latest nVidia Tegra 4 which is a quad +1 processor. I do not know if the plus one is a co-processor, GPU ot whether or not that does not include a GPU, if their is one, and it therefore has 6?! LMAO!

Now I nearly missed this unit and I had visited my local PC World store several times and it has never been on display! This is not only strange but gets stranger when I tell you that is is badged under their own label of ADVENT! But do not despair as it is ADVENT in name only. The tablet was designed by nVidia because many companies decided against there newest processor and opted for the latest quad core Snap Dragon processor. SO thay approached EVGA and as PC builders will be aware they build Graphics Cards for PCs and a highly reagrded brand they are due to some fine graphics cards produced. In fact in some countries this unit has the EVGA brand printed on it instead of Advent.

To give it its full name, well here in the UK at any rate, it is the Advent Tegra Note 7 and it has another surprise when I explain it has a rather nifty stylus! Yes a stylus and this is NOT chunky like most stylus you get but extremely fine, though the other end as another thicker bit of rubber. This stylus also will not work on other screens either and was created by nVidia. It is held in place by magnetism and does not come out easily at all. Also on removal of the stylus the unit senses this and gives you a pop up menu to run one of two apps both designed to make use of it. These are 'Draw' and 'Write'. The tablet is also pressure sensitive so you co do fine lnes or thicker lines but just applying more pressure. The nibs are also wedged shape so you can have a greater degree of control over the thickness. It works well too and is very responsive and this alone had me sold!

It came with Android 4.1, I think it is, or Jellybean but it immediately updated to 4.2.2 after I switched it on indoors. There is also an nVidia app that shows you games and programs that are specifically designed for their Tegra chips and clicking on one takes you to the program within Google's app store. Other than those last three programs there is nothing else or no bloatware or skins by the tablet manufacturers so kept clean and simple. I did read that this tablet will receive the KitKat update reported to be faster and more streamlined which will vastly increase the already vast longevity of this tablet. All in all very cool.

It comes with 16GB or memory and also houses a Micro SD Card slot for expansion which is the only thing that puts me off devices. Not including this is purely to get you to pay out for another machine in 6 months to 12 months in my opinion and leaves a bad taste in my mouth with the manufacturers and whoever it is that may or may not force this upon the manufacturers. Because these days and for sometime now 16GB and even 32GB is not enought for some. Two years ago an Apple owning ex friend of mine was complaining because he wanted one that had 128GB and was hoping that the iPhone 5 had that. I laughed and said these companies know people want higher memory and they wont do it for at least several models yet. Maybe you might get that on the iPhone 6 or even 7 but not on any of the fith models.

I think the same about upgrades to Operating Systems and apps. That is why they do not like the modding community because once you have paid between 200 and 1000 quid out you want it to last but now they have your dosh they want you to upgrade as soon as they can get you to do it.

Odd how this is never covered in the magazines? Lol.

I used Real Racing 3 on the tablet and it looked very bizarre to see this on a large screen. I have been plaing it on a rotten Apple iPhone 4S and in all honesty it is very small. I do not thnk the fifth version goes quite big enough in all honesty and neither does iOS 7 do much of anything. They have been left behind for years and only the look and design of the latest 5S is a positive thing as regards this phone. Oh the finger print scanner is good too. But the less said about the gaudy horrible 5C the better, lol. They must have been on mind altering drugs to think that people would pay that money for that horrid phone?! Only fifty quid cheaper?! Even at £100 cheaper I would rather stump of the exra £100 and get the 5S, if I was mad enough to pay £800 foir a phone! I would much rather buy the Nexus 5 not long out because at around £300 it is less than half the price! Even if it has no Micro SD Card slot!

So what was the price of this 5 core Tegra 4 7 inch tablet?

£180!! Yup you read that right it s one hundred and eighty quid that is ahead of everythihg else in all but the screen! In benchmarks it was three times more powerful than many other devices, you will need to look it up but I may download a benchmark and film a run through of one.

Also there is a games controller like that on the games consoles but specifically designed fot this tablet!

Oh yes it has wifi up to 'n' and Bluetooth 4.0, yes indeedy!

Still I think that is enough rambling on for now...here are some pictures...

 The Advent Tegra Note 7 inch tablet and its Advent badged UK box.

Nice screen, not quite as nice as Nexus 5 (2013) but not a million miles off.

 Soft feel rubberised back when holding in landscape mode.

 Bass speaker. Stylus to the right. Left side has plastice that can be removed from the design and a specific and magnetic cover that slides in to become attached to the tablet. Foigot to look and have no idea of it is stocked here in UK PC World stores. I have found a leather case it manages to fit into!

 Two cameras with rear one 5MP one that also has TRACKING and HDR!

 Ports a plenty with HDMI, 3.5mm audio socket, Micro USB! Volume and Micro SD Card Slot next to each other on right side.

 Hands up those that thinks it looks like a black HTC One?!

This fine end of stylus is exactly that!

 Landscape mode sends the permanent apps to eaither end of screen
 
Removing the stylus prompts the tablet to present you with the stylus apps, see next photo.

 Pop up menu for stylus specific apps, you can add any others you download too.

Very, VEY slender but solid stylus. Does NOT come out easily either and ridges there for you to get your fingernail in to pull out. Not difficult to remove but you will realise it is not falling out, EVER! Lol.