Review-thinking or why laptops are waiting for oblivion
This material was supposed to be a regular review of the next interesting new product from bb-mobile on a fresh Intel® processor, but instead turned into a very long test with unexpected personal discoveries. And the conclusion in the style of "how much is still developing computer technology." Smartphones are replacing push-button dialers, “smart sockets” are becoming commonplace in our apartments, inconspicuous at first glance, tablets first cleaned out the netbook niche, and then ... And what happened next will be discussed in this material.
During the search for various statistics, I came across an article "Sales of laptops have fallen markedly" from April 2016. It notes that according to IDC, in 2015, sales of laptops in Russia fell by 38.6%. At the same time, retailers and manufacturing companies agree that the most promising segment is the segment of transforming tablets, which can both turn into a “tablet” and serve as a full-fledged laptop.
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What prevents transformers from winning “solo” laptops "here and now"? Again, the respondents almost unanimously agreed that the cost is an obstacle. Indicative comment: "While they are significantly more expensive than notebooks of similar parameters". Or the words of Ekaterina Tsareva, director of Acer products in Russia: “Transformers are purchased by those who are ready to overpay for a combination of notebook performance and tablet functionality.”
I would argue with the reason for what is overpaying - for the combination given or for a well-known name. Or for the inability of a brand to offer customers an interesting price tag. For example, the cheapest Acer Switch One 10 Z8300 transformer costs 23,000 rubles. If I were a buyer at the crossroads - perhaps for such money it would be better to take a laptop. Another thing, if you can spend less than 15,000 rubles on a transformer. Which in some parameters even exceeds the budget laptop for 15-20 thousand rubles. Then the question arises - how comfortable and practical will it be, can it be better to take a traditional gadget with a 15-inch screen, even if it is non-touch? This is a valid objection, which was voiced in the same article by a representative of the DNS network - they say that buyers still did not appreciate the advantages of transformers.
And really - you will not give up your hard-earned money for the sake of the experiment "like it, not like it." Here, consumers seem to prefer to be cautious and cautious about compact transformers as an alternative to bulky laptops. I personally managed to make sure that, if necessary, my choice would be unequivocal - and not at all in favor of laptops.
To complete the picture, we should mention the global state of affairs, which gives a more complete picture of current trends. And they are such - while in Russia, consumers are only trying to “taste” the transformers, around the world they are actively “tasting” Windows 2-in-1 tablets. In 2015 (Strategy Analytics data), the share of Android tablets was 61% (minus 7%), iPad - 28% (minus 22%). Windows? Windows tablets, as well as transformers, won 11%, which means an increase of 59% to the result a year earlier. Previously, IDC predicted Windows tablets 7% at the end of 2015 and 14.1% by 2019. I dare to assume that the current rate of one and a half dozen percent will be subdued to devices with the Microsoft system already in the second quarter of 2017. That is, they "grow" when the iPads fall!
Sometimes manufacturers do not rush to return the devices issued to me to the test, which is very convenient. For example, my wife does not rejoice at the kitchen Bluetooth scales of a well-known company, and I myself am in no hurry to part with an excellent smartphone-battery smartphone. So, bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) has been “stuck” for four months and will most likely be bought out for permanent residence, so to speak.
Wrong, I suspected about two months ago. My wife is always sad about my business trips - on the one hand, my husband will not be at home. On the other hand, I take a laptop with me, which my beautiful half mainly uses. And if I'm used to working at my desk, then my wife mostly runs between the bedroom and the kitchen, so a stationary PC for her is not an option from the word “absolutely”. I prefer to use the desktop at home, if only because of a 24-inch monitor with the ability to use, say, a browser and a text editor in parallel without compromise.
Before the extreme business trip, the main hard drive of the Seagate Constellation ES.3 “covered up” with me (so that I even overpaid one third of the price for such a “corporate super trustworthiness”). That is, the computer remained "lifeless." In the absence of the home even the most stray tablet, in the experiment set up for his wife bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) and sent to a friendly neighboring state. Upon returning home, the laptop remained untouched for several weeks, while the bb-mobile product was literally not released from female hands.
I was immediately questioned - so, a much more powerful Dell Inspiron 3537-8034 laptop with a 15-inch screen for almost 40,000 rubles was rejected in favor of a 10-inch hybrid tablet! As a result of conversations with my wife, as well as my own thoughts, I decided to tell not so much about bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) itself, but about the confrontation between traditional laptops and Windows-based solutions “2 in 1”.
First you need to clarify an important detail. The manufacturer himself calls his creation “a tablet computer - a transformer”. In common, the options are "hybrid tablet", "2-in-1 tablet." But this is not what I would call a flawed tablet with a keyboard. Let's remember together typical variants of keyboard blocks with touchpads for tablets. Number one is the most inconvenient option that you can’t put on your knees and adjust the tilt of the screen. Only hardcore, only a flat horizontal surface. But this is not the worst. The connection of the components of the “laptop” occurs with the help of a weak magnet, without any latches-clamps, so that the screen can easily be completely accidentally disconnected.
Number two is a little better, the hybrid will be able to be put on your knees. But the “sores” are almost the same: the tilt of the screen does not change, the connection is flimsy on a weak magnet.
bb-mobile lists these and other options in its picture, where it focuses on the practicality of its method of connection through the fixer.
The tablet is mounted on two metal “blades”, in which, in turn, not less metal retractable hooks are installed.
We pressed the button in front of the screen - the latches hid inside the blades, and we can easily remove the tablet.
The result - the screen is super reliably connected to the tablet unit. The tilt of the display can be adjusted to your liking. So instead of a parody of a laptop, we get a thoughtful design that turns the bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) into a full-fledged laptop. When compared with conventional laptops, the bb-mobile model wins the reliability of the connecting part. How are parts attached to most laptops? That's right, on two plastic hinges, which often leads to breakdown sooner or later. Not the most relevant, but a vivid example - the first laptop in my life, the model from Acer. After three years of use, I received such a gift on both hinges. As I found out, this is not the rarest problem for laptops.
In the case of bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ), nothing like the owner is not threatened - the design, as they say, "forever."
From the point of view of connectors, the bb-mobile model loses to a typical laptop except by the number of USB ports, and even then - “in fact” is still not inferior. Two connectors (one in the tablet, the second in the block with the keyboard) allow you to connect in parallel, say, a USB flash drive and a mouse. Or an external hard drive and printer. In fact, the average citizen of such a set is enough for the eyes. If you still want a bigger screen - no question, there is a miniHDMI connector. The only compromise is the location of the audio output - in the open state of the model, it is located at the top left, which is not very convenient. In theory, it would be more logical to install the connector from the bottom, but there is already a speaker and a slot for a microSD card.
It would be more logical to discuss the dimensions in terms of the “mobile” use of bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ), but in fact, the weight of the device is important even in home conditions. For example, lying on the bed and holding the laptop on your hands clearly will not work, and in the case of bb-mobile it is enough to detach the tablet part. 600 g is a comfortable indicator for long holding a “pill” with two hands. In full gear, the device weighs 1.1 kg, while ordinary 15-inch laptops start at almost twice the figure, about two kilograms. If you like to stretch out on the couch from time to time, putting a computer companion on yourself, bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) will definitely seem like a better option.
Among other design features, there are pluses for both my laptop of type Dell Inspiron 3542, and bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ). However, the advantage of a Dell laptop is rather nominal and consists in the presence of a DVD drive. As you understand, in 2016 this is already archaism, which is best confirmed by the increasingly frequent refusal of manufacturers from the “container of disks” (recall at least the MacBook).
In fact, the presence of the default Wi-Fi and the corresponding driver solves all the problems in obtaining certain files or other drivers. Personally, I do not know the content that would be distributed on discs and was completely absent for downloading from the Internet. The bb-mobile model has a much more practical plus, the presence of two cameras at once - a front 2 megapixel and a rear 5 megapixel. The rear module allows you to legibly photograph the text, although this is unlikely to be useful to you at home. But the "frontalka" for video calling on Skype is another matter. So, my mother-in-law lives 200 kilometers from our city, and before that, my wife remotely communicated with her only by phone. Recently, almost exclusively by Skype. Image quality? No complaints, faces are visible, the picture is not at all grainy.
Again, everything is relative. Again, in bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) - 2 megapixel front camera. In my Dell Inspiron 3537 for almost 40,000 rubles - just 1 megapixel, and in the former Dell Inspiron 3542-8588 (as you understand, I love Dell laptops) for 16,000 rubles - 0.92 megapixels. Some statistics: “Yandex.Market” shows almost 3,600 (three thousand six hundred) 15-and 16-inch laptops with front cameras. Of these, only 20 pieces - with 2 megapixel modules. So, regardless of the price, only 0.56% (!) Of notebooks with a diagonal of about 15 inches are able to provide you with the same quality of the video image as bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ).
Finally a few words about the keyboard. It is clear that the compact “clav” with a shortened “Enter”, the absence of NUMPAD keys and a number of other compromises loses to almost full-sized “colleagues” in 15-inch laptops. However, another is important. In fact, you quickly get used to the small buttons and do not feel any discomfort. The needs of an ordinary citizen in typing, as a rule, are largely limited to episodic communication in social networks, on forums, in comments on YouTube, etc. That is, the context in which the presence of all the buttons like NUM, Page Up / Down, Scroll Lock, etc., is not critical. And the very process of typing messages on the bb-mobile model doesn’t cause intrusive thoughts like “I wish I could get a normal keyboard”.
Again, I am judging at least by my wife, who, being in an “interesting” position, spends A LOT of time in networking with relatives and acquaintances, and also actively communicates in thematic forums. And which - as I have repeatedly mentioned - has the opportunity at any time to return to the 15-inch laptop. However, the laptop still accumulates dust on the shelf, and bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) - no. From my own impressions, I would note the absence of keyboard deflections so characteristic of large notebooks, especially in the central region. I also liked the lack of jingling keys - nothing dangles and, according to a subjective assessment, is not going to get loose.
It is difficult to explain exactly what the problem is, but in most of the budget transformers (and I've seen them quite a lot in recent years) I couldn’t work properly with a touchpad. The touch surface reacted strangely to the touch, arbitrarily activated the double “tap”, and the bottom row of two keys sometimes turned out to be too tight. Therefore, the 2-in-1 positioning turned out to be incomplete - either it was necessary to connect the mouse, or to further increase the control share through the touch screen. In bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ), fortunately, I didn’t have to deal with a similar one, the sensitivity and response of the touchpad to touch do not cause complaints, as well as the responsiveness of the bottom buttons. These impressions are confirmed by the fact that my beautiful half never asked to plug in a notebook mouse, although she had the opportunity.
If your work or hobbies are not related to video editing, photo processing or other tasks requiring a large screen size, a 15-inch laptop is hardly critical for you. In fact, all the same, at least the keyboard attached to the part with the screen leads to the fact that most of the time the laptop is away from you is less than an outstretched hand. And in this case, in order not to strain your eyes too much and not literally “jump” with your eyes on the display, 10-inch solutions like bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) are best suited.
In 2012, soroktu conducted a survey on the then Habrahabr - “Laptop with what screen size do you use when developing with the use of IDE? Does the diagonal suit you? ” In 26% of cases, respondents used an external monitor (that is, something more than 16 inches), but the second most popular answer was a diagonal of up to 13 inches. If we talk about the needs of the average user, it is mainly websites, episodic correspondence by e-mail and in social networks. All that for which the big screen is not needed. It is useful either in the tasks listed at the beginning of the section, or in games. However, in an approximately comparable notebook with a bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) laptop, you will receive such a set of hardware based on the Celeron / Pentium processor that you won't even dream about any WoT. Even at the lowest settings.
Bonus user gets an unconditional advantage in the quality of the display. Agree, IPS-matrix is an extremely rare phenomenon among laptops cheaper than 40-50 thousand rubles, not to mention state employees up to 20 000 rubles. For example, here is the sorting by ascending price of laptops with IPS screens in the DNS store.
Only one model for almost 17,000 rubles, then - from 22,000 rubles and above. Let's say my Dell Inspiron 3537-8034 for almost 40,000 rubles has only a TFT-TN matrix with not the most correct color reproduction and terrible viewing angles. While the picture bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) is banal nice to look at. And at least three of them - wide viewing angles allow.
And, of course, the touchscreen display. According to my wife, this is a monstrously handy thing, it is through the screen that almost all control in the system occurs, scrolling web pages. This is a definite plus of a hybrid - to perform navigation and activate certain actions in the system most often faster by “poking” into the screen. At the keyboard share is its unsurpassed advantage - typing.
The screen resolution of bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) is 1280 x 800 pixels, the pixel density is 149 ppi. In my laptop with 15.6 inches - 1366 x 768 pixels and the final 100 ppi. In fact, both devices are used at about the same distance from the eyes. Think about where the “ladder” will be in the eye, and where the picture will look much smoother. For information, there are currently about 18,300 15-16 inch laptops currently on sale at Yandex.Market, of which almost 12,200 pieces or 66.7% are models with a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels. In other words, more than half of the buyers of 15-inch laptops are doomed to look at 100 ppi.
The bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) is equipped with a 4-core Intel® Atom ™ x5-Z8300 processor, a fairly recent solution that replaced the previous Intel® Atom ™ Z3735F hit platform. Improvements first of all affected the most important - technical process became thinner, the manufacturer switched from 22 nm Bay Trail to 14 nm Cherry Trail. At the very least, this means increased energy efficiency, in other words, a decrease in energy consumption. In addition, the base frequency has risen to 100 Hz (up to 1.44 GHz), and the place of DDR3L-RS 1333 RAM has been replaced by a faster DDR3L-RS 1600. From the performance point of view, the most notable achievement is the presence of twelve, not four shader processors. According to the CPUBoss website, in 3DMark between the Intel® Atom ™ x5-Z8300 and Z3735F is a nearly two-fold gap in favor of the new product.
As for the real performance, first turn to my wife. Her most popular script is web surfing. And less than 10-15 tabs she never open. And she prefers not some sparing Chrome RAM, but the most voracious Opera. And this is exactly the case when the commentators in the usual review would immediately pounce on 2 GB of RAM and explain why there is nothing good to expect from a hybrid with such a characteristic. However, the fact remains that even with two dozen tabs (and this is not at all light pages like bash.im), there were no complaints about the performance from the wife. Let me remind you - this is when the side is always a laptop with an Intel® Core ™ i5 4200U and 4 GB of RAM.
In other tasks, it would be more correct to compare the performance of the bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) with the direct price competitor, Dell Inspiron 3542-8588. Dell's brainchild has an Intel® Celeron ™ 2957U 1 GHz processor, 2 GB of RAM, and ten shader stones. Alas, but according to my personal impressions, there is absolutely nothing for Dell to boast. The model was operated on Windows 10, where the results were more than pitiable - I find it difficult to recall a task in which I would not have problems with the speed of implementation or compromises of a different kind.
Of course, you can work in Word, you can open one or two pages in the browser, too. However, it was not necessary to count on 15-20 tabs, frank brakes immediately began. With Photoshop and Adobe Premiere, I also quickly “tied up”. Even the opening of a 5-megabyte photo in Photoshop took up to ten seconds. And if I have 50-60 photos in line for review? And this is not to mention the similarly low speed application processing. Browsing on YouTube was better not to exhibit above 720p, immediately slowing down, desynchronizing pictures and sound made themselves felt. And what about bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ)? This hybrid has a processor with Turbo Boost up to 1.84 GHz, Hyper-Threading and other interesting technologies that appear to affect the actual performance in a very positive way.
In general, I would advise skeptics to re-read this article , where alexeystar very clearly showed the capabilities of the Intel® Atom ™ Z3735F with 2 GB. And in short they are - smooth playback on YouTube-video in 1440p resolution, possibility of more or less comfortable work in photo and video editors, as well as the ability to play with acceptable FPS in GTA 3 or Half-Life level titles 2. You understand, on the basis of more advanced at least in the graphic part of the Intel® Atom ™ x5-Z8300 transformer tablet shows the results at a similar level, in games - even better.
On the issue of the operating system. In bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ), Windows 10 was immediately installed by default. In my Dell Inspiron 3537, as well as in the previous Dell Inspiron 3542, the system was missing. Buy? In Microsoft Store, the release of Windows 10 Home costs almost 8,000 rubles, which is half the price for a budget laptop. That is, in fact, for normal operation, you will have to lay out not 16, but all 24 thousand rubles. Of course, you can, um, buy Windows at a discount on RuTracker, but this is a matter of conscience of each individual user.
The amount of ROM in bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) is 32 GB, of which about 22 GB is available to the user. We add a slot for microSD with a capacity of up to 128 GB and we get a total of up to 150 GB. If you are not a fan of watching movies in Blu-ray images of 40 GB and you don’t have to score a laptop with large files for work, this is more than the normal amount for a dozen of your favorite movies, music collection and a couple dozen "gigs" of photos. From the point of view of the average user, in my opinion, the need for typical notebook storage capacities of 500 GB and above is no longer relevant. We receive a huge amount of any content live from the Internet. This is YouTube, all sorts of legal and not very video platforms with movies and TV shows, music venues. High-speed home Internet costs a penny, so instead of downloading, you can watch / listen to the required content online at any time.I admit honestly - I download the same series and films no more than a couple of times a year, only when there is a long way to go on the train or intercity bus.
It is also important that eMMC flash memory is used in hybrids, which means much faster data handling compared to hard drives in laptops. Here are the results of bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ).
The achievements of the hard drive Dell Inspiron 3542-8588 is much more modest.
However, what if even 150 GB do not suit you? Fortunately, external drives are now sold at very affordable prices, so that a maximum of 3-4 thousand rubles you can buy a “screw” of 500 GB. The total price is 14,000 rubles for a transforming tablet plus 3,500 rubles for a hard drive, for a total of 17,500 rubles. First, all the same, we do not exceed the budget for the purchase of a separate ultra-affordable laptop. Secondly, do not forget about the wonderful spending on a Windows 10 license for a “bare” laptop, when the total price tag automatically exceeds 20,000 rubles.
The study of autonomy for primarily home use is not too relevant, but if there is a long way to go, the extra hour of notebook work will be, sorry for the tautology, not at all superfluous. My former Dell Inspiron 3542-8588 provided about five hours of video viewing, the current Dell Inspiron 3537-8034 - up to 7 hours. But if I get to rest in warm countries, I will definitely take with me bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) with 6,000 mAh and its 8-10 hours of playing movies. By the way, even while traveling, even while traveling the city, charging the bb-mobile model cannot but cause respect against the background of a typical long laptop cable with a bulky power supply.
I can state with confidence the following. Hybrid tablets on Windows are a full-fledged and much more successful alternative to traditional laptops for ordinary users. If you do not use a personal laptop for hobbies or work with professional tasks such as photo processing, video editing, 3D modeling, etc., then a Windows hybrid of bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) is much more preferable than typical ultrabudget 15 inch laptop. In any case, I saw it clearly against the background of not only the similar Dell Inspiron 3542-8588 for 16,000 rubles, but also almost three times more expensive Dell Inspiron 3537-8034 for 40,000 rubles. Price bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ), recall, is 14 000 rubles. So you get a good replacement for a home desktop or laptop at the cost of, say, an inexpensive smartphone.
As for the minuses - serious flaws are not noticed. The only thing is that it should be understood that gaming capabilities are not the strength of this model, although you can spend time with GTA 3 or HL 2. If among your priorities are WoT and other modern 3D toys, you will have to look at laptops from 30,000 rubles and more expensive. For the rest, there are no real drawbacks, although I honestly tried to find out from my wife how bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) could not please her after almost two months of daily active use. So I invite readers to tell in the comments - what do you think can be criticized in Windows hybrids.
Intel, Intel Inside, Intel Atom, Intel Celeron, Intel Core are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the United States and other countries.
Some analytics
During the search for various statistics, I came across an article "Sales of laptops have fallen markedly" from April 2016. It notes that according to IDC, in 2015, sales of laptops in Russia fell by 38.6%. At the same time, retailers and manufacturing companies agree that the most promising segment is the segment of transforming tablets, which can both turn into a “tablet” and serve as a full-fledged laptop.
')
What prevents transformers from winning “solo” laptops "here and now"? Again, the respondents almost unanimously agreed that the cost is an obstacle. Indicative comment: "While they are significantly more expensive than notebooks of similar parameters". Or the words of Ekaterina Tsareva, director of Acer products in Russia: “Transformers are purchased by those who are ready to overpay for a combination of notebook performance and tablet functionality.”
I would argue with the reason for what is overpaying - for the combination given or for a well-known name. Or for the inability of a brand to offer customers an interesting price tag. For example, the cheapest Acer Switch One 10 Z8300 transformer costs 23,000 rubles. If I were a buyer at the crossroads - perhaps for such money it would be better to take a laptop. Another thing, if you can spend less than 15,000 rubles on a transformer. Which in some parameters even exceeds the budget laptop for 15-20 thousand rubles. Then the question arises - how comfortable and practical will it be, can it be better to take a traditional gadget with a 15-inch screen, even if it is non-touch? This is a valid objection, which was voiced in the same article by a representative of the DNS network - they say that buyers still did not appreciate the advantages of transformers.
And really - you will not give up your hard-earned money for the sake of the experiment "like it, not like it." Here, consumers seem to prefer to be cautious and cautious about compact transformers as an alternative to bulky laptops. I personally managed to make sure that, if necessary, my choice would be unequivocal - and not at all in favor of laptops.
To complete the picture, we should mention the global state of affairs, which gives a more complete picture of current trends. And they are such - while in Russia, consumers are only trying to “taste” the transformers, around the world they are actively “tasting” Windows 2-in-1 tablets. In 2015 (Strategy Analytics data), the share of Android tablets was 61% (minus 7%), iPad - 28% (minus 22%). Windows? Windows tablets, as well as transformers, won 11%, which means an increase of 59% to the result a year earlier. Previously, IDC predicted Windows tablets 7% at the end of 2015 and 14.1% by 2019. I dare to assume that the current rate of one and a half dozen percent will be subdued to devices with the Microsoft system already in the second quarter of 2017. That is, they "grow" when the iPads fall!
Some personal analytics
Sometimes manufacturers do not rush to return the devices issued to me to the test, which is very convenient. For example, my wife does not rejoice at the kitchen Bluetooth scales of a well-known company, and I myself am in no hurry to part with an excellent smartphone-battery smartphone. So, bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) has been “stuck” for four months and will most likely be bought out for permanent residence, so to speak.
Wrong, I suspected about two months ago. My wife is always sad about my business trips - on the one hand, my husband will not be at home. On the other hand, I take a laptop with me, which my beautiful half mainly uses. And if I'm used to working at my desk, then my wife mostly runs between the bedroom and the kitchen, so a stationary PC for her is not an option from the word “absolutely”. I prefer to use the desktop at home, if only because of a 24-inch monitor with the ability to use, say, a browser and a text editor in parallel without compromise.
Before the extreme business trip, the main hard drive of the Seagate Constellation ES.3 “covered up” with me (so that I even overpaid one third of the price for such a “corporate super trustworthiness”). That is, the computer remained "lifeless." In the absence of the home even the most stray tablet, in the experiment set up for his wife bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) and sent to a friendly neighboring state. Upon returning home, the laptop remained untouched for several weeks, while the bb-mobile product was literally not released from female hands.
I was immediately questioned - so, a much more powerful Dell Inspiron 3537-8034 laptop with a 15-inch screen for almost 40,000 rubles was rejected in favor of a 10-inch hybrid tablet! As a result of conversations with my wife, as well as my own thoughts, I decided to tell not so much about bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) itself, but about the confrontation between traditional laptops and Windows-based solutions “2 in 1”.
Appearance
First you need to clarify an important detail. The manufacturer himself calls his creation “a tablet computer - a transformer”. In common, the options are "hybrid tablet", "2-in-1 tablet." But this is not what I would call a flawed tablet with a keyboard. Let's remember together typical variants of keyboard blocks with touchpads for tablets. Number one is the most inconvenient option that you can’t put on your knees and adjust the tilt of the screen. Only hardcore, only a flat horizontal surface. But this is not the worst. The connection of the components of the “laptop” occurs with the help of a weak magnet, without any latches-clamps, so that the screen can easily be completely accidentally disconnected.
Number two is a little better, the hybrid will be able to be put on your knees. But the “sores” are almost the same: the tilt of the screen does not change, the connection is flimsy on a weak magnet.
bb-mobile lists these and other options in its picture, where it focuses on the practicality of its method of connection through the fixer.
The tablet is mounted on two metal “blades”, in which, in turn, not less metal retractable hooks are installed.
We pressed the button in front of the screen - the latches hid inside the blades, and we can easily remove the tablet.
The result - the screen is super reliably connected to the tablet unit. The tilt of the display can be adjusted to your liking. So instead of a parody of a laptop, we get a thoughtful design that turns the bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) into a full-fledged laptop. When compared with conventional laptops, the bb-mobile model wins the reliability of the connecting part. How are parts attached to most laptops? That's right, on two plastic hinges, which often leads to breakdown sooner or later. Not the most relevant, but a vivid example - the first laptop in my life, the model from Acer. After three years of use, I received such a gift on both hinges. As I found out, this is not the rarest problem for laptops.
In the case of bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ), nothing like the owner is not threatened - the design, as they say, "forever."
From the point of view of connectors, the bb-mobile model loses to a typical laptop except by the number of USB ports, and even then - “in fact” is still not inferior. Two connectors (one in the tablet, the second in the block with the keyboard) allow you to connect in parallel, say, a USB flash drive and a mouse. Or an external hard drive and printer. In fact, the average citizen of such a set is enough for the eyes. If you still want a bigger screen - no question, there is a miniHDMI connector. The only compromise is the location of the audio output - in the open state of the model, it is located at the top left, which is not very convenient. In theory, it would be more logical to install the connector from the bottom, but there is already a speaker and a slot for a microSD card.
It would be more logical to discuss the dimensions in terms of the “mobile” use of bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ), but in fact, the weight of the device is important even in home conditions. For example, lying on the bed and holding the laptop on your hands clearly will not work, and in the case of bb-mobile it is enough to detach the tablet part. 600 g is a comfortable indicator for long holding a “pill” with two hands. In full gear, the device weighs 1.1 kg, while ordinary 15-inch laptops start at almost twice the figure, about two kilograms. If you like to stretch out on the couch from time to time, putting a computer companion on yourself, bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) will definitely seem like a better option.
Among other design features, there are pluses for both my laptop of type Dell Inspiron 3542, and bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ). However, the advantage of a Dell laptop is rather nominal and consists in the presence of a DVD drive. As you understand, in 2016 this is already archaism, which is best confirmed by the increasingly frequent refusal of manufacturers from the “container of disks” (recall at least the MacBook).
In fact, the presence of the default Wi-Fi and the corresponding driver solves all the problems in obtaining certain files or other drivers. Personally, I do not know the content that would be distributed on discs and was completely absent for downloading from the Internet. The bb-mobile model has a much more practical plus, the presence of two cameras at once - a front 2 megapixel and a rear 5 megapixel. The rear module allows you to legibly photograph the text, although this is unlikely to be useful to you at home. But the "frontalka" for video calling on Skype is another matter. So, my mother-in-law lives 200 kilometers from our city, and before that, my wife remotely communicated with her only by phone. Recently, almost exclusively by Skype. Image quality? No complaints, faces are visible, the picture is not at all grainy.
Again, everything is relative. Again, in bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) - 2 megapixel front camera. In my Dell Inspiron 3537 for almost 40,000 rubles - just 1 megapixel, and in the former Dell Inspiron 3542-8588 (as you understand, I love Dell laptops) for 16,000 rubles - 0.92 megapixels. Some statistics: “Yandex.Market” shows almost 3,600 (three thousand six hundred) 15-and 16-inch laptops with front cameras. Of these, only 20 pieces - with 2 megapixel modules. So, regardless of the price, only 0.56% (!) Of notebooks with a diagonal of about 15 inches are able to provide you with the same quality of the video image as bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ).
Finally a few words about the keyboard. It is clear that the compact “clav” with a shortened “Enter”, the absence of NUMPAD keys and a number of other compromises loses to almost full-sized “colleagues” in 15-inch laptops. However, another is important. In fact, you quickly get used to the small buttons and do not feel any discomfort. The needs of an ordinary citizen in typing, as a rule, are largely limited to episodic communication in social networks, on forums, in comments on YouTube, etc. That is, the context in which the presence of all the buttons like NUM, Page Up / Down, Scroll Lock, etc., is not critical. And the very process of typing messages on the bb-mobile model doesn’t cause intrusive thoughts like “I wish I could get a normal keyboard”.
Again, I am judging at least by my wife, who, being in an “interesting” position, spends A LOT of time in networking with relatives and acquaintances, and also actively communicates in thematic forums. And which - as I have repeatedly mentioned - has the opportunity at any time to return to the 15-inch laptop. However, the laptop still accumulates dust on the shelf, and bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) - no. From my own impressions, I would note the absence of keyboard deflections so characteristic of large notebooks, especially in the central region. I also liked the lack of jingling keys - nothing dangles and, according to a subjective assessment, is not going to get loose.
It is difficult to explain exactly what the problem is, but in most of the budget transformers (and I've seen them quite a lot in recent years) I couldn’t work properly with a touchpad. The touch surface reacted strangely to the touch, arbitrarily activated the double “tap”, and the bottom row of two keys sometimes turned out to be too tight. Therefore, the 2-in-1 positioning turned out to be incomplete - either it was necessary to connect the mouse, or to further increase the control share through the touch screen. In bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ), fortunately, I didn’t have to deal with a similar one, the sensitivity and response of the touchpad to touch do not cause complaints, as well as the responsiveness of the bottom buttons. These impressions are confirmed by the fact that my beautiful half never asked to plug in a notebook mouse, although she had the opportunity.
Screen
If your work or hobbies are not related to video editing, photo processing or other tasks requiring a large screen size, a 15-inch laptop is hardly critical for you. In fact, all the same, at least the keyboard attached to the part with the screen leads to the fact that most of the time the laptop is away from you is less than an outstretched hand. And in this case, in order not to strain your eyes too much and not literally “jump” with your eyes on the display, 10-inch solutions like bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) are best suited.
In 2012, soroktu conducted a survey on the then Habrahabr - “Laptop with what screen size do you use when developing with the use of IDE? Does the diagonal suit you? ” In 26% of cases, respondents used an external monitor (that is, something more than 16 inches), but the second most popular answer was a diagonal of up to 13 inches. If we talk about the needs of the average user, it is mainly websites, episodic correspondence by e-mail and in social networks. All that for which the big screen is not needed. It is useful either in the tasks listed at the beginning of the section, or in games. However, in an approximately comparable notebook with a bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) laptop, you will receive such a set of hardware based on the Celeron / Pentium processor that you won't even dream about any WoT. Even at the lowest settings.
Bonus user gets an unconditional advantage in the quality of the display. Agree, IPS-matrix is an extremely rare phenomenon among laptops cheaper than 40-50 thousand rubles, not to mention state employees up to 20 000 rubles. For example, here is the sorting by ascending price of laptops with IPS screens in the DNS store.
Only one model for almost 17,000 rubles, then - from 22,000 rubles and above. Let's say my Dell Inspiron 3537-8034 for almost 40,000 rubles has only a TFT-TN matrix with not the most correct color reproduction and terrible viewing angles. While the picture bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) is banal nice to look at. And at least three of them - wide viewing angles allow.
And, of course, the touchscreen display. According to my wife, this is a monstrously handy thing, it is through the screen that almost all control in the system occurs, scrolling web pages. This is a definite plus of a hybrid - to perform navigation and activate certain actions in the system most often faster by “poking” into the screen. At the keyboard share is its unsurpassed advantage - typing.
The screen resolution of bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) is 1280 x 800 pixels, the pixel density is 149 ppi. In my laptop with 15.6 inches - 1366 x 768 pixels and the final 100 ppi. In fact, both devices are used at about the same distance from the eyes. Think about where the “ladder” will be in the eye, and where the picture will look much smoother. For information, there are currently about 18,300 15-16 inch laptops currently on sale at Yandex.Market, of which almost 12,200 pieces or 66.7% are models with a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels. In other words, more than half of the buyers of 15-inch laptops are doomed to look at 100 ppi.
Performance, system and autonomy
The bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) is equipped with a 4-core Intel® Atom ™ x5-Z8300 processor, a fairly recent solution that replaced the previous Intel® Atom ™ Z3735F hit platform. Improvements first of all affected the most important - technical process became thinner, the manufacturer switched from 22 nm Bay Trail to 14 nm Cherry Trail. At the very least, this means increased energy efficiency, in other words, a decrease in energy consumption. In addition, the base frequency has risen to 100 Hz (up to 1.44 GHz), and the place of DDR3L-RS 1333 RAM has been replaced by a faster DDR3L-RS 1600. From the performance point of view, the most notable achievement is the presence of twelve, not four shader processors. According to the CPUBoss website, in 3DMark between the Intel® Atom ™ x5-Z8300 and Z3735F is a nearly two-fold gap in favor of the new product.
As for the real performance, first turn to my wife. Her most popular script is web surfing. And less than 10-15 tabs she never open. And she prefers not some sparing Chrome RAM, but the most voracious Opera. And this is exactly the case when the commentators in the usual review would immediately pounce on 2 GB of RAM and explain why there is nothing good to expect from a hybrid with such a characteristic. However, the fact remains that even with two dozen tabs (and this is not at all light pages like bash.im), there were no complaints about the performance from the wife. Let me remind you - this is when the side is always a laptop with an Intel® Core ™ i5 4200U and 4 GB of RAM.
In other tasks, it would be more correct to compare the performance of the bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) with the direct price competitor, Dell Inspiron 3542-8588. Dell's brainchild has an Intel® Celeron ™ 2957U 1 GHz processor, 2 GB of RAM, and ten shader stones. Alas, but according to my personal impressions, there is absolutely nothing for Dell to boast. The model was operated on Windows 10, where the results were more than pitiable - I find it difficult to recall a task in which I would not have problems with the speed of implementation or compromises of a different kind.
Of course, you can work in Word, you can open one or two pages in the browser, too. However, it was not necessary to count on 15-20 tabs, frank brakes immediately began. With Photoshop and Adobe Premiere, I also quickly “tied up”. Even the opening of a 5-megabyte photo in Photoshop took up to ten seconds. And if I have 50-60 photos in line for review? And this is not to mention the similarly low speed application processing. Browsing on YouTube was better not to exhibit above 720p, immediately slowing down, desynchronizing pictures and sound made themselves felt. And what about bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ)? This hybrid has a processor with Turbo Boost up to 1.84 GHz, Hyper-Threading and other interesting technologies that appear to affect the actual performance in a very positive way.
In general, I would advise skeptics to re-read this article , where alexeystar very clearly showed the capabilities of the Intel® Atom ™ Z3735F with 2 GB. And in short they are - smooth playback on YouTube-video in 1440p resolution, possibility of more or less comfortable work in photo and video editors, as well as the ability to play with acceptable FPS in GTA 3 or Half-Life level titles 2. You understand, on the basis of more advanced at least in the graphic part of the Intel® Atom ™ x5-Z8300 transformer tablet shows the results at a similar level, in games - even better.
On the issue of the operating system. In bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ), Windows 10 was immediately installed by default. In my Dell Inspiron 3537, as well as in the previous Dell Inspiron 3542, the system was missing. Buy? In Microsoft Store, the release of Windows 10 Home costs almost 8,000 rubles, which is half the price for a budget laptop. That is, in fact, for normal operation, you will have to lay out not 16, but all 24 thousand rubles. Of course, you can, um, buy Windows at a discount on RuTracker, but this is a matter of conscience of each individual user.
The amount of ROM in bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) is 32 GB, of which about 22 GB is available to the user. We add a slot for microSD with a capacity of up to 128 GB and we get a total of up to 150 GB. If you are not a fan of watching movies in Blu-ray images of 40 GB and you don’t have to score a laptop with large files for work, this is more than the normal amount for a dozen of your favorite movies, music collection and a couple dozen "gigs" of photos. From the point of view of the average user, in my opinion, the need for typical notebook storage capacities of 500 GB and above is no longer relevant. We receive a huge amount of any content live from the Internet. This is YouTube, all sorts of legal and not very video platforms with movies and TV shows, music venues. High-speed home Internet costs a penny, so instead of downloading, you can watch / listen to the required content online at any time.I admit honestly - I download the same series and films no more than a couple of times a year, only when there is a long way to go on the train or intercity bus.
It is also important that eMMC flash memory is used in hybrids, which means much faster data handling compared to hard drives in laptops. Here are the results of bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ).
The achievements of the hard drive Dell Inspiron 3542-8588 is much more modest.
However, what if even 150 GB do not suit you? Fortunately, external drives are now sold at very affordable prices, so that a maximum of 3-4 thousand rubles you can buy a “screw” of 500 GB. The total price is 14,000 rubles for a transforming tablet plus 3,500 rubles for a hard drive, for a total of 17,500 rubles. First, all the same, we do not exceed the budget for the purchase of a separate ultra-affordable laptop. Secondly, do not forget about the wonderful spending on a Windows 10 license for a “bare” laptop, when the total price tag automatically exceeds 20,000 rubles.
The study of autonomy for primarily home use is not too relevant, but if there is a long way to go, the extra hour of notebook work will be, sorry for the tautology, not at all superfluous. My former Dell Inspiron 3542-8588 provided about five hours of video viewing, the current Dell Inspiron 3537-8034 - up to 7 hours. But if I get to rest in warm countries, I will definitely take with me bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) with 6,000 mAh and its 8-10 hours of playing movies. By the way, even while traveling, even while traveling the city, charging the bb-mobile model cannot but cause respect against the background of a typical long laptop cable with a bulky power supply.
Conclusion
I can state with confidence the following. Hybrid tablets on Windows are a full-fledged and much more successful alternative to traditional laptops for ordinary users. If you do not use a personal laptop for hobbies or work with professional tasks such as photo processing, video editing, 3D modeling, etc., then a Windows hybrid of bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) is much more preferable than typical ultrabudget 15 inch laptop. In any case, I saw it clearly against the background of not only the similar Dell Inspiron 3542-8588 for 16,000 rubles, but also almost three times more expensive Dell Inspiron 3537-8034 for 40,000 rubles. Price bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ), recall, is 14 000 rubles. So you get a good replacement for a home desktop or laptop at the cost of, say, an inexpensive smartphone.
As for the minuses - serious flaws are not noticed. The only thing is that it should be understood that gaming capabilities are not the strength of this model, although you can spend time with GTA 3 or HL 2. If among your priorities are WoT and other modern 3D toys, you will have to look at laptops from 30,000 rubles and more expensive. For the rest, there are no real drawbacks, although I honestly tried to find out from my wife how bb-mobile Techno W10.1 (X101BZ) could not please her after almost two months of daily active use. So I invite readers to tell in the comments - what do you think can be criticized in Windows hybrids.
Intel, Intel Inside, Intel Atom, Intel Celeron, Intel Core are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the United States and other countries.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/399887/
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