Throw away tech is all to popular.

[Gary]

"The Surface Pro received a 1 out of 10 score on our repairability scale — the worst any tablet has ever received," iFixit wrote in an email announcing their teardown of Microsoft's tablet-Ultrabook
mashup.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/14/surface_pro_teardown/

[Technical Ben]

"The display assembly is anchored down with the most adhesive we've ever seen on a small device;"

Did they never see how much thermal paste was put on the original macbooks?

But serviceability is an annoyance. Taking apart my old phones (LG) I was amazed how easy it was to swap out camera/mics etc. and that's for a phone. Mind you, that's probably why the camera/mics keep falling off my LG phones. 

So IMO there is no escuse not to make something with some serviceability. I understand the touch keyboard being a single molded part, but even that is not "glued" to the tab.

[Gary]

Did they never see how much thermal paste was put on the original macbooks?

But serviceability is an annoyance. Taking apart my old phones (LG) I was amazed how easy it was to swap out camera/mics etc. and that's for a phone. Mind you, that's probably why the camera/mics keep falling off my LG phones. 

So IMO there is no escuse not to make something with some serviceability. I understand the touch keyboard being a single molded part, but even that is not "glued" to the tab.

The new 2012/2013 iMac is horrible, that's glued together, when mine passes on (2011) model god knows as what I will get. I don't want something that cant have its ram replaced or upgraded (21.5" 2012 model with stupidly slow 5400rpm drives unless you pay a premium of a fusion drive) Tech is all throw away now, I miss my old Nokia N95 8GB I could replace almost all of that myself and it was great for actually making calls 

[pctech]

Yep thats why I like desktop PCs so much.

MS seems to be imitating Apple in making stuff hard to service, one of my colleagues had to replace the optical drive on his Nephew's Xbox 360 and had to transfer the firmware on the drive from the old to the new so it would communicate with the BIOS otherwise its expensive postage to Germany plus parts and labour.

[Gary]

Yep thats why I like desktop PCs so much.

MS seems to be imitating Apple in making stuff hard to service, one of my colleagues had to replace the optical drive on his Nephew's Xbox 360 and had to transfer the firmware on the drive from the old to the new so it would communicate with the BIOS otherwise its expensive postage to Germany plus parts and labour.

I hear nasty rumours that MS and Maybe Sony wont allow second hand games to be played on the next generation consoles, cant see that myself. I hate towers, had enough of fiddling. My iMac is held together by screws and magnets which gives hope. I think companies just want to make money and not have service worries, also it means the upgrade path is always there every few years. I think MS are thinking of going over to a faster OS cycle as well so maybe they will be hitting one a year soon too. Samsung may well become the only decent tech manufacturer for phones and tablets at this rate, and for myself a tablet does enough, when the graphics on my iPad 4 are virtually the same as my PS3 you have to realise how powerful mobile GPU's have gotten.

[pctech]

I played with a Nexus 10 at work the other day, really cant see the attraction of tablets myself and I like tinkering.

I suspect MS and Sony will go down the no second hand games route as well as having to have the machines connected to the net all the time as they've seen how popular Steam is (or shall we say, popular with the publishers).

Time for me to look at a career change I guess as IT is likely to get very boring or non existent.

[Clive]

I'm totally struggling to see what tablets are all about too.  But I fear they are the future and I will struggle on for fear of being labelled a luddite.   

[Clive]

OK, I've given up.   

[Gary]

I played with a Nexus 10 at work the other day, really cant see the attraction of tablets myself and I like tinkering.

A tablet does as much as most people need really, it browses, it watches videos, its does your email, it has access to books magazines, National Geographic on a tablet makes the magazine look old indeed. It does all I want it too and more, I can have an rss feed with all my media linked in I can upload that for off line reading it replaces a laptop for many peoples needs.

I can put it in my bag and take it with me, I can type blogs on the keyboard, all my bookmarks are there access to huge chunks of social media if you use that, if you honestly cant see the point of a tablet you are missing the point of every day computing for probably a huge chunk of the population. Browsing emailing and having a communication hub for all their interests without the bulk of a laptop. In the evening and day now I dont come on line on a desktop that much, whats the point. I get my tablet out skype with friends chat on forums, add something new maybe to my wordpress blog browse the net check the weather for the weekend, read a book, flip though the news maybe play a game or two as well, watch most catch up TV services on it, or access love film or netflix if you use them. Its the best gadget I bought tbh.

[Simon]

Perhaps what Clive is getting at is what can tablets do that a desktop or laptop can't, other than being more portable.  If you don't need to have Internet access every minute of the day, it's sometimes nice to get away from it all, and tablets, smartphones, etc, don't really allow you to do that, unless you can discipline yourself to ignore them. 

[Technical Ben]

I hear nasty rumours that MS and Maybe Sony wont allow second hand games to be played on the next generation consoles, cant see that myself. I hate towers, had enough of fiddling. My iMac is held together by screws and magnets which gives hope. I think companies just want to make money and not have service worries, also it means the upgrade path is always there every few years. I think MS are thinking of going over to a faster OS cycle as well so maybe they will be hitting one a year soon too. Samsung may well become the only decent tech manufacturer for phones and tablets at this rate, and for myself a tablet does enough, when the graphics on my iPad 4 are virtually the same as my PS3 you have to realise how powerful mobile GPU's have gotten.

Already the case with half the PC games and all the download/online services. I don't mind it for those who are at the level of service as Steam, as it offers a near ever lasting "libary" to sit on a virtual shelf. But other companies do the opposite, charge you more and you get a online shelf likely to evaporate if you look away for too long. 

[pctech]

You can't really do meaningful work on a tablet.

[Steve]

I can do virtually all my work on a tablet , word processing, spreadsheets, email, photo editing limited I agree, Internet diagnostics. What I can't is anything that's processor intensive but that's not very frequent these days.

[Glenn]

I believe the directors at work will be getting Surface Pro's in the next couple of months, not sure who fixes them if there is a hardware issue though.

[Clive]

I'm not into social media such as Facebook or Twitter but I can see that a tablet could be useful in that respect.  I mainly require a computer for emails, browsing and astronomy, all of which seem more difficult with a tablet.  But I have not long converted to laptops and a netbook so you will have to be patient with me.   

[pctech]

Don't think I'd want to trade my 23 inch screen (or two 19 inch ones at work) for a 7 or 10 inch one.

[pctech]

I believe the directors at work will be getting Surface Pro's in the next couple of months, not sure who fixes them if there is a hardware issue though.

MS will probably flog a service package via a contractor.