Eatup's Experiment Going Mobile

[eatup]

People wanting to boot Linux from their micro SD on their Surface Pro (basically the same as me wanting to boot Windows 8.1 from uSD slot on my Win10 tablet; will confirm later if it works or not when my uSD card arrives):

Pretty sure the uSD slot is attached via USB, so it's basically just "boot from USB external storage".

Another way you could have done it is to install the Linux bootloader (GRUB stage 1) to the internal storage, and then have that chainload to the uSD card. That should work even if for some reason the firmware doesn't want to boot off uSD normally.

(BTW, anyone following this thread, a word of caution: Don't do anything to overwrite your tablet's Win10 bootloader. How I will get Win 8.1 onto my tablet is to install it on my laptop by native booting via a vhd, sysprep that vhd image, transfer the vhd file to a uSD card, add a boot option to it on the tablet by using bcdedit to edit Win10's bootloader...)

 

[eatup]

Newer tablets are shipping with micro USB Type-C port, which can handle more amperage than the old USB standard (a lot of tablets with older specs will drain the battery if you use it when plugged in b/c the old USB could only trickle charge incapable of providing sufficient power to a tablet that's on).

The big sell for most users is going to be faster charging. Type-C can deliver power at up to 100 watts at 20 volts. This means that larger devices can now be charged from USB, including laptops and monitors. Say goodbye to the clunky AC adapters we've been lugging around until now.

In real world use this will mean much faster charging of compatible mobiles, tablets and now even laptops. This can be done while transferring data at the same time, something previous standards could not always manage.

This should also mean the need for a separate power port (with large innards) will be gone, allowing manufacturers to make even smaller laptops, for example.

 

[eatup]

Microsoft looking to bring Windows 10 to ARM processors (not the RT version but full-fledged Windows). It means plenty of cheap Chinese ARM devices capable of running Win32 apps!


Option 1:

$100 - year 1 (pay utilities this amount to power a laptop/notebook for 1 yr)
$100 - year 2


Option 2:

$100 - cost of cheap but good specced tablet with dual Windows/Android OS boot
$25 - year 1 (cost to charge tablet daily plus use laptop/notebook on weekends for 1 yr)
$25 - year 2
$50 - Save this amount in 2 years vs Option 1...

 

[eatup]

Confirmed, tablet, albeit with cheap Atom CPU, is more powerful than my beater Dell laptop. How? It can play 3D SBS video to anaglyph fluidly in real time. Laptop manages a measly 5 fps doing the same task.