Let's Get Mobile, Part 2: Windows 8 Tablets

Let’s talk tablets. Over the last 3 years, tablets have been steadily eating away at the desktop PC and laptop market share. Millions of new tablet enter our world each year; my household alone owns an iPad 1, iPad 2 and iPad 3. I love my tablets but there has been one glaring omission in functionality:  business. The world realizes this too, if you look at the Top Charts of the Apple Store, you’ll see 9 out of 10 slots are held by games. But hey, tablets are great for games; just ask my 6 year old.

However, when you need to do work, there are so many limitations with what the apps can do, and how to get your data to your PC for final production; then it is no longer fun and games. I need a real computer that just happens to be a tablet.

Enter Windows 8

In just the last few months, some amazing Windows 8 tablets have hit the market. Today, let’s discuss 2 of them.

Tablet 1
Acer Iconia W700

11.6 inch screen, 1920x1080 resolution

Intel i3 1.8GHz Dual core processor
4GB memory
64GB SSD

The Acer can be purchased from Amazon with an out the door price of about $800. It includes a docking station, Bluetooth keyboard, and a very nice leatherette case.

Tablet 2
Dell Latitude 10

 



10.1 inch screen, 1366x768 resolution
Intel Atom 1.8GHz Dual core processor
2GB Memory
64GB SSD

If you go the Dell route, you'll want to get the Mobility bundle, as it includes a 3G+ modem, the docking station and a removable battery. The out the door price on this one is a little more at around $900.

Hardware wise, these look like a step back from computers you were using a few years ago. The processors on their own don’t even meet the current Altru system recommendations. How is that OK? Well, things have not only gotten smaller, but they are now much more efficient. These smaller processors can keep up with today’s applications because the tablets also include SSD hard drives. SSD stands for Solid State Drive, which means the harddrive has no moving parts. Information stored on these devices is instantly available. Boot up time on the Windows 8 tablets are measured in seconds; whereas my laptop can take a few minutes to boot.

But which one should you buy? If you are replacing your front desk's POS, I’d go with the Acer Iconia W700. The screen is almost 12 inches diagonally and it makes a great desktop replacement. It also has the capability to be mobile when you need to walk around the museum and do surveys, check in guests for an event or set up a makeshift sales point at a remote site. Plus, the processor inside the tablet will handle your existing Windows programs with ease.

So, why would you buy the Dell? If you are primarily going to use this as a handheld POS, the Dell makes sense. It has a smaller screen, not as heavy as the Acer and if you go with the Mobility bundle, it will include a 3G+ antenna, so you can jump on a cell network. This is great if you find yourself working in Altru outside of a wifi connection. If you want to use the Acer in the great outdoors, you could always attach a cellular antenna via the USB port or as I did, I used my iPhone 5’s mobile hotspot functionality.

Since Altru is browser based, you do not need to order anymore storage than the default configuration of 64GB, which results in hundreds of dollars in savings.

These devices feel like they were designed with Altru in mind and since we designed Altru with your organization in mind ... good stuff.

In the final post of this series, we are going to take ticket sales to where the patrons are and maybe pick up some new members along the way.