After a long set of flights back from Computex in Taipei, I’m finally home in North Carolina. Unfortunately, I’m still not quite sure what time zone I’m in!
While awake in the middle of the night, I’ve been thinking about some of the things I saw at Computex. While I was there, it seemed like a jumble of notebooks, power supplies, gaming rigs, motherboards, cases, Hello Kitty accessories, and some things that I still don’t quite know what they were. Many of the things I saw were not brand new, but it was my first chance to see them up close. Some of them were of technologies still on the horizon like Intel’s Ultrabook concept and Microsoft’s Windows 8. I also saw all sorts of combinations of phones, 4G, and other devices.
One thing that stood out to me were the number and variety of tablets. They were in a variety of sizes (and screen resolutions). There were quite a few vendors and some were ones I would not have suspected but was pleasantly surprised to encounter, like Viewsonic and Shuttle. The OS choices included Android, WebOS, and MeeGo. ASUS had a couple of interesting hybrid approaches such as the Eee Pad Transformer and the Padfone. The former is a 10.1-inch tablet that plugs into a keyboard. The Padfone is a smartphone that can plug into the back of a larger (10.1-inch) touch screen to act as a tablet.
All of these tablet choices, as well as the iPad that they all must be compete against, left me wondering how to choose between them. Some part of the choice comes down to the size and features. As always, however, performance plays a key role. My tolerance for waiting on a tablet device is even lower than it is for waiting on my PC. The problem is how to make valid comparisons across such a wide range of platforms. I’d love to hear from you what you think about performance testing on tablets. Is it useful? What are the best ways to accomplish it?
Finally, thanks to all the folks who came by and visited our suite at Computex. I enjoyed getting the chance to meet some of the members of the HDXPRT Development Community. And, hopefully, I convinced more folks to join.
Bill
