http://liliputing.com/2015/01/meegopad-t01-pc-stick-ships-unlicensed-windows-...

MeegoPad T01 PC Stick ships with a hot copy of unlicensed Windows 8.1


Oh the agony of it all, MeegoPad spent all their Intel and MS tech support dollars and got their production lined up and started running it last week -- and came to find out MS has now chopped the freebee Windows 8.1 offer right out from under them (drum roll please) because their screen size doesn't meet the current 2015 offer's screen size requirements.

Duh, dude, it is a stick and the screen is definitely smaller than 9" (about 9" smaller as a matter of fact).    

Also, it is 2015 now and if you gotta buy it now the low low cost Bing 8.1 OS costs $27 a copy now instead of the $7-$14 it did jest a month or so ago.

       

Read it and weep all you folks who trusted MS to keep to their give away programs -- MS JEST CAN"T AFFORD IT ANY MORE.
(and screwing you over is what MS does best, anyways)

"While Microsoft offers Windows 8.1 licenses free of charge to manufacturers of Windows tablets with 9 inch or smaller screens, the MeegoPad T01 and other tiny desktop computers don’t count… because they’re not tablets.

Microsoft does offer a low-cost version of its operating system called Windows 8.1 with Bing, but it’s cheap… not free. From what I’ve heard that means makers of small desktop computers had to pay $15 for a license in 2014, and about $27 for a license in 2015.

In order to keep hardware prices low, it looks like some Chinese device makers are shipping products like the MeegoPad T01 with a trial version of Windows… which is free.

Windows piracy has been prevalent in China for years, so I suspect the idea is to just let customers find their own product keys — since paying for a full Windows license would more than double the cost of a $100 computer."



So, the Chinese go back to pirating Windows and we all go back to Linux for all our cheap stuff again  .....

Hey, MS, yer buddy Intel and their little stick computer, are you going to "stick it" to yer good buddy Intel too?   

"Later this year Intel plans to launch its own model called the Intel Compute Stick. It’ll sell for $149 with Windows or $89 with Linux (although the cheaper model will also have less memory and storage)."    duh, Windows requires over twice as much storage space and twice as much systems memory and lots more extra hardware bits and pieces on the little motherboard .....   and if you ain't gonna pay for all that extra stuff like you said you would, well, it jest ain't a gonna happen any more.


Easy Cheap Prediction -- the amount of 2015 stuff running Windows in the orient starts to go down soon (as the big buck tech support bribes die out so do the new Oriental Windows products).

Next Easy Cheap Prediction -- Chinese gov slaps MS around a little bit again (real quick like) to remind them to keep to all the deals they cut last year.    If MS can't do it, then they can leave the island by golly, because China ain't really their buddy anyhow.

OK, so Microsoft is starting to end their give away program as they think they got what they wanted out of it.

China likely is going to be unhappy with them, but so what -- Windows 10 is coming and the Chinese people are all hooked now -- gotta have their MS update fix and big anti-virus purge every week or else they'll think something's busted.

Meanwhile, Android quietly creeps up to a 90+ percent worldwide "all devices" market share and Google actually begins to talk internally about bringing their two OS systems into one unified package to get ready for Win 10 this fall.

Remember, in the new developing emerging markets nobody uses Windows for much at all apart from business uses.   They do use Android at home and at work ......

So, MS is still trying to give away a Nokia semi-dumb phone for $29 to try to get their name brand presence out there, but it is literally a drop in the ocean to what Android is very quickly becoming in the rest of the world.

http://liliputing.com/2015/01/hp-pavilion-mini-desktop-is-now-available.html



The real new HP "fanless" Tupperware Computers are now shipping, with whirring fans still very much inside them no less.

(tupperware must be a good insulating substance instead of a heat conductor -- shoulda coulda have made them aluminum ice tray computers instead).

HP meets the MS design goal of "not looking like a Chromebox" by looking like leftover storing refrigerator refugees instead.   The MS claim about them being cableless seems to have been defeated by all them cable connections that are in evidence on the real shipping product.    

Mebbe "it can be cabless" just if you buy the right keyboard and mouse and monitor to go along with it .....  

                               ..... you know, a matched table setting of tupperware.      


    MS sure hasn't got much of a track record on "accurate reporting" on key new HP products of late, seems like MS just uses their wishful imagination for their "hot new product"  press releases a lot lately.

http://www.cnx-software.com/2015/01/21/antutu-benchmark-rockchip-rk3288-arm-v...

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/247502?baseline=786009




Chromebooks vs Chromekillers

Folks have begun to pre-compare the new $150 Chromebooks built on the Rockchip RK3288 to what Intel is preparing to ship as the Classmate PC.   Education is after all THE primary competition zone between ARM and Intel right now.

The RK3288 ARM based Chromebook will sell for around $150 which puts it well below the Intel offering in price EVEN AFTER THE INTEL AND MS PRICE SUPPORTS ARE ALL APPLIED.  

According to the benchmarks, the RK3288 out performs the Intel N2910 ......

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/247502?baseline=786009


..... and outperforms the very popular price supported Z3735F.

http://www.cnx-software.com/2015/01/21/antutu-benchmark-rockchip-rk3288-arm-v...


Question then becomes "How come you can't buy the better chipset since it goes into a cheaper Chromebook that performs better?"

The answer is simple and them Cabaret singers told you the whole story long ago ......

Money Money Money   ......    Intel Money !!


Intel spent a lot of money to make sure that you never saw an RK3288 chipset in a Chromebook -- and they will spend even more $$$ to make sure you don't see the new ones from Lenovo or Asus either.

What is scary to Intel is that the old 28nm RK3288 beats Intel's 22nm best 3rd generation and all the applicable 4th generation 22nm Intel chipsets.    Beats them pretty badly.

What should be even more scary is that the RK3188 was a stopgap chipset from a year ago that isn't as strong as A-57 (much less the A72) and it is still benchmarking better than two current Intel offerings that are built with a one generation better Intel 22nm lithography.

Rockchip, throw the RK3288 on 20nm or 16nm (why, because it is depreciated and has gotten way cheap and you already own the license and you already paid to have Google do all the Chromebook work) and move it forward into Education Chromebooks for $150 and get on with the program.    

Start killing all them Chromebook Killers ......

Rockchip, you are due a success off of the chipset you were given by ARM so you could go kick a little Intel butt .... but then again,  it was far easier for you to take that same amount (or more) in Intel's "tech support" money NOT to go do that Intel butt kicking, now wasn't it?  

In addition to the tech support money, Intel gave you their whole 22nm toolbox full of rusty pipe wrenches and Whitworth socket sets "in consideration", promised you endless support and tapped your people's brains for how to make an integrated phone chipset and you jest jumped at the Intel bribes and the tech sharing deal, didn't you?    

Getting kinda chilly out there in the cold now?   Having some regrets, any?

Intel has nothing near the price point that works nearly as well as the two year old 28nm RK3288 that ARM gave you to build.    

But hey, this is the Orient, where bribes and "considerations" are just line items on internal fiscal statements and considered completely ordinary, normal and expected.


     ..... however, if you take something given to you for free so you can go do a job with it, and then you take some bribes not to go do that job and you still keep the item you were given to do the that original job, well then don't expect the one who gave the item to you for free to trust you with anything else, ever again.
           
                                                        

I signed up to be a Win 10 developer trial person completely through all the sign up BS until I got to the point of actually downloading the software.

( I couldn't say it was a pain in the ass without actually DOING it.)

Then I got honest with myself -- I am personally never going to go back to using Windows, not even if it was for free.    

I can't stand the slow, the endless interruptions, upkeep and busywork.

The upcoming after the first year yearly fee thing isn't new, it has been known for almost a year now ..... but MS is finally saying it bluntly and it is now "making the news".

I also got into an honest discussion with my wife, explained the roll over to the yearly fee thing and she said she would put up with what she had up through retirement as long as it kept working.    

Plus she was told by her building's resident computer support person NOT to go do Win 10 because Win 10 is NOT going to be supported by the University any time soon, only Win 7 is supported up through the next few years anyway.   Most of their internal systems software will NOT work on Win 10 AT ALL as of yet.

I am planning to pull back a Win 7 machine that is at Grandma's house and throw an old XP laptop to the grandkids/wolves at Granny's.   It will be interesting to see just how long the XP machine lasts before they hack it to useless junk.

Once it is broken, then it will become a Mint laptop next (if I am going to maintain it, anyway).

Once it becomes Minty Green I bet it won't have any issues with the kiddies hacking it up .....  first of all they won't download crap games from everywhere and click on Yahoo toolbar this and that any more while they are downloading the crapware.

Something else MS is learning from the early Chrome Killer sales -- every Chrome Killer sold is replacing one of the more expensive higher featured Windows machines that now will not be sold at all.

      Yep, it sucks but you knew that going in, right?

The issue is what are they going to call it, Android or Chrome OS?  

When it finally arrives they're going to have to pick a single name for it, most likely something new.

http://www.unlockpwd.com/asus-chromebook-and-lenovo-11-inch-rockchip-rk3288-a...

More information on the $149 Chromebooks from Asus and Lenovo ringing in from New Zealand

(the closer to the Orient you get, the better the information)

The items will be announced at the early summer oriental mobile/computer shows as an LTE supported $149 product that is intended to be sold by carriers and others.    It will go to Amazon in the USA as a wifi only product and be picked up by the US carriers as an LTE device as they each individually choose to go into that market sector.    

Special radios would be needed for AT&T and Sprint, but not so much for T-Mobile since they are edging ever closer to the oriental normal standards to the point that a general LTE baseband and radio rig from the orient today, right now will work even today on T-Mobile, just at a reduced speed.    

Soon, as the BYOP idea increases in size the oriental "universal standard cell radio" may indeed correctly cover T-Mobile AT FULL 4G SPEED as a stock oriental product.    It will pay T-Mobile and the radio chip guys to make sure that happens ASAP.



Why is this important?   Well, after the original three (3) NVIDIA Tegra K1 chromebook units that were put out by Acer, Asus and HP this will be the 4th and 5th units where vendors have swung away from using price supported Intel chipsets.

It signals Intel's inability to price support its big clunkys well enough to keep them in control of the ever growing Chromebook market.   It will also signal the 4th and 5th time that Intel chipsets have lost out performance-wise to ARM based chipsets.



How bad is this going to be?   Dunno -- the chipset may be up to it but the build quality corner cutting that will go on at the $150 price point is an item of mild concern about these new Chromebooks.    But once the $150 price point gets established things will likely change up again in this very rapidly growing market segment.

We shall see, won't we .....              

Needless to say, whatever a year plus old RK3288 can do a current generation A57 or one of the upcoming A72 chipsets should be able to easily OUTDO in a factor of 2x - 3x sorta fashion.

As a matter of theoretical speculation, if Intel wasn't painting all their low end chipsets with lots of "contra revenue" red paint right now, just how many of them would actually move on their own merits?

Next thought, when Intel has to use that can of red paint on over half of what they make, can they afford to keep on doing it?