Dell XPS 10 - Thoughts?

Rich_L · 25 Jan 2013 at 09:43

Seems to be a combination of the Asus Transformer and the MS Surface?

$499 for the 32Gb tablet and $179 for the keyboard dock (that has a battery, HDMI and USB ports) - the latter seems a bit steep though. UK prices I think is 399 for the tablet and 169 for the dock.

Reasonably tempted as a netbook replacement especially with the battery dock which is supposed to double the battery life or thereabouts from 10 to 20 hours - it doesn't have the cool factor and I can't stand that stupid Dell logo on the back of the tablet but other than that it seems decent.

As far as I can see it ticks a lot of boxs, Snapdragon S4, 720p res, dual-band WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, microSD slot, charge it via microUSB (woo!)

The dollar to UK seems decent on the tablet but the dock is just stupid in the UK which is a downer.

V4NT0M · 25 Jan 2013 at 12:40

The Nexus 10, despite QC issues really means that tablets like this are a joke at £400.

The tablet itself looks quite nice and the dock is enticing, the price is just too high imo.

Rich_L · 25 Jan 2013 at 16:44

Yeah fair point they are basically the same price ($499 for 32Gb each)

Might just keep an eye and see if they go on sale or something as for $100 less it's a much more tempting proposition

Ben Cole · 25 Jan 2013 at 17:51

Second hand Acer Iconia is very nice with W8 on it. Bit rare though.

dasyad · 26 Jan 2013 at 09:54

After using Windows 8 on my desktop I've become really interested in getting a Windows 8 tablet. Like others have said this seems a bit expensive but looks to be a good device. Would be interesting to see benchmarks comparing this to Surface.

Tunney · 26 Jan 2013 at 11:25

If I was in the market for a Windows tablet, I'd get a Windows 8 tablet rather than a Windows RT tablet. You're losing Windows' big advantage by going down the RT route.

dasyad · 26 Jan 2013 at 11:42

Tunney said:
If I was in the market for a Windows tablet, I'd get a Windows 8 tablet rather than a Windows RT tablet. You're losing Windows' big advantage by going down the RT route.

Depends if you require 3rd party desktop apps and most of the time I don't so RT is definitely viable for me.

Tunney · 26 Jan 2013 at 16:10

dasyad said:
Depends if you require 3rd party desktop apps and most of the time I don't so RT is definitely viable for me.

If I didn't need 3rd party desktop apps (or a fully-featured version of Office), I'd get an iPad or Android tablet. That's obviously a matter of taste though.

Rich_L · 26 Jan 2013 at 19:18

Thing is if MS release Office for iPad or Android then all of a sudden the iPad/Nexus tabs become serious contenders but right now I can't justify a tablet purely as a toy it has to be something which I can work on too and lack of 100% Office compatibility is a deal-breaker. I also want things like the 8-10 hr battery and it seems right now with Windows 8 you have three choices:

ARM-based RT (Surface)- smooth, fast, 8-10 hr battery life. Limited compatibility. Cheap ($500-600)
Atom-based Win8 (Envy X2)- stuttery, 6-8 hr battery life. Excellent compatilility. Medium price ($700-800)
i5/i7-based Win8 (Surface Pro) - smooth, fast, 3-5 hr battery life. Excellent compatability. Expensive ($800-$1,000)

Personally I don't see the point in a tablet that I can only use for 4 hours before having to plug it in - I may as well have a laptop

Maybe when Haswell or whatever comes out we'll see the Win8 tablets start to enroach on the RT/iPad/Android market but right now they don't really compete IMO.