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Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet

By | September 8, 2011, 10:43am PDT

Summary: Samsung, Nvidia and Microsoft are on tap to show off a Windows 8 quad core tablet next week.

Nvidia has been bubbling with optimism this week and there may be a good reason for it: The company next week is on tap to demonstrate its quad-core Kal-El chip on a Microsoft Windows 8 tablet.

We’re hearing in multiple places that a Windows 8 tablet run by Kal-El will make an appearance at the Build conference next week. Samsung, Nvidia and Microsoft will introduce the Windows 8 tablet in a demo. These sources also indicate that a Samsung tablet will be the first Microsoft device with Kal-El. The demonstration would also indicate that Samsung plans to make a Windows 8 tablet. Reports surfaced in the Korea Economic Daily.

What’s unclear is when this Windows 8-Kal-El creation will be publicly available. Our sources are touting the first Microsoft tablet with Kal-El, but the timing doesn’t quite add up. Kal-El will be released in the third quarter, but Windows 8 won’t be released to manufacturing until April 2012 at the earliest.

Windows 8 bits are expected to be handed out to developers next week.

Given those moving parts, it’s likely that Kal-El will power the demo Windows 8 unit to be claimed as a first. But Nvidia’s quad core chip will run on Android in a tablet you can actually buy later this year. As Mary Jo Foley noted, Microsoft showed off a quad-core Windows slate at TechEd New Zealand last month.

Another option is that a Windows 7 tablet will be handed to developers at Build, but it can be upgraded to Windows 8.

Add it up and Nvidia’s optimism this week—the company upped its fiscal 2013 outlook and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang has been confident—may be warranted because it’s betting on two tablet horses in Android and Windows 8.

A few points to note:

  • If Samsung is on the Windows 8 tablet bandwagon it offer some serious Android diversification. Given Samsung’s patent lawsuits with Apple, a Microsoft option could deliver returns just based on legal costs.
  • Nvidia’s plan to trump Qualcomm on quad-core market share may rest with Microsoft. Analysts have been skeptical about Nvidia’s optimism largely because Android tablets haven’t become consumer hits. If Nvidia has all of its non-iPad bases covered its goal to have 70 percent market share in non-Apple tablets looks more realistic.

TechRepublic’s Jason Hiner, Mary Jo Foley and ZDNet UK’s Rupert Goodwins contributed to this report.

More Nvidia:

Build previews:

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Topics

Quad-core, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., NVidia Corp., Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Windows 8, Kal-El, Tablets, Microsoft Windows, Notebooks, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Operating Systems, Software, Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

Disclosure

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan has nothing to disclose. He doesn’t hold investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

For daily updates, follow Larry on Twitter.

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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
vayapues 31st Dec
well... I was very excited when I saw the headline, until I realized that the tablet would run windows instead of Android.

Why on Earth would I want a windows based tablet?
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
Rama.NET 8th Sep
Larry, very nice post. I totally agree with the critical points about Samsung and NVidia strategy you brought at the end of the post. Very good post.
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
bitcrazed 8th Sep
@Rama.NET - Hold on there hoss ... not quite sure why Larry & co. are so confused.

Kal-El ships in fall 2011. Devices running Kal-El ship shortly afterwards. Some of those devices will be running Android. Some, I am sure, will be made available running Win8 or a Win8 bootstrapper allowing the device to be re-flashed with newer OS builds.

Why?

Because there are going to be a ton of developers wanting to port or write apps for Win8 ARM tablets and they'll need tablet hardware to test, debug, tune said apps.
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
Rama.NET 8th Sep
@bitcrazed
I think I was not clear. What my intention was it would be MSFT that could save these OEMs who had all these channeled Android tablets sitting out there. With Win8, it will will give re-birth to those unsold inventory. These Tablets will be rebranded as Win8 Tablets. At the same time the these Win7 tablets will be powered with x86 or Atom processors would get the Win8 written for those processors. It is a win win situation for both OEMs and the developers.
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
bitcrazed 8th Sep
@Rama.NET: Sorry, but your reply is even more confusing than before!

Most existing tablets are single-core devices. Some are dual-core. Most have too little RAM, too little storage and unimpressive screens.

Why on earth would Microsoft want to have Win8 installed on those devices?

In order for Win7 to run on ARM tablets, Microsoft will have to port Windows7's codebase to ARM - this isn't going to happen: Microsoft had to dismantle and reassemble most of Windows in order to facilitate the port to ARM - they're not about to do this all over again on a 2-year-old codebase.

This entire article is about nVidia's quad-core ARM chips being used in Samsung's up-coming Win8 tablets.

Today's tablets running Intel's ATOM processors are diabolically slow and last 2-3 hours on a single charge. ARM-based devices will last 8-10 hours on a single charge and (due to their 4 cores) outperform ATOM by a wide margin.
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
sharkboyjohn 8th Sep
@Rama.NET
I don't think it is possible to have Windows 7 running on this tablet since it does not support ARM based processors. It will have to be Windows 8.
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If it's a Windows 7 tablet....
Joe_Raby 8th Sep
to make it "fully" compatible with Windows 8, it has to support side-by-side apps, and that means it has to have a minimum 1366x768 screen, of which I haven't seen any yet. So if that's true, it's a model that will ship this year, but hasn't yet.
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
bitcrazed 8th Sep
@Joe_Raby - Why will a Win8 tablet require 1366x768?
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
tonymcs@... 8th Sep
@Joe_Raby

I have an ACER convertibletablet with 1366x768 screen. Waiting for a Win 8 beta to make it fly wink
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How much is that doggie in the window?
Rabid Howler Monkey Updated - 8th Sep
$499? $99 after two months on the shelves?!

Seriously, I can see such a tablet having some appeal in the enterprise given how Windows-centric it is. But, for consumers (and probably more than a few enterprise users as well), Microsoft would have been better off with WP7 on 7-inch form factor tablets. Just think, Microsoft would already have tablets on retail store shelves and in customers hands.
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Just not possible
Joe_Raby 8th Sep
@Rabid Howler Monkey

The hardware was not where it needed to be to make a tablet that was:

a) slim
b) light
c) cool
d) fast enough
e) had a long-lasting battery

x86 chips are getting there but power management vs. performance is still a weak spot (along with HD multimedia for low-power chips), and ARM performance is increasing to the point where it's going to be usable for regular compute tasks.
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
Rabid Howler Monkey Updated - 8th Sep
@Joe_Raby Windows Phone 7 (WP7) is supported on ARMv7 Cortex/Scorpion or better processors:

http://www.techautos.com/2010/03/17/windows-phone-7-series-hardware-requirements/

In addition, it supports 800x480 screen resolution commonly used on 7-inch form-factor tablets, with capacitive touch.
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
bitcrazed 8th Sep
@Rabid Howler Monkey

Windows Phone 7 is build atop the Windows CE Kernel. For now. Rumor has it that Windows Phone 8 will be ported to run atop the Win8+ Kernel.

Why?

Windows CE kernel ...
* Doesn't have sufficient security built-in to the kernel - Windows NT kernel does.
* Doesn't support SMP very well - NT kernel does
* Doesn't support many important Windows APIs - NT Kernel does
* Has its own driver model that's incompatible with NT's drivers making porting to new hardware harder.
* Isn't 64-bit capable. NT kernel is.
...
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
Rabid Howler Monkey 8th Sep
@bitcrazed Interesting, but not relevant to a WP7-based tablet. The Windows CE kernel limitations haven't stopped Microsoft and it's OEMs from manufacturing and shipping WP7-based smartphones. And Nokia will soon be cranking them out too.
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
bitcrazed 8th Sep
@Rabid Howler Monkey:

A tablet running an up-scaled Windows Phone-based OS wouldn't sell. Why? For all the reasons I gave before, but primarily because most line of business apps would need to be completely rewritten - not ported - written again from scratch. Why? Because WindowsCE supports a very small subset of Win32, an incomplete subset of .NET, doesn't support VB runtime (still used by A LOT of in-house apps), doesn't support full-Silverlight, etc.

The big reason netbooks didn't take off until they started shipping with Windows? No pre-existing apps ran on the Linux OS they all shipped with at the time. Same is true for tablets. Tablets that can be connected/disconnected from a keyboard base a la Asus' Eee Transformer will, I predict, become the norm for business laptops in the next couple of years - your laptop is a tablet ... and a laptop.
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
Rabid Howler Monkey Updated - 8th Sep
@bitcrazed Wrt a WP7-based, 7-inch form-factor tablet, my assumption was that the apps would be the same as used by WP7 smartphones (similar to what occurs with Android 2.x smartphones and 7-inch tablets). Perhaps, requiring some minor changes from the app devs. I wouldn't expect Windows 7 apps to run on such a tablet.

Your take on tablets and business laptops is also interesting. The next, like the last, several years in computing will be exciting, that's for sure.
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If MS can deliver thousands of touch based apps ...
P. Douglas 8th Sep
@Rabid Howler Monkey,

... on Windows 8 launch - including MS Office - these devices should be able to do well in the consumer market. If Intel and OEMs can deliver convetible ultrabooks, then they should do well in the enterprise and the consumer markets also.
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
Ammalgam 8th Sep
Typo: If Samsung is on the Windows 8 tablet bandwagon it offer some serious Android diversification.
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
Robert Hahn 8th Sep
Why wouldn't they? They don't care which OS you like; they just want to sell hardware.
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
LoverockDavidson_-24231404894599612871915491754222 8th Sep
This Microsoft Windows based tablet just might be the tablet to change all tablets. Quad-core is some powerful stuff.
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
Robert Hahn 8th Sep
Yeah, we know, the birds will sing and the unicorns will leap for joy. Lay off the sauce, willya?
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
WinTard 8th Sep
@Robert Hahn
Lay off the Apple sauce will ya? Don't worry, they'll catch up sooner or later.

And I'm wondering why quad-core CPU architecture hasn't been already patented by Apple?

~~~~~~~~~~
There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there.
~ Indira Gandhi
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I just can't resist the following comment, Loverock
kenosha77a 8th Sep
@LoverockDavidson_

Even if this is the "end all and be all" of tablets; even if this is the tablet that will "..change all tablets because quad core is some powerful stuff", no less an authority on tablets than LoverockDavidson has stated repeatedly that tablets are a fad and will never be an enterprise capable device. ?

I'm just kidding about this, Loverock. And pardon me if I use your past thoughts against you on this point.

But, in all sincerity, I have gone on record as endorsing a MS Win 8 ARM based tablet. I feel this will be a fantastic tablet platform in the near future.

And, no less than a vocal endorser of the Apple ecosystem than myself, I will go on record and state that my next tablet, if the battery life is up to iPad standards, will be a Win 8 tablet design.

How's that for endorsing a passing fad, eh Loverock!
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I just got a few words
Fat Albert 1 8th Sep
@kenosha7777

Xbox Arcade emulator. Everything in the Xbox market minus 360 games. Can quad core handle it? We'll see.

But if it does with 360 controller support, thats a 50 million new tablet customers
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
cosuna 9th Sep
@LoverockDavidson_ : Just like the Windows Phone (7) was the phone that changed all phones... yeah right... keep on dreaming...

Windows 8 (Tablet edition) will the Nash Metropolitan against the Volkswagen Beetle (iPad) of the 21st century.

Worst yet... it could be like the Ford Pinto or the Chevrolet Vega...

...check your wikipedia to see what I mean...
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
Hasam1991 8th Sep
Dang! too bad over 10,000,000 of us just bought iPads!!
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
Bates_ 8th Sep
@Hasam1991 Yea but if there is one thing that can compete with any past or future iPads, it will be a well done Windows based tab.
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
omdguy 8th Sep
@Hasam1991

Dang, too bad there are 10,000,000 idiots like you who are blind followers of the cult of Apple and go on sites every day to boast about it.
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
Hasam1991 8th Sep
@omdguy
Right... we are the idiots.... keep working on that MCSE dude!
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
bitcrazed 8th Sep
@Hasam1991 - If Win8 sells anything like as well as Win7, and if we assume that just 10% of Win8 sales are tablet sales, there will be something like 24,000,000* tablets running Win8 within 12 months of launch.

There's a very good chance that Windows tablets could easily out-sell Apple tablets over the coming couple of years.

* Win7 sold 240M copies within 12 months of launch
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
Hasam1991 8th Sep
@bitcrazed
Yea the answer to your IF question lies in the WP7 numbers... great OS but no one wants it...
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
Rick_Kl 8th Sep
@bitcrazed Only one question? How many of those 240M copies were sold to end users in that 12 month period? For instance, how many were part of the site licenses? Ones that ere listed as Windows 7 even though the computers actually have Windows xp on them? Personally I have no interest, in an iPad, Android, or Windows tablet, just wondering how Microsoft arrived at their number.
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
Robert Hahn 8th Sep
if we assume that just 10%I can tell you from experience that thinking like that is how Hewlett-Packard got stuck with a half-million TouchPads that it couldn't sell.

You look at the analysts' estimates for Apple and you think, "if we only got 1% of that..." and so you order that many, thinking that you're erring on the side of caution. Next thing you know, you have turned $120 million worth of perfectly good components into scrap that gets sold for so much a pound.
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
bitcrazed 8th Sep
@bitcrazed - you're all forgetting something:

A Windows8 tablet paired with a bluetooth keyboard and mouse is a PC - it runs all your apps, is compatible with all your files, etc.

Further, your next-gen laptop may well have a detachable screen which becomes a tablet while you go to meetings, which when re-attached to its keyboard base becomes your laptop once more. See Asus' Eee Transformer for example.

Businesses will eat-up such devices and home users will greatly enjoy the extra dimension of portability.
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
Robert Hahn 8th Sep
@bitcrazed
Businesses will eat-up such devices I don't believe that. They definitely have advantages, and you'd be right if they didn't cost any more, but they will cost more -- a lot more.
We already see that stuffing all these high-precision parts into a tablet form factor adds enough cost to price them higher than a lot of laptops. Now you're talking about adding a bluetooth keyboard, a docking station, all kinds of stuff that adds even more product cost. They could easily end up costing more than Ultrabooks, which we're seeing appear in the $1000 range. Trust me, the beancounters are not going to approve switching to lighter, thinner, more convenient whatevers if they are going to cost $400 or $500 more than a standard laptop. That's almost doubling the cost of the device. It's not justified. Maybe the Executive Office will get them, but not a 4,000 man sales force.
Tablets will be used as consumer electronics devices (where Windows is the last thing people want) and in certain enterprise applications where their unique portability makes them noticeably superior to laptops. Windows might get a fair number of those, but I think the really significant "Windows win" in the enterprise is going to be right where it is now: on the desktop and in laptops.
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
dshane Updated - 9th Sep
@bitcrazed
I agree with your train of thought however I think the numbers will be much less than what you suggest. What MS is trying to do is, I think, pretty darn smart. Make an operating system that runs on a tablet device yet can be mated with inexpensive things (@Robert Hahn) like a keyboard and a mouse, which in turn make it a functioning device for enterprise users. Las time I checked, an iPad 2 costs between 499 - 829. To me thats pretty expensive for a somewhat limited device.

I personally own an Asus EP121. Right now it doesn't have the best of either world with Win7's touch capability (or lack thereof). For my uses it would be great to have the ability to switch in and out of touch centric depending on what I'm doing at the time. MS is definitely shooting for the moon on this.

So in short if MS provides the flexibility of a tablet with enterprise level apps, and the coolness of an iPad they should definitely be able to put a dent in Apple sales. Oh and @Robert Hahn, touch centric Win8 will not be your usual windows. It will be based more on the Metro UI which has its own coolness factor. Lets face it, at some point, all consumer devices, as you say, will be using many of the same apps. Its just a matter of how people choose to access them. MS is just giving us the advantage of having a choice, whether to use traditional windows or not. Something I like and appreciate.
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Sounds promising
charlesdjones1 8th Sep
With no Steve Jobs plus Windows 8 on everything being manufactured, I can see this being a boost to Msoft's bottom line and stock price next year. Apple will continue to set new trends but I don't see them maintaining the same momentum they have enjoyed the last 10 years for more than a couple years, Jobs was the glue that kept all that talent pushing forward, Msoft has had lot's of time to shift it's focus on stuff that really matters, Windows 8 and WP7 are just the first fruits we are seeing from this, and Sinofsky is looking like a strong replacement for Balmer when he decides to step down in a couple years. Good times for Msoft.
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
carlos@... 9th Sep
wow!
"Windows 8 bits" are expected to be handed out to developers next week.
happy
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Things are getting clearer all the time...
dcristof 9th Sep
I believe this is absolutely the reason for Nvidia's aggressive forecast, for the MSFT "poison pill" ownership stake in Nvdia where they have built-in resistance to anyone acquiring Nvidia. Many saw that as a preventive measure against Google or Apple buying them, since Windows was so x86 centric.

When you think about it, what they will need is a simple way for developers to port apps they have written for the current WP7 platform to Win8 ARM. Maybe that is easy, I am not a developer and thus don't know the nuance here, but it makes a ton of sense.

Since the smartphone and tablet businesses are running on ARM, I said a long time ago (and agreed with Mary Jo) that MSFT would deliver its Win8 ARM version BEFORE the x86 version. That is looking more and more like exactly what is happening.

Ultrabooks will ship with Windows 7 until the x86 Win8 version isready, which will work for most companies, since they are not likely to be moving substantially to Win 8 for awhile.

I really want to try out a Win8 ARM phone and tablet!
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
yousit 13th Sep
wwwwwwwwwwww
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RE: Samsung, Nvidia to demo quad-core Windows 8 tablet
vayapues 31st Dec
well... I was very excited when I saw the headline, until I realized that the tablet would run windows instead of Android.

Why on Earth would I want a windows based tablet?

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