Chromebook better than a PC? - Windows 8 General

Hi there.
I'm doing this thread to once & for all find the ultimate answers to my PC "issues".
Before i bought my Lenovo Yoga 8 laptop i was thinking of buying a Google Chromebook. Specs might not be as high-end as a Windows PC but it loads a lot faster (having no such apps or enough background process to load in the background), apps load a lot faster, updates come automatically (and no need to download/intall like a PC), straighforward OS and no complicated hundreds of settings to tinker with unlike a PC. And besides a Chromebook is virus and malware-free forever.
I also happen to come from a Macbook Air and i found my PC that slow. Downloading & installing apps takes a lot longer, opening or closing an app or browser or tasks also takes longer. But in the course i have made some research to improve the speed & performanc of my Windows laptop mainly:
1. Turned off bluetooth
2. Set Windows Update to automatic
3. Updated Windows Defender
4. Defrafgging my gard drive monthly
5. Choose Selective Startup (under msconfig) and made sure no apps are enabled under Startup, selected apps are running under Services, choose a higher number under Processors and maximum memory set to at least half of what my Lenovo is capable of (under Boot)
6. Set performance to High Performance. (And being plugged in the mains)
What else have i missed?
Also i noticed when i look at Task Manager there are background processes that i do not understand and i'm not sure whether to disable them or not although it shows 0% affecting the RAM, etc.
If i don't get satisfied with this "complicated" WIndows 8.1 OS i might as well sell it and get a Chromebook as i use most of their services anyway on my Android phone.
To put things into certain context you see the most "intensve" task i will be doing in my computer will be downloading torrents 10 tabs/files at a time (it could be an .mp3 album or a standard .mp4 HD movie), wireless printing hundreds of pages from an assignmnt or work project, transferring hi-quality files (Flac or .mkv) to my Android tablet or doing an "intermediate-level" photo editing of my photos for upload to Twitter, Facebook, etc. My computer stays at home 99.99% of the time and IS online 100% of the time.
What you think guys?

I am not exactly sure what you bought, cause I can't find any Lenovo Yoga 8 running windows 8.
If you find windows 8 slow, you either bought something very low end, or something broken inside.
And no, a chrome book is not better than a PC. A PC has this thing called "reliability", which the chrome book lacks when you no longer have an internet connection.
Unless you are ready to pay a hefty monthly subscription to some mobile operator for unlimited data connection (which isn't really unlimited, after around 4GB, your connection will be slowed down automatically in many cases), and are ready to face the consequences of not having said data connection service whereever you go.
Even if windows PCs are more "expensive", which they are not, you can find a much more powerful computing machine at the same price of a chrome book (haswel i3s are really cheap now), you know you can do anything you want, whenever you want, and not relay on your internet connection to do more than checking the time.

Sorry...
I have bought Lenovo Yoga 2 11-inch Windows PC.
The MacBook Air I had before my Lenovo one stayed at home 100% of the time and is connected to the web 100% of the time. My fibre broadband is at least 70MB downloads speeds. With this respect a Chromebook would be suitable for me.
The PC I bought isn't low-end by any means. It is of the higher mid-range ones based on the specs itself. As I said I have done my own research, looked at Youtube videos on tip & tricks. The 8.1 update itself took me almost 5 hours even with that good specs. After that it is still slow. You can set up a Chromebook in 5-ish minutes, takes under 10 seconds to boot up from no power or sleep and apps start almost instantly. Because of probably all these background processes going on in Windows 8.1 it is still slow. Have shut and stopped some of them but still no significant change.
WIndows 8.1 isn't the lightweight, smooth OS I was hoping for. It is still "complicated" compared to a Mac and a Chromebook. Having it owned and used for 4 weeks I think that was enough for me to realise that perhaps....maybe next time.

Your PC is VERY low end. It has a Celeron/Pentium processor which is basically a higher clocked intel atom.
Upper mid range is core i3, not celeron my friend.
A MacBook has a core i5 processor, among other things, like a SSD for storage.
You traded a lot of mobility in the yoga for lower specs. This is why you paid so much. You can easily get a haswel i5 for this money, which is almost 10 times faster than this. You didn't research properly, I am affraid. This ain't no notebook for keeping around the house. this is a mobility oriented product.

Well, anyway i have returned the Yoga 2 back to the store and got myself an Acer C720 Chromebook. First impressions? Positive. Solid keyboard (could do with a backlit one), good sounding speakers, solid build quality and that's it so far. It's barely 24 hours so its too early to say as i haven't tried it that much yet.

IMO the best thing to improve general "feel" of a computer, especially things like how fast applications start up, is get an SSD. I don't what your Yoga had, but if it was one of the ones with the 5,400 rpm drives, it'll be slow.
If all you need is Chrome, then a Chromebook has the advantage being cheaper. Whilst a 10 second boot that Google claim for Chromebooks is quick, I wouldn't call Windows PCs slow, so long as you don't cripple them with a slow hard disk. My low end Asus T100 boots in 12 seconds (my Android Nexus 7 2013 takes 30 seconds). I don't see why web apps would load slower or things take longer to download on Chrome under Windows, than on a Chromebook - has this been tested (on equivalent hardware and network)?
"updates come automatically (and no need to download/intall like a PC)"
But you still have to download them on a Chromebook, and it happens automatically on Windows...
Never had a virus on Windows, and virus checking is built in and in the background now. There is more of a risk, but then it's like saying you're better off with a £10 dumb phone, because it's impossible to get a virus on it

Chromebook has everything you need? Then well, go ahead. Cause it is cheap and maybe simple to use.
Just make sure one day if you come up with something that you want to do but can be done only on a real computer (like using certain software or playing certain games), you can't. At the end of the day, you pay for what you get.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

A Chromebook and a PC serve different purposes. A Chromebook is like a motorcycle, lightweight, efficient and it will get you to from point A to B on the internet. A PC is like a truck,it can do a lot more but needs a bit more hardware to run on. If you can get by with a Chromebook do ahead. But I want full desktop programs, hardware driver support, etc. Thats why I got a Toshiba Encore tablet that runs 8.1. Windows still feels kind of weird on a tablet, but having a full desktop OS in a device that portable is awesome and those Bay Trail Atoms are a hell of a lot better than previous Atoms.

The Lenovo Yoga laptop i got is a quad-core Haswell-powered computer. Yet, it took me 4 hours to update it to 8.1 whilst my Chromebook took 4 minutes (even less) to set-up. My quad-core Yoga took 30 seconds (or less) to startup whilst my Chromebook took 7-8 seconds maximum.
Since having an Android phone and tablet for the past 4-5 years i feel i am tied up to Google and its various services. I can still avail and enjoy some of the MS services like OneCloud and OneOffice via its web app versions so for me that's still ok.

Gino76ph said:
The Lenovo Yoga laptop i got is a quad-core Haswell-powered computer. Yet, it took me 4 hours to update it to 8.1 whilst my Chromebook took 4 minutes (even less) to set-up. My quad-core Yoga took 30 seconds (or less) to startup whilst my Chromebook took 7-8 seconds maximum.
Since having an Android phone and tablet for the past 4-5 years i feel i am tied up to Google and its various services. I can still avail and enjoy some of the MS services like OneCloud and OneOffice via its web app versions so for me that's still ok.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your yoga wasn't a haswell...

According to Lenovo it was.

Related

The Sprint HTC Mogul... just sad :(

I just ventured into the PDA world with a Sprint Mogul and it's been nothing but disappointing so far. I have been on the phone with Sprint and HTC practically everyday. Can anyone shed any light on these issues??
- Memory, says roughly 49 MB of which over half is taken when no apps are opened.
- Tremendous problems accessing mobile websites, such as my bank, which has a mobile site (I can see it, just can't get into it... well twice I did, then error messages).
- The phone seems to drop my e-mail services for no apparent reason... e-mail works, then all the sudden, asks for my user names and passwords, which when I enter, says it's wrong. Reboot the phone, and back in business.
- It will not download and use many of the sites/programs made for mobile (gmail, AOL instant messaging, youtube - gotta do something sitting in airports).
- Screen useless in sunlight.
- Locks up constantly. If you are performing a function, and something else kicks in (text message, e-mail, phone call, etc) everything locks up, and you have to reboot.
- Locks up constantly. (see above)
- Locks up constantly. (you get the point)
- I have to reboot roughly 6-7 times per day.
- If performing a function, and something else kicks in (phone call, message, etc.)--and it does not lock up completely--the current function is blown out and you have to start over.
- If using Sprint Navigation, basically everything else is is unusable.
- Battery life is somewhat poor. And it appears re-charging in the car is much slower than from AC electric at home.
- Because I do not use Microsoft Outlook (Notes user here), the sync is not possible, since everything Windows Mobile is via Outlook. I found a nifty, free back up program for the phone and back it up to the memory card daily. That works, but I can't "sync."
- The HTC Tilt from AT&T (basically the same as Mogul) has 100 MB of RAM, while the Mogul shows less. Any ideas why?
I love the phone and love the concept, but really feel that it cannot perform as HTC and Sprint say it should. Don't know if it's conflicting software, or RAM, or what, but the overall performance is very substandard for this type of phone.
I only have a few days to return it for a service cancellation or a swap, so not real sure what to do. I am very disappointed, because if it could infact perform, then it would be the answer to my PDA needs. Anyone else having similar issues?
sorry
I'm in no way a power user, i just like to **** around with my phone. However i don't experience most of your problems, however i will address some of the issue you presented us with
First of i would suggest running a cooked rom (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=385336 this is for dcd 3.0.4 its what i run), however if you don't want to for what ever reason then:
as for your first point (and last point) of memory we all know that it blows on the mogul and the tilt is a newer phone that is why i think that the tilt has more memory
The internet, i personally use pie normally, and i have been able to do banking and such with pie. however pie plus, opera and whenever skyfire comes out (demo video here http://www.skyfire.com/product/index/demo08) are some good alternatives
The email issue i don't know what to tell you, i have two gmail accounts set up on my phone, and one for my school email phone and they always work for me. There is a setting to have your phone remember your password, so maybe that will help
As for things to do in an airport, it is possible to watch youtube vids (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=343397), gmail i already talked about, and if you know the right .coms you will find aim (i use it all the time)
The screen is kinda bad, however with the brightness setting on one of the higher settings i can you my mogul in direct sunlight (true it's kind of a pain but doable)
Your lock up issue, i don't know what to tell you. Mine never locks up. I have my mogul on pretty much twenty for seven and like once or twice a week i reboot, but i don't have a lock up problem.
i found a program that will back up your contacts and such, i haven't used it and can't find the thread about it, but it was on this forum and people really seemed to like it.
sorry that you are having problems with your mogul, i think the mogul is a very good phone and i really like mine. Any issues that you have with your phone is already solved somewhere in this forum (thats how it was for me)
sean
mark33139 said:
I just ventured into the PDA world with a Sprint Mogul and it's been nothing but disappointing so far. I have been on the phone with Sprint and HTC practically everyday. Can anyone shed any light on these issues??
- Memory, says roughly 49 MB of which over half is taken when no apps are opened.
- Tremendous problems accessing mobile websites, such as my bank, which has a mobile site (I can see it, just can't get into it... well twice I did, then error messages).
- The phone seems to drop my e-mail services for no apparent reason... e-mail works, then all the sudden, asks for my user names and passwords, which when I enter, says it's wrong. Reboot the phone, and back in business.
- It will not download and use many of the sites/programs made for mobile (gmail, AOL instant messaging, youtube - gotta do something sitting in airports).
- Screen useless in sunlight.
- Locks up constantly. If you are performing a function, and something else kicks in (text message, e-mail, phone call, etc) everything locks up, and you have to reboot.
- Locks up constantly. (see above)
- Locks up constantly. (you get the point)
- I have to reboot roughly 6-7 times per day.
- If performing a function, and something else kicks in (phone call, message, etc.)--and it does not lock up completely--the current function is blown out and you have to start over.
- If using Sprint Navigation, basically everything else is is unusable.
- Battery life is somewhat poor. And it appears re-charging in the car is much slower than from AC electric at home.
- Because I do not use Microsoft Outlook (Notes user here), the sync is not possible, since everything Windows Mobile is via Outlook. I found a nifty, free back up program for the phone and back it up to the memory card daily. That works, but I can't "sync."
- The HTC Tilt from AT&T (basically the same as Mogul) has 100 MB of RAM, while the Mogul shows less. Any ideas why?
I love the phone and love the concept, but really feel that it cannot perform as HTC and Sprint say it should. Don't know if it's conflicting software, or RAM, or what, but the overall performance is very substandard for this type of phone.
I only have a few days to return it for a service cancellation or a swap, so not real sure what to do. I am very disappointed, because if it could infact perform, then it would be the answer to my PDA needs. Anyone else having similar issues?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The moguls only has 64MB of RAM, of which some is required for the OS and various other functions. 24MB free is at bootup is a pretty good number for this phone -- and achievable.
Mobile websites don't seem to be a problem for me, maybe it is the version of PIE that you're running, are you using the stock ROM?
E-mail... never had that problem, maybe something is going wrong with your actual servers?
Turn the brightness completely to maximum in sunlight and it will be usable, just not perfect. You need something like SPB Mobile Shell to be able to access the backlight brightness quickly.
Install dcd's 3.0.4 to address the lockup issues.
Use TomTom, iGuidance, Google Maps, or some other navigation. You have to pay for Sprint Navigator monthly anyway.
Get mail2web free pushmail and sync to their online exchange. It's much more convenient that way anyway.
The Mogul is a generation 3 device while the Tilt is a generation 4 device. The comparison is like trying to put the 1993 BMW M3 against the 2008 Mercedes Benz S-Class four door saloon. There is no comparison! You'll have to wait until CDMA carriers have generation 4 or 5 devices and by then GSM providers will probably have generation 5 or 6 devices. Vicious cycle...
Goodluck!
best thing you can do is just sit at your pc and read read read, and when your done read some more.
the people in here are truly good people and will help you with your questions and youll get it goin just how you want it. just takes alot of hard work to even half way figure this thing out. to me the mogul is the best phone out there and this site is the best one out there as well.
mark33139 said:
I just ventured into the PDA world with a Sprint Mogul and it's been nothing but disappointing so far. I have been on the phone with Sprint and HTC practically everyday. Can anyone shed any light on these issues??
- Memory, says roughly 49 MB of which over half is taken when no apps are opened.
- Tremendous problems accessing mobile websites, such as my bank, which has a mobile site (I can see it, just can't get into it... well twice I did, then error messages).
- The phone seems to drop my e-mail services for no apparent reason... e-mail works, then all the sudden, asks for my user names and passwords, which when I enter, says it's wrong. Reboot the phone, and back in business.
- It will not download and use many of the sites/programs made for mobile (gmail, AOL instant messaging, youtube - gotta do something sitting in airports).
- Screen useless in sunlight.
- Locks up constantly. If you are performing a function, and something else kicks in (text message, e-mail, phone call, etc) everything locks up, and you have to reboot.
- Locks up constantly. (see above)
- Locks up constantly. (you get the point)
- I have to reboot roughly 6-7 times per day.
- If performing a function, and something else kicks in (phone call, message, etc.)--and it does not lock up completely--the current function is blown out and you have to start over.
- If using Sprint Navigation, basically everything else is is unusable.
- Battery life is somewhat poor. And it appears re-charging in the car is much slower than from AC electric at home.
- Because I do not use Microsoft Outlook (Notes user here), the sync is not possible, since everything Windows Mobile is via Outlook. I found a nifty, free back up program for the phone and back it up to the memory card daily. That works, but I can't "sync."
- The HTC Tilt from AT&T (basically the same as Mogul) has 100 MB of RAM, while the Mogul shows less. Any ideas why?
I love the phone and love the concept, but really feel that it cannot perform as HTC and Sprint say it should. Don't know if it's conflicting software, or RAM, or what, but the overall performance is very substandard for this type of phone.
I only have a few days to return it for a service cancellation or a swap, so not real sure what to do. I am very disappointed, because if it could infact perform, then it would be the answer to my PDA needs. Anyone else having similar issues?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF WINDOWS MOBILE!
First things first. Read the upgrade forum for instructions on how to ditch the BS ROM that Sprint ships with your phone. Get on DCD's rom. Its screaming fast and doesnt lock up.
As far as your problems accessing websites and downloading things, 99% of your problems can probably be attributed to internet explorer mobile. Ditch that piece of crap. Get opera. Its worth the money or try to find some place to download the new opera 9.5 beta. There should be some cabs somewhere around here...
As far as your navigation slowing down your phone, again its attributed to Sprints crapware ROM that slows down your phone. Get on DCD's.
Make sure your screen brightness is turned all the way up. It could help you see. WinMo auto adjusts this setting sometimes depending on certain conditions. Always check first.
And as far as syncing? Are you just talking about your contacts? ActiveSync (on XP) and Mobile Device Center (Vista) will sync pics and vids and everything without Outlook installed. Or do what I do and get Outlook and just use it for your contacts. you dont have to use it for email.
If you have any other questions ask, we would love to help you love your Titan
Mills00013 said:
If you have any other questions ask, we would love to help you love your Titan
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes! I think this sums it up. If you find a user who maybe complained about their phone as their first posts before coming here, then search their user name in the search feature, you will find they changed their tune almost every time. Do like they said and read, read, read, and we will help you love your titan
Mills00013 said:
WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF WINDOWS MOBILE!
Get opera. Its worth the money or try to find some place to download the new opera 9.5 beta. There should be some cabs somewhere around here...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you sure this is correct? Opera mini is at 4.1 beta, right? Opera full for windows is 9.5. Please correct me so I don't look for hours.
serfboreds said:
Are you sure this is correct? Opera mini is at 4.1 beta, right? Opera full for windows is 9.5. Please correct me so I don't look for hours.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
opera has two flavors for windows mobile, opera mobile which is at 9.whatever, and opera mini, which is at 4.1 beta.
opera mini is the best browser ive used so far on the mogul. i am a beta tester for skyfire, and while the video,java,flash, and sound support is pretty sweet, it doesnt feel refined for a mobile device like opera mini does. i like putting my web pages in mobile mode and scrolling a page at a time by using the directional pad. if skyfire could do this, then it would be my fulltime browser. until then, ill only use it when i want to see flash,java,video,etc...forgot to mention skyfire eats RAM like a slot machine eats my hard earned wages
YMMV though
kmart is right, two different versions. opera mobile is a software that you have to pay for as opposed to opera mini. opera mini is mostly designed to work on java based handheld phones (like razrs) but it works well on ours. The current version of opera that you download off of their site for windows mobile is 8.65, and its good but its a big piece of software and sometimes can eat a lot of ram for our tiny titans. check out this link, i uploaded a mirror on my site of the beta for you.
@kmart, i just got my skyfire invite two days ago. its definitely cool, but still needs some work. I love how fast it is but to be completely honest, i had no idea before i downloaded it that it used server side rendering. It loads everything i ask it to pretty perfect. I am happy with that for sure.
found one thing skyfire wont load though. speedtest sites. No matter which one, or if i have searched for it or typed it manually, it refuses to load a speedtest site. strange, huh?
flash
flash
flash
and watch your problems disappear
agreed, the one thing worse than a stock winmo rom from a carrier is the stock windows operating system on your computer. effing norton....
Also, while MS does push outlook (and this is the first Windows Mobile/Pocket PC I've ever seen that doesn't come with a full version of Outlook on the disc... What's up with that?!), its not the ONLY way to sync.
You could get a free exchange server with mail2web which would sync all your stuff over the air to their server in real-time. It may use data (I'm assuming you have unlimited data) and add a little drain to your battery, but you never have to back anything up manually (constantly in sync) and you can access your information by going to live.mail2web.com from any PC browser, and anything you enter will be pushed immediately to your phone.
Problem with this method is that its web-based, so its not was smooth to use and enter info as a localized application (plus you're relying on having a net connection).
There are some open source and free outlook alternatives, such as EMClient ( http://www.emclient.com/screenshots/ ) which claims it will support direct sync with activsync like outlook does in the new version due out soon.
There's also funambol, which like exchange above, uses over the air sync routines so you don't need wires or even be near your PC. Advantage to this is that its fully customizable and can be synced with almost any desktop client since it uses an open source platform and based on the standard SyncML (from linux) protocols.
They have a free server at my.funambol.com you can use, or you can host your own to do some fancy configuring.
As far as locking up... Look, this is a powerful OS, and I've seen far too many people get into it without knowing what they're doing, and be instantly turned away (later going with something simpler and more spoon-fed, like palm or the iPhone). If you don't want to take the time to learn how to use it to its potential, this device is not for you.
If you do have the patience, you'll wonder why you ever considered anything else. Just for reference: I go for weeks without a reboot required, and my battery can last almost 2 full days of moderate use, using a live over-the-air sync (currently on funambol).
I have to second the notion of those that say to upgrade to DCD's 3.04
Been running that for a week now and it really is much more stable than even the stock roms!
As for the memory issues people need to remember that the memory use is dependent on what the device is doing...
You could have very few apps running in the background yet still wind up with very little memory if you have a lot of graphically intensive programs running. Hell you will eat up as much ram running a small launcher with 10 icons as you will by running any full program!
Every thing you see displayed on your screen eats up program memory.
Every today plug you run does too...
Background services like the GPS chip will eat up ram as well even if you have it shut off!
So you really have to be thrifty with what you have run by default and load things as you need them instead.
I also find it useful to reset the phone once in the morning to start off fresh each day.
Asphyx said:
I also find it useful to reset the phone once in the morning to start off fresh each day.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Amen to that. Amen.
can't stress enough how much better your winmo experience will be if you shut it down once in a while. And check your task manager too. you might be running a lot more apps than you are expecting.
Eh, that shouldn't be required.
Unfortunately, Windows Mobile cache files don't always let go of the memory when u need it most, and this effect varies from rom to rom.
DCD and no2chem's are both better at this than the stock rom.
But either way, if you run a tight ship, properly closing apps and running a strategically placed hibernate command every now and then, you should be able to go for weeks without needing a reboot.
Personally, I end up rebooting a couple of times a week, but not on purpose.
Usually because I actually have to turn the phone for a moment to either save battery or going someplace they don't allow phones. I rarely reboot "just because" anymore.
im running quite a bit of software full time on my titan and sometimes that software crashed (read: wisbar and wisbar desktop). this forces me to restart. but you are right, on my base config (running a custom compiled version of DCD's 3.0.4 currently) i never have to really restart. Windows mobile is great, if you just give it some RAM breathing room and dont turn the processor into a puddle of mush inside your phone trying to play crysis... it just doesnt work well...
IF the unit had the 128 ram the unit would avoid most of the problems people have with it...
WM has always been a system that you had to stay on top of the Ram. But that has always been because Ram was so limited...
Using HTC X Button set to close apps on X Press greatly decreases the problem of running low on memory.
Using the DCD ROM and the PPCG Kitchen, I was able to find a setup thats leaves plenty of RAM available.
The key was not to install too many Apps that need to run in the background on boot.
SPB Phone suite took the place of about 4 or 5 different apps so I could leave them out of the ROM.
I have found however that some graphic and data intensive apps work better if you do a reset first...GarminXT comes to mind.
If the unit had 128 Megs of Ram it wouldn't be an issue...
I also save a lot of problems by having an 8Gb SDHD card to install all the apps that don't require installation on the device...
my phone pissess me off from time to time but I am a power user. I use my phone for navigation, mp3, watching tv (slingbox, not that bootleg sprint tv), and your standard features. Everything is installed on my 8 gb memory card to avoid any weakness in memory, yet my phone freezes from time to time, screen doesnt work (rarely) and i get memory low messages when attempting to do certain things. Its the only phone that really fits my needs and i'm kind of overloading it with applications but as a power user, these are the issues I face. Some of your issues...seems like phone may not be setup properly? I would take it to a sprint store, let them look at it. Much easier to deal with someone face to face rather than over the phone.
That was a helluva 1st post. Welcome to the board.
Like others have said, use a custom rom; it's much cleaner. The stock rom out of box probably needs a few things added to make it stable. I've used the stock rom just fine (don't prefer to, but it works).
Sounds to me like a you may be doing a poor job managing your program memory. Simple things like the X-Button, help a lot.

Thinking about getting a Nook Color, have some questions first.

As many of you have likely already seen, the Nook Color is available for 179.99 today only (factory refurbished) at http://1saleaday.com/
I've been looking into getting a tablet lately, mostly for play - things like games, reading, and netflix. It seems like the Nook is a great "bang for the buck", and the devs have done some amazing work on it. I have a few questions before I take the dive though...
1. Battery Life.
How is the battery life while watching Netflix? While watching a movie on the SD-Card (let's assume 720P encoding). I notice that the Nook is rated at 8-10 hours with WiFi off, does that mean Wifi kills the battery, or just shaves off an hour or two?
2. Speed.
I understand that the Nook wasn't supposed to be a full fledged tablet, but the Devs have gotten some great ROMs for it that make it so. How is the speed? I want to make sure I'd use the tab over my phone when I'm at home, but my phone is actually quite fast (Atrix 4G, rooted, unlocked, running Alien2 with the OC kernel). Videos of the Nook with CM7 making it look very smooth with everything which is a huge plus (MotoBlur sucks, all animations on my phone are clunky... waiting for CM7 which is in alpha right now).
3. Gaming
I use my phone for moderate gaming, but it kinda sucks. I think that this will be my main focus on the Nook. Using emulators on my Atrix is a lesson a patience... The touch screen times out after 30 seconds of a finger being on the screen, so in games where you have to hold buttons a while, the screen becomes non-responsive. Because my phone's screen is small, it also makes playing a lot of emulators difficult as the buttons are on the screen itself. How do emulators run on the Nook? It looks like games from the market run just fine, which is great.
4. Shared Google account
My google account is tied into my phone right now, if I use the same account on the Nook, will I be able to install all of the same apps / games off of the market automatically?
5. Text Messaging
The Nook is Wifi only, so I know that Gtalk will work. What about SMS style messaging? Is there an app (or native in a ROM) ability to send / recieve text messages from the Nook while its on? This would make it so that I don't have to switch between devices at home in order to play games / watch a movie / whatever and talk to my phones.
Lastly.. what do you use your Tablet for? I know that I will play with this thing non-stop for a while, since its a new "toy". But other than running "old school" console games for a while (and Heroes of Might and Magic), I'm not sure what else I'd use the Tablet for considering that I own a very high end PC for gaming / programming, a MacBook Pro which sits on the coffee table in the TV room, an XboX for netflix streaming to the TV, and my much loved Atrix. I know that the tablet will be awesome while I'm playing with it and flashing ROMs, but from the experience of others... is it a passing fad for fun, or do you get a ton of use out of your tablet? If so, what do you use it for?
Any comments / questions are greatly appreciated. I've been looking into this for a few days, but now I'm on a time limit to buy the Nook on sale today, or wait for the next sale of a tablet.
DK
1) Battery life is amazing with the newer releases of CM7. I'm running 7.1 RC and left the wifi on when I finished charging it. After 24 hours in sleep I was only down 5%. After an hour use to update apps, browse online, etc, I was only down a few more percent.
2) Speed is great and just seems to get better with releases. Most people clock theirs to 1200 or 1300 (stock is 800) and run it daily like that. There is a lot of room to adjust for what you need/want.
3) I don't do a whole lot of gaming, but running something like Pocket Legends isn't a problem. I know some people are able to get Honeycomb only games running without problems. I think some require Tegra 2, so it shows how well this little thing performs.
4) Yes google account is shared. You purchase an app for your account and you can download it to both devices. The new market is device aware, so you may be able to purcahse and download to your phone, but not the Nook (if, for example, the app requires GPS), but there are ways around this.
5) I know SMS can be done, but I've never done it. Can't help here.
I love this little thing. For the price I don't see how you can pass it up. I use it for a little of everything: media, web, email. Probably the most use for me is having a nice little device to carry around documentation for work when I need to reference it.
If you have the money, thought about getting a tablet, and can do without camera, cell connection, it is definitely a great device to have.
I already have a NC but I went ahead an ordered one for the wife. She is a little jealous of mine so I figured why not for the price.
I use google voice to sms (can't call though without network), if you don't have a google voice account already, you can set it up, and connect it to your own phone number.

[Q] Windows 8 overheating my ultrabook

Strange little problem I’ve got here. I’m using the brilliant Asus UX31E ultrabook which is a 1.8ghz i7.
Didn’t have any problems running windows 7, but just installed a fresh windows 8 last week.
I’ve installed all the updates I could find from the ASUS website but here’s the problem, with windows 7 the fans would only ever come on if you were really pushing it playing a game. Using windows 8 the fans will regularly come on just browsing in chrome.
when you open task manager the computer details recognise that it’s only a 1.8 processer yet it often is being utilized as high as 2.8ghz! This is making the machine overheat, turn on the fans and sometimes have to turn itself off.
I’ve been into power settings and reduced the maximum power usage to 70% and that usually does the job, but then it quickly forgets this setting and restores it to 100% (2.7GHZ!). In task manager the highest task utilisation wise is ‘system’ but no idea exactly what it’s doing..
Is there anything I can do to have greater control over the processor speed or investigate what might be causing the problem?
Asus had some power control software for windows 7 but don’t seem to offer it for windows 8.
Cheers guys
andypa1 said:
Strange little problem I’ve got here. I’m using the brilliant Asus UX31E ultrabook which is a 1.8ghz i7.
Didn’t have any problems running windows 7, but just installed a fresh windows 8 last week.
I’ve installed all the updates I could find from the ASUS website but here’s the problem, with windows 7 the fans would only ever come on if you were really pushing it playing a game. Using windows 8 the fans will regularly come on just browsing in chrome.
when you open task manager the computer details recognise that it’s only a 1.8 processer yet it often is being utilized as high as 2.8ghz! This is making the machine overheat, turn on the fans and sometimes have to turn itself off.
I’ve been into power settings and reduced the maximum power usage to 70% and that usually does the job, but then it quickly forgets this setting and restores it to 100% (2.7GHZ!). In task manager the highest task utilisation wise is ‘system’ but no idea exactly what it’s doing..
Is there anything I can do to have greater control over the processor speed or investigate what might be causing the problem?
Asus had some power control software for windows 7 but don’t seem to offer it for windows 8.
Cheers guys
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you done a upgrade or clean installation from windows 8
if you had done a upgrade please do a clean installation of windows 8
if not then go to the advance power settings in the control panel and set processor cooling state to active
shreshth89 said:
Have you done a upgrade or clean installation from windows 8
if you had done a upgrade please do a clean installation of windows 8
if not then go to the advance power settings in the control panel and set processor cooling state to active
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was wondering if it was a true clean install or upgrade. I read he installed a fresh copy nut wasn't sure if that was meaning clean (wiped the drive) or what. I didn't really notice.alot of heat issues with my last laptop I upgraded; I chose to keep personal files and settings. I do have about 180gb of pictures and movies which were scattered in multiple locations on win7. Now my media is very orderly, as well as my 20gb of music.
Saying all that, I believe when I installed the media center that it cleaned up my files, or it may have just been windows 8, but either way it took some work on wimdows8 to organize my hard drive much better than before. I have scanned my hd for the need to defrag it, but it shows to be dang near perfect. If you have alot of media on your machine I wonder if its doing file management, which is making it run hot, etc. I know phones are different but when I load a new ROM it takes it several hours to slow down the media system usage.
How many days have you been running the system with wimdows8 ? Do you have a lot of Files/media on your machine ?
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
The majority of the time, the issue isn't with the Operating System as much as it is with a single application. Check task manager while your computer is running and see what applications are causing the processor to go nuts. If it is indeed a system application, then I would suggest doing a complete wipe and fresh install of Windows 8. You can back up your authentication key by saving a specific folder in the File Browser. Do a search on MyDigitalLife for that information.
Doing a quick search on your Processor, it runs standard at 1.8 ghz, and the 2.9 jump is completely normal. It's a feature called "Turbo Speed". With Windows 8 came upgraded drivers, which probably enabled this feature that you've never noticed.
jlangleyrn said:
I was wondering if it was a true clean install or upgrade. I read he installed a fresh copy nut wasn't sure if that was meaning clean (wiped the drive) or what. I didn't really notice.alot of heat issues with my last laptop I upgraded; I chose to keep personal files and settings. I do have about 180gb of pictures and movies which were scattered in multiple locations on win7. Now my media is very orderly, as well as my 20gb of music.
Saying all that, I believe when I installed the media center that it cleaned up my files, or it may have just been windows 8, but either way it took some work on wimdows8 to organize my hard drive much better than before. I have scanned my hd for the need to defrag it, but it shows to be dang near perfect. If you have alot of media on your machine I wonder if its doing file management, which is making it run hot, etc. I know phones are different but when I load a new ROM it takes it several hours to slow down the media system usage.
How many days have you been running the system with wimdows8 ? Do you have a lot of Files/media on your machine ?
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes it is true
whoever each and every application running sometimes FC itself or crashes while operation which leaves a unmarked thread or loos end of the application (which also termed as viruses when they start further spreading the system)
in system which were already troubling you creates a problem due to upgrade

Windows 8 RTM cold boot in 6 Seconds!!

Hi, my Thinkpad X230 Tablet boots win 8 in just 6 seconds!
see it in action: youtube
My computer is running UEFI "BIOS" and it has a Crucial mSATA SSD.
A) No, it doesn't. Read up on hibernation boot.
B) This has been discussed before...
Don't get me wrong, it's cool (if you don't mind blowing a ton of disk space for a hiberfile, which is becoming a problem on machines with tons of RAM and tiny SSDs). It doesn't improve reboot time at all though, and I almost never just "turn off" my computer. Why would I? You know what's a heck of a lot faster than a 6-second boot? Instant-on resume from sleep.
HTCalltheway said:
Hi, my Thinkpad X230 Tablet boots win 8 in just 6 seconds!
see it in action: youtube
My computer is running UEFI "BIOS" and it has a Crucial mSATA SSD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is literally 3-4 seconds on my Toshiba U925.
Oh, and for the record, the full reboot time on my Win8 Enterprise desktop (which has a SSD but no hibernation support because 32 GB of hiberfile would be too much of the SSD) is a little over 20 seconds. Still excellent, and a noticeable chunk of that is due to the computer's old-ish BIOS.
GoodDayToDie said:
Oh, and for the record, the full reboot time on my Win8 Enterprise desktop (which has a SSD but no hibernation support because 32 GB of hiberfile would be too much of the SSD) is a little over 20 seconds. Still excellent, and a noticeable chunk of that is due to the computer's old-ish BIOS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't checked the full boot time when the hibernation support isn't invoked. The screen comes up in around 10 - 15 seconds, and I can log on immediately afterwards, but I've noticed that it isn't really fully up for many more seconds - it appears to be continuing to load various subsystems for up to a minute.
Yeah, all OSes do that. XP and before were awful about it, especially on single-core machines; they tried to load everything at the same time and performance went to crap as a result for a while after login. Vista and later introduced a way to launch services with a delayed start, which improves responsiveness during this period dramatically. I'm not sure what Linux or OS X do, but I've seen the same kind of delay on them too.
Multi-core, high-RAM, and SSD-equipped machines have reduced the impact of this to almost negligible levels, although even on my 8-core, 32-gig, SSD-based beast of desktop, the initial login does still take a few seconds longer before being usable than subsequent ones.

ASUS PC is acting weird

Guys,
I know that my question might be kind of off-topic in this section, but I'm desperate and it is still has to do with Windows 8, so:
I've got 3 year old ASUS K52Jc (i5 2.52GhZ, 4GB RAM, 600GB HDD, nVidia GeForce 310m + Intell HD Graphics) and as you see, it is a good mid-range machine even nowadays. I always took a good care of it.
So, lately (since the first time I installed Windows 8) it has strange behavior. It tragicly slowed down and started to heat, sometimes it's just blocks while I listening to music even on Windows 2.95 (very lightweight player) with no progs running. First I thought that it's happening because of Windows 8 drivers compatibility, so I decided to format and install Windows 7 again, but nothing changed. It is very strange because it blocks when I do normal stuff (internet, listen to music, watching movies, etc.) but when I edit movies (in After Effects CS5.5 and Premiere CS 5.5) and while I'm running heavy programms/games, my laptop performs great.
Lately, I've installed Windows 8.1 and problem is still there. I did chkdsk, ccleaner maintense, defragmented with defraggler, I've got good antivirus, and I did latest BIOS update, nothing changed. I've got services and startup programs well configurated.
This is very strange behavior and it's annoying. Is there any chance that someone in XDA could identify the problem and tell me solution?
P.S. Last month I cleaned fans and changed the thermo-paste. No luck, it's slow, has lags, has heating, it freezes randomly. And the worse of all is that any diagnostic I do tells me that there is no problem in software and hardware.
:crying::crying:
Any solution for me?
Most likely problem is the disk; did you do a thorough scan or just a file system scan? Another possibility is the RAM, but that's unlikely. Also, have you actually checked the CPU and GPU temperatures?
Also, for the record, 4GB of RAM is really marginal for a PC these days; I've got a 5-year-old tablet with that much. Normally I'd suggest increasing that to fix perf issues, but it sounds like that's *probably* not the problem. Keep an eye on utilization just in case.
Antique_Angel said:
Guys,
I know that my question might be kind of off-topic in this section, but I'm desperate and it is still has to do with Windows 8, so:
I've got 3 year old ASUS K52Jc (i5 2.52GhZ, 4GB RAM, 600GB HDD, nVidia GeForce 310m + Intell HD Graphics) and as you see, it is a good mid-range machine even nowadays. I always took a good care of it.
So, lately (since the first time I installed Windows 8) it has strange behavior. It tragicly slowed down and started to heat, sometimes it's just blocks while I listening to music even on Windows 2.95 (very lightweight player) with no progs running. First I thought that it's happening because of Windows 8 drivers compatibility, so I decided to format and install Windows 7 again, but nothing changed. It is very strange because it blocks when I do normal stuff (internet, listen to music, watching movies, etc.) but when I edit movies (in After Effects CS5.5 and Premiere CS 5.5) and while I'm running heavy programms/games, my laptop performs great.
Lately, I've installed Windows 8.1 and problem is still there. I did chkdsk, ccleaner maintense, defragmented with defraggler, I've got good antivirus, and I did latest BIOS update, nothing changed. I've got services and startup programs well configurated.
This is very strange behavior and it's annoying. Is there any chance that someone in XDA could identify the problem and tell me solution?
P.S. Last month I cleaned fans and changed the thermo-paste. No luck, it's slow, has lags, has heating, it freezes randomly. And the worse of all is that any diagnostic I do tells me that there is no problem in software and hardware.
:crying::crying:
Any solution for me?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it's acting up and there's no hints in even Task Manager of something chewing up resources, CPU could be running at base speed (SpeedStep). I had this problem in my wife's BRAND NEW i7-3770k box that I built and it turned out to be faulty RAM and possibly bad mobo. (I never re-tested mobo after I yanked it.)
So my suggestion - if you can try RAM one stick at a time. Also consider testing for several runs under MemTest. See if that helps confirm a RAM issue. If laptop is still under warranty, consider getting it looked at and make sure mobo isn't on it's way out.
garwynn said:
If it's acting up and there's no hints in even Task Manager of something chewing up resources, CPU could be running at base speed (SpeedStep). I had this problem in my wife's BRAND NEW i7-3770k box that I built and it turned out to be faulty RAM and possibly bad mobo. (I never re-tested mobo after I yanked it.)
So my suggestion - if you can try RAM one stick at a time. Also consider testing for several runs under MemTest. See if that helps confirm a RAM issue. If laptop is still under warranty, consider getting it looked at and make sure mobo isn't on it's way out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll try to test it with new RAM. Thanks a lot!

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