Lenovo, Nvidia building convertible Windows RT tablets: Who will buy?
Summary: Convertible devices will face a number of challenges, including compromises associated with convergence devices and price.
Lenovo, not put off by Microsoft's Surface ambitions, is rumored to be working on an ARM-powered Windows RT tablet.
The Wall Street Journal reports that industry hard-hitting Chinese PC maker Lenovo -- soon to be the world's biggest PC maker by shipments -- has partnered with Nvidia to bring to market convertible Windows RT tablets.
Nvidia will supply ARM-based Tegra 3 mobile processors to Lenovo, according to the report.
What's interesting here is not the fact that Lenovo has plans for Windows RT-based devices, or the fact that they will be powered by Nvidia processors, it's the fact that they it is rumored to be a convertible device "with a keyboard that flips around to turn the product into a tablet".
Convertible hardware is not new, but some expect that Windows 8, because of its heavy emphasis on touch, will allow OEMs to reimagine hardware and come out with new twists on old ideas (pun intended). The new twist that convertibles bring to the table is that they are a convergence of tablet and notebook, combining a touchscreen with a fold-away keyboard. The idea, it seems, is that Windows 8 will be the sales driver of these devices.
Problem is, there's never been a proven mass market for convertible devices, and there may never be one.
All of the ones I've seen -- or at least seen designs for -- come across as a clunky and awkward to use. Either the screen detaches from the keyboard completely -- making it more than likely that the keyboard is going to get left at home or the office when it's needed the most -- or you have to perform some complex origami-like maneuvers with the device to uncover or put away the keyboard.
Another problem facing these devices will come down to a single word -- compromise. It's hard to imagine how convertibles will bring the best of both a tablet and a notebook to a single device. OEMs can throw phases such as "no compromise experiences" about as much as they want, but every device and design I've seen reeks of compromise.
Another factor that no one is seriously addressing is what's going to drive sales of these devices. Will consumerization drive enterprise adoption, or will it work the other way? Given that consumers are spoilt for choice as to what to spend their money on -- iPads, iPhones, Kindle Fires, Nexus 7 tablets... and so on -- it's hard to see how these hybrid devices will get much of a look in.
Ultimately, pricing will play a massive role in determining whether Windows RT succeeds or fails, and given the rumors that licensing costs for Microsoft's ARM-based version will be between $50 and $65, it's going to be hard for these devices to compete on price next to devices such as the Kindle Fire or Nexus 7 that have a $199 price tag.
Image source: Lenovo.
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Talkback
It's 2012
Probably has great battery life
Maybe. But nowhere near the apps and content ecosystem
Obviously people will buy it
Where have we heard that before...
..Windows Tablet computers - "A Windows laptop with excellent handwriting recognition, support for all the software a user needs, with Office Applications and a familiar interface - obviously people will buy it." ... and they didn't..
..Zune media player - "Finally, a device to compete with the iPod, with the backing of marketing giant Microsoft, with a social networking aspect not yet thought of by Apple - obviously people will buy it." .. and they didn't..
Nothing is "obvious" in this world, it turns out. We'll have to wait and see... (and FWIW, I'm hoping Windows RT tablets succeed - I can see a lot of possibilities for my own clients and myself that the iPad just doesn't offer right now).
I love historical amnesia...
Exhibit 2, Windows Tablet computers: They *did* have great handwriting recognition, they *did* support desktop software, and they *did* run bog standard Windows. Now I always said that they could have made a mint by targeting the graphic design crowd instead of the college student crowd. Even the Apple die-hards would have taken a solid look at a Windows tablet in 2005 if they put some decent guts into them. Consider too that software of that era was designed for a mouse, so 16x16 icons were standard practice and well accepted. Even though it ran every Windows title available, the whole platform effectively rested upon OneNote and Inkball, and some Franklin Covey variant of Outlook. All are great titles, but don't really NEED handwriting input, and for the price, if you could afford it, you could probably type as fast as you handwrote. On top of that, handwriting entry capable laptops cost anywhere between $1,000-$2,000 more than keyboard-only units, the specs were generally on par with a low-to-low-mid tier laptop, the swivel hinges rarely lasted more than a year and a half, and targeting the college demographic with a laptop whose price difference cost more than a semester or two of textbooks simply was doomed to flop. Conversely though, Fujitsu has made a pretty penny selling these kinds of devices wholesale to medical IT, and you'll still find tens of thousands of them in hospitals all over.
Exhibit 3, Zune: This right here is the first case of Apple beating Microsoft at their own game. If the 5th generation iPod and the Zune both came out at the exact same time, with no iPods prior to it, the landscape might have been different. See, Apple had inertia. For several years prior to the release of the Zune, Apple had been spending its time dragging the RIAA, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century with per-song, $0.99 downloads, in an interface that made it much easier to buy and manage music than MusicMatch or Windows Media had done. Buying songs was very simple, ripping songs was simple, and syncing a media player was also considered to be very simple. On top of that, all the songs from Apple were DRM'd at the time, so anyone who had more than a handful of songs that didn't come from Kazaa were locked into the platform, as was anyone who had purchased video content. Zune's concept of 'social' was to allow users to share songs, but both users had to have a zune, had to be in range of each other to 'squirt' (a highly problematic term for a player whose colors were black, white, and turd brown) songs, and they'd only play three times. More than the iPod allowed? sure...but definitely not worth the tradeoff of batterly life for the wi-fi radio and having to lobotomize your meticulously curated iTunes library when half your library was locked out of playing on anything that didn't have an Apple logo.
Now I'm not saying that convertible WinRT tablets are going to sell like masking tape in a hurricane, but I *am* saying that software has come a long way, hardware has come a long way, and the market drastically changed since then. There's good arguments on the side of WinRT convertibles gaining some level of traction in the market, and there's good arguments that "it doesn't run iPad software" will be a dealbreaker for most would-be buyers. However, that doesn't mean that the results of the past are clear indications of the present state of the market.
Joey
Correction on Exhibit 1
Joey
also
Really..
You are trying to compare a 7" tablet with limited use with a 10" tablet that can connect to scanners printers and other such devices. Come on let's be serious here.
Today almost any device can be connected to everything
I have no interest
Enjoy your desktop or laptop then...
android
and then of course there are desktops and laptops, and the upcoming x86 tablets and hybrid devices that will run windows 8 natively, but will be able to have other OSs loaded onto them.
Not all app stores are available on any Android tablet
I don't know what you're talking about
Are you talking and responding to yourself?
A flaw in the web site coding?
Something's screwed up here.
Zogg
Missing the point
Lenovo, Nvidia building convertible Windows RT tablets: Who will buy?
I'm doubtful
for those companies who want to give employees something like an iPad but better for work, they might be interested in windows 8, but they will go for windows 8 pro. they will want legacy support for sure, and the API restrictions on windows RT are going to really limit its usefulness- something enterprise will likely care about more than the average consumer.