Samsung Series 7 Slate

Microsoft recently flashed a tablet prototype that the company says will be one of the first tablet computers to run the upcoming Windows 8 operating system. All we know for certain about the tablet at the moment is that it’s supposed to be a quad-core device and it looks reasonably thin and light. But there’s a story going around suggesting that Microsoft will unveil a tablet running Windows 8 at the BUILD developer conference next week, and that the tablet was built by Samsung.

The news certainly seems plausible. Samsung recently introduced a new Windows 7 tablet called the Samsung Series 7 Slate. While the slate has an Intel Core i5 dual core processor, it certainly looks a lot like the Windows 8 prototype Microsoft showed off in August.

It’s not clear if that means Microsoft will use the Series 7 Slate to demo Windows 8 next week or if Samsung is working on a special version that may have a different chipset. If it really is a quad-core machine, it seems more likely that the tablet would have an ARM-based processor than an Intel chip, since a quad-core x86 chip uses far more energy than an ARM chip. If Microsoft and Samsung want to show a device that gets more than a half hour of battery life, ARM technology seems like a safer bet.

Hopefully we’ll know more next week.

via The Verge

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6 replies on “Samsung may be building the first Windows 8 tablet”

  2. Don’t sweat the humorless – while I’m a big fan of both MS and Intel, that last line cracked me up!

    1. Honestly, I just want to know what people are thinking when they leave comments like that. Unfortunately when someone posts “you’ve lost all credibility” that usually means they’re not coming back to respond to my comment. 

      Not that this happens all that often, but it’s definitely not the first time someone with a different sense of humor than mine has read the site and left a comment. 

  3. “If Microsoft and Samsung want to show a device that gets more than a half hour of battery life”

    You lost all credibility and respect with that one sentence right there.

    1. Why? 

      First, it’s a joke… but I’ve seen plenty of Windows tablets that get less than 3 hours of battery life with single core x86 processors.

      In this case, we’re talking about a hypothetical thin and light tablet running an operating system that few people have actually tried. I have a hard time imagining it will have a quad-core Intel x86 chip because based on the current chips available, it will be a high powered chip that generates a lot of heat and runs down the battery very quickly.

      Also, one of the big differences between Windows 8 and Windows 7 is support for ARM-based chips. Since quad-core ARM processors use significantly less power than similar x86 chips and since Microsoft will likely want to show off its software on low power hardware to show that it can compete with tablet operating systems from Apple, Google, and others, an ARM-based tablet seems likely. 

      That’s not to say all Windows 8 tablets will be ARM-based, or even that future x86 quad-core chips will all be energy hogs. 

      But I’m not sure what exactly you’re objecting to. 

      1. Well, Intel is suppose to be starting the quad core production of Ivy Bridge before the end of this year.  They just won’t be ready for market until next year.

        Unlike previous generations of Intel processors, the new 22nm process would combine improved efficiency from the reduced manufacturing size, along with Intel’s Tri-Gate technology that also further boosts efficiency, and quad processors can help boost efficiency as well if properly utilized.

        So not impossible that Samsung could be using early production run of Ivy Bridge quad core processors for the demonstration.  The Series 7 slate actually claims up to 7 hours run time for at least minimal usage and it’s based on a dual core Sandy Bridge, which itself is more efficient than the previous Core series chip that is used in the Asus EP121 Slate that gets only about 3 hours in comparison.

        But given the emphasis for Windows 8 to work for ARM and the time frame that it’s more likely to be a ARM system demonstration.

        Nvidia Tegra 3 being one of the big name quad core ARM products expected out to market before the end of this year.

        However, there may be reasons to stick to x86 hardware for Windows 8.  Like they’re including features like Hyper V, normally only included in MS server environments for virtualization, but it requires 64bit environment and ARM is still using 32bit processors. 

        So it’ll be interesting to see if the Windows 8 experience really is completely ported to work on ARM or whether it’ll be a separate experience.

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