THE CRUNCH - Windows Tablet and Phone

This week windows released there new tablets and phone:
Many people say this is the IPad Killer!
As standard they both have front and rear-facing cameras, an SD slot, along with some neat tricks: a magnesium casing protection, DisplayPort out, Gorilla Glass, a kickstand and a subtle groove around the entirety of the device. They will have a 16:9 "ClearType" 1920 x1080 display. ClearType is aiming for Retina connection. It is 208 pixels per inch which is slightly less then the Ipads 264. Microsoft also claims they will have the best Wi-Fi reception of any tablet, with 2x2 MIMO antennae (wireless antennae that are harder to block while you're holding it).

Surface RT: This focuses on low power and being thin and small and cheap...er. It has an ARM processor (this is like a phone chip) and will run windows RT not Windows 8. It is 9.3mm thick which is thinner then the Ipad and 1.5 pounds (680g). It will be available in 32 or 64 GB of storage.

Surface Pro: This will run a Ivy Bridge Core i5 x86 processor have a USB 3.0 port and other ultrabook-y specs. It'll be a little thicker (13.5mm), a little heavier and be available with either 64 or 128 GB of storage. But most importantly it runs Windows 8 all of it. It will support semantic zoom and it will provide a perfectly superflat frame for the perfectly superflat Metro UI. And it will run the desktop meaning that you can put all your normal applications on it ie. photoshop. It will also have apps that go on the startup menu if your not familiar see my post on windows 8 here. It will probobly cost about the same as an Ipad.


The final big selling point of these tablets is that they can be paired with a magnetic super thin cover. That has a keyboard and mulitouch trackpad that apparently...WORKS, WELL. 


And just the other day they announced the Windows phone:
This will be dual-core. It will support 3 resolutions: WVGA at 800x480px, True 720p at 1280x720px and WXGA at 1280x768px.

Kieron :O

THE CRUNCH - Windows 8 Preview

The Crunch is thing that we do on Fridays where we talk about stuff that is interesting but doesn't fit the pattern:

Windows 8 is the next operating system made by windows even though it is the 10th they have made!!! "So why is it called Windows 8?" I hear you ask. Well this is because some of them were so terrible they would just prefer they never existed. And yes worst then Vista, they included that one! So hopefully Windows 8 will be good although first impressions are "urg horrible rectangles" and "that is a really dull logo" (see above). So yeah, it is a big change and in my view the colour scheme and graphics look horrible, it is what would be made by a GCSE IT (of which I sat an exam today, it went well, thanks for asking) student, blindfolded. However it does work practically, Windows 8 will boot up faster then you can say, "Why is there no start button?". Yes that fast, I mean no loading at all, none, from no power.

Its insane.

Also once on the desktop it looks the same as Windows 7 except with some really cool new features in the documents and task manager.

Now it is designed mainly for a tablet so the apps on the main blocky start menu don't work that well on the desktop but all the features and design look perfect for a tablet, really easy and simple to use. I mentioned that there is no start button, that is because the blocky thing is the start menu and I personally like the layout and I think the blocks and the colours I will begin to like, probably it is just change I don't like. It has some nice features such as uninstalling an application straight from the menu, no need to go through control panel.

So word is it will be releasing sometime in October this year and I kinda like it, hopefully it wont end up with the same jokes that vista got ("We're going to die" for example from Moss in the IT crowd for example). In the mean time you can download this preview or watch their release video at this link: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows-8/release-preview

So that was today's "Crunch", tell us what you think in the comments.
And check back on Monday when Tom will be giving you the latest news in the world of music.


Kieron :O