Ubuntu Tablet Now Available For Pre-Order 81
prisoninmate writes: During last month's MWC 2016 event, Canonical had the BQ Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Edition tablet on display at their huge booth, along with the superb Meizu PRO 5 Ubuntu Edition smartphone, and the Sony Xperia Z1 and OnePlus One Ubuntu Phones. The company teased users last week with the availability for pre-order of the first ever Ubuntu tablet for March 28, and that day has arrived. Probably the most important aspect of the BQ Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Edition tablet, which interested many users, was the price, and we can tell you now that it costs €289.90 for the Full HD version, and €249.90 for the HD model. It can be pre-ordered now from BQ's online store.
Oh boy! (Score:1, Funny)
The perfect accessory for my Firefox phone! Sign me up for this overpriced underpowered slab of junk.
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Don't you clods understand that it's finally here - the Year of Linux on the Tablet?
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Don't you clods understand that it's finally here - the Year of Linux on the Tablet?
The Tablet of the year on Linux. FTFY
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I'll probably get one.
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I've been waiting for one. I've actually been waiting for them to get a Surface Pro that is fully working with Lubuntu but this is close enough. I'll buy this one. I'll pre-order when I'm done reading the thread.
The thing is, I'm still trying to find a tablet I like. I've tried them all. Really, I've bought about two dozen tablets since the newer tablets started coming out. (I like to call these ones slates but they like to call them tablets.) I used to use a Motion tablet for on-site work and that's what I
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What specifically don't you like about the different tablets you have tried? Perhaps the community can help out.
I liked the Nexus tablets, and my kids seem to enjoy the Amazon Fire tablets they got for Christmas, but I can't say I have ever disliked a tablet I used. My memory on tablets goes all the way back to 486 tablets an inch thick with resistive touch screens, so I have been using tablets a pretty damn long time.
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The user interface, the lack of security, the lack of choice, the inability (unwillingness) to make mobile apps functional, etc etc etc... Yes, I expect preferences.
Re:Year Of Linux on Smartphones already happened (Score:2)
Nobody never announced the official "Year of Linux on the smartphone", but it just kind of happened as Android phone adoption became more popular and overtook iOS and Blackberry device market share around 2012.
Now Google is the established player in the mobile space along with Apple, and everyone else is an also ran. Like you, I'm not sure why someone else would enter this space when the market was already matured.
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Android isn't really Linux. Certainly not Linuxy enough for me.
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It has a load of crap that I can neither change nor remove. That's not the case with something like Fedora, Debian etc.
Kernel schmernel already.
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For the average user, that is what is needed, and it is why Android is such a popular Linux port, also this is the reason Ubuntu is so popular. If you want to get down into the weeds like that, you need to root the phone, then you have full access to the underlying configuration files, so you can break your phone any way you please.
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Android is Linux after Linux has been pulled into Google's basement and given a vivisection. - Some Slashdotter not too many months ago but I forget which one. I'm inclined to agree with them. Even if it is the kernel, it's a far stretch to call it Linux and you sure as hell can't call it free. You can make it more free, with the loss of some functionality, if you want. At that point, you might just as well buy a dumb phone.
But, who am I to talk? I'm still awaiting a Lubuntu phone and I currently use a Wind
Re: Why lol? (Score:1)
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You might want to qualify that as a Asus Transformer T100, as I don't think you loaded Ubuntu onto a pickup truck:
https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com] :)
They're probably too late (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple went the consumer route with the iPad and made it a media consumption device. Youtube, email, facebook, etc... Microsoft went the professional route with the Surface, enabling professional artists to have a digital sketchbook, or architects to view that 3d model. Both MS and Apple have nice integration with their mainstream OS/Server solutions. If Ubuntu wants to stay relevant, they need to up the ante and provide something their competitors don't. I could see these being used for a collaborative meeting where every person can write to a display, or view/take notes on slides. Video Teleconference with a team across the ocean, etc...
If they don't give something new for the money, then Archiebunker is completely right.
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True. I suppose it's possible for Ubuntu to beat Android to the punch with a low cost 'continuum' style device. Assuming Ubuntu's made its desktop stuff touch friendly enough to work on a tablet, they already have a better desktop experience than Android can provide - and fuller-featured productivity apps. Of course, Microsoft has the Windows desktop that kind of has it all. But if their continuum devices are too high-priced to have mass appeal, then this thing might have a shot... A long shot.
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Of course, Microsoft has the Windows desktop that kind of has it all.
Does it really? I thought the ARM version of their OS doesn't actually support desktop applications, whereas Ubuntu shouldn't really care about that. It would appear that Microsoft has quite a lot but Canonical has slightly more now.
Continuum (Score:2)
At least on the high end Lumia 950 (but not the budget models, yet), WP10 is supposed to have a feature that switches when docked, giving you an ARM desktop experience. I'm not sure what the limitations are in terms of supported APIs and naturally x86 won't run.
If they could run any Win32 application compiled for ARM they might have a contender. But if it's as restricted as Win RT, maybe not.
Canonical calls their competing technology Convergence and will run anything from LibreOffice to GIMP.
Will it work better than my Thinkpad X? (Score:4, Interesting)
I have Ubuntu 15.10 on my Lenovo Thinkpad X that has a multi-touch display and can be converted to a tablet.
However I rarely ever do this because Ubuntu touch display defaults in general suck. I am not apt to change from the defaults because most of the time I want to use it like a desktop, this model is too old (big and bulky) to really be used as a tablet. However Ubuntu at its current state just sucked on tablet mode.
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Your desktop Ubuntu is not the same as phone/tablet Ubuntu, the unification is yet to happen, maybe with 16.10
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Exactly. Microsoft had to go through a lot of trouble and annoy a lot of users to make their OS tablet friendly. But they did it because they knew it would have to be done eventually if they ever wanted Windows to work properly on tablets. I don't think that Ubuntu has made enough changes to make Linux really usable as a tablet.
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Of course, Microsoft ended up pretty much ditching Win32 for tablets, so while their OS is now 'tablet friendly', it only really has apps if you use it in laptop mode. I'm not sure whether Gnome or KDE or whatever GUI toolkit Ubuntu's using for this thing is more tablet friendly (or at least potentially more friendly) than Win32 was. It's arguably more 'modern', and probably uses a layout engine that (again potentially) can make it easier for apps to adjust to touch-friendly display parameters without tot
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*Golf clap*.
Wipe (Score:2)
Can we wipe Ubuntu off of it and put a real Linux distro on it? Still wouldn't want it, 10inch doesn't fit in the pocket, small 8inch tablet good enough when on the go.
Despite Ubuntu, we're still waiting for a proper Linux distro for a phone, and tablet. I'm getting really sick of Google/Android, it's increasingly becoming like Microsoft, taking control away from users.
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> 10inch doesn't fit in the pocket
5-6inch linux tablet would be perfect.
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Those are called "smartphones" now. Most of the higher-end models have 5+ inch screens.
I'm not sure why you would want to, but maybe you can install Ubuntu on one of those?
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I want one (Score:3)
I want one of these. It's plenty capable enough as a lightweight laptop replacement and companion device to a real desktop. And the price is low enough that I don't feel worried about wasting my money.
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Sure if the laptop was from 10 years ago.
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My next-to-last laptop would have been 8 years this year. And performance-wise it would still be a perfectly viable machine for the kind of stuff I do on the road. Surf the web, lightweight programming, a few SSH sessions, writing and creating graphs, creating and editing presentations and so on.
This one is thin and lightweight enough - similar to my current Xperia tablet - that it really is unnoticeable in the bag. And, of course, the price makes it a "safe" buy, an
The specs are awful for the money (Score:2)
Quad-core, lame GPU, pathetic uSD support (only 64GB? phones do 128GB, lames) and most ridiculously, only 2GB RAM. That's asstacular. That's minimally OK for Android, but it should have 4GB minimum for running Ubuntu, and I don't want to use Linux on less than 8GB any more, that being about the point at which I don't feel I need swap.
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The price is about normal for a device this class. And you're not going to use this for all the same things as a big laptop. I certainly want at least 16GB on a "real" machine, but I'm not going to do any of the things that require it on this.
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The price is about normal for a device this class. And you're not going to use this for all the same things as a big laptop.
Then I'm not going to run Ubuntu on it, either. We already have a Linux for limited devices which works gracefully under those circumstances, it's called Android.
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Much as I like Android - and already have several Android devices - it's not a good platform for content creation. Try finding a graceful way to run ipython with scipy and matplotlib (for simple analysis and plotting); something like Inkscape to edit SVG diagrams and illustrations; or Impress to make and edit presentations using that data while travelling.
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Much as I like Android - and already have several Android devices - it's not a good platform for content creation.
Neither is Ubuntu on a low-resource tablet. It will always be cramped and crufty. If you must run Ubuntu on a tablet, buy a damned EEE Slate on eBay already. For less money you will get dramatically more machine, and it will run Ubuntu just fine and dandy.
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For vector illustration I'd say DrawExpress (admittedly the only good one I know); for cloning MS powerpoint there are various efficient things, like the german PresentationMaker/PlanMaker/Textmaker; for photo serious processing (including raw/dng files, curves correction etc.) you get Photo Mate (also the only one I know).
DE and PM do propose inventive GUIs, specific to 'fingering' on small screens, with striking efficiencies.
Honestly, and while I'll never rely on android installations that are not root by
5 years too late (Score:2)
Really, nobody cares what O/S anything runs, any more (and probably never did - unless it was a Windows tablet). What matters is what apps, security, price, speed and bugginess/bloatware it sports.
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As a potentially serious answer, you'll have full access to its filesystem without any special tricks, fully functional USB ports for things like printing and the ability to run arbitrary non-tablet applications for stuff like software dev work. And it's cheaper than running all that stuff in a VM on a Surface Pro or the like.
I agree that this thing is too expensive for a kind of lame ARM system from a off-brand OEM, but there's probably a niche out there that is willing to pay $300 for a 10" Linux tablet i
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Really, nobody cares what O/S anything runs, :D and on Linux you use what ever you want, e.g. Python. You have multiple "users" if you want etc. pp.
People who want to install their own software on it, care. E.g. on Android you either do C and need deep knowledge or use Java and get flamed
You seem not to have any clue what an OS is ans why people use a certain OS.
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Really, nobody cares what O/S anything runs, People who want to install their own software on it, care. E.g. on Android you either do C and need deep knowledge or use Java and get flamed :D and on Linux you use what ever you want, e.g. Python. You have multiple "users" if you want etc. pp.
You seem not to have any clue what an OS is ans why people use a certain OS.
OK, replace "nobody" with "the vast majority". Do you think the edge cases are enough of a sustainable market?
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Of course the edge cases are enough to sustain a market.
Or do you think the "inventors" are just plain stupid?
I for a matter of fact may buy one. I earn about $100 an hour, why should I care if my Ubuntu Tablet costs $150 more than a cheap Android tablet? Why should I care if I work 1.5 hours or 3 hours for a tablet I like?
What I care for in this example are unreasonable low limits on RAM and expansion cards. So likely I wait for the next better version of it :D
2 UI modes in one tablet (Score:1)
This Ubuntu tablet has 2 UI modes.
The first is the normal tablet mode, if no bluetooth mouse or keypad connected.
As soon as either is connected, it goes into windowing mode like a normal desktop to use it like a normal desktop.
That is exactly what I want - most of the time, I want to attach a real mouse and keyboard and type
on a physical keyboard. Its faster. And I want to move around from numerous applications copy, pasting,
and running tasks. It also has a micro HDMI port to connect to a big HDMI screen if
I already have an Ubuntu tablet (Score:3)
Installed Ubuntu on my Surface Pro 2.
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How hard was it? Does all the hardware work? Details, man, details.
I'd much prefer they fix Batrail tablet support. (Score:2)
And yes, I know you can get some distros to run, however they usually lack a bunch of drivers, wifi and touchscreen are a particular problem, as is battery life.
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Well for a start, you're a generation behind - Cherry Trail was all the rage in 2015 in products such as Surface 3. A Surface 4 with a Willow Trail SoC will be released in time for Christmas, no doubt.
I looked at these Bay Trail tablets when the supermarkets here had them on sale. I decided even for $AU99 they were trouble. :(
32-bit EFI (Score:1)
Another Tablet? (Score:1)
Who cares? (Score:1)
It's Ubuntu, it's a tablet... This would have been great a few years ago. Glad I'm not on the hook for this one. Someone will lose a bunch of money.