The problem with Windows 7 Tablet PCs!
I recently purchased a really nice Netbook class (actually a 12 inch screen so on the edge of netbook class and closer to an notebook) computer and once I got it I started comparing it to all the other computers I have (desktops). It turns out this little “baby” had a much better CPU in it that I expected (Pentium SU4100). I came across an interesting web site which actually lists all the x86 CPU’s (AMD and Intel) and rates them so you can compare them to each other to get an idea of how powerful your computers CPU is.
See: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php
This was so interesting to see CPU’s rated against each other, I started checking out all sorts of CPU’s. What interested me most was the CPU’s being used to todays Netbook and Tablet PC’s. These computers require CPUs which can fit in small spaces and which produce less heat and use as little battery power as possible. The IPad gets about 10 hours of battery life which is what all Windows Tablets are being compared with. The average battery time for most Windows 7 Netbooks and Tablets is in the 3 to 4 hour range, with only a select few getting even close to 6 to 8 hours. The interesting thing about the devices which get better battery life is that they are …
- very expensive
- don’t run Windows 7 Starter (ie. Windows Home or Pro)
- use CPU’s which use less energy
- more expensive batteries
- and amazingly use CPU’s which are much less powerful (surprise)
That is surprising. To get better battery life, which is critical for a Tablet PC, you get less power (CPU), not more. You have to live with a mocked down CPU. I saw a Tablet PC which was high end which targets businesses which sells for about $800 and the CPU it had was rated 1/3 of the CPU my 3.4 lb Netbook has which I got for about $300 (great deal too). The tablet CPU was rated 294 (see benchmark link above) and my Netbook CPU was rated 975.
To make matters worse, the Tablet PC comes with Windows 7 Professional (my Netbook came with Windows Home Premium) which requires more CPU power, not less.
There is a real problem here. If long battery life is the real target here for Tablet PC’s, you will pay for it in raw computing power. To make matters worse, while Windows 7 is better than Vista, it is still a bloated operating system. My Windows XP desktop came with 256 meg ram and ran fine with that (I since upgraded to 768 Meg). My Vista computer came with 512 meg ram and seems to run OK. Windows 7 (only started version) needs a minimum of 1 gig memory and if you have the Home version you have to have at least 2 gig memory or things will be really slow. That should tell you something. Windows 7 is still a bloated operating system.
To make matters worse, a lot of software today is built upon the dot.net frameworks which are simply put memory hogs. You have to appreciate my perspective. I am a software developer who writes tools which other programmers use. My primary product EZGUI 5.0 can pack into less than 1 meg of runtime DLL’s so many features (complete GUI engine, custom controls, drag and drop engine, print engine, graphic engine, 2D sprite engine, 3D OpenGL based engine) that I can rightly ask the questions …
What has become of software development today ?
How can Windows 7 succeed as an operating system for Tablet PC’s ?
The problem Windows 7 faces when it comes to Tablet PC’s is that it requires too powerful a CPU and the applications which run on it do also. Good old Windows 95 could run on just 8 to 16 meg ram and if you gave it say 128 meg ram it would fly. I have a 500 mhz CPU desktop PC running Windows 95 with 256 meg ram and that is a power house. The real problem here is not the Intel CPU’s (or AMD), but the operating system. There is no excuse for this. It is possible to write software which requires minimal hardware. I do it all the time. For years, while my customers were all using bleeding edge PC’s running Windows XP, I was still developing my software on a 233 mhz Pentium PC running Windows 95 with 256 meg ram. Why ?
Because, if I developed on a lower end PC, it forced me to write efficient software which used minimal hardware, so it it “flew” (was fast) on my PC, it would be lightning fast on my customers PC’s. The problem with software developers today (are you listening Microsoft ?) is that they tend to always want the bleeding edge hardware and what happens is that they can write sloppy, poor (aka. slow and bloated) code which seems to run reasonably fast only because they are working on a bleeding edge computer. Just think about it for a moment. A programmer has a PC with a multicore CPU (ie. 5 or 7 cores), a gamers quality video card and say 4 to 8 gig memory. Now they write software and to them it runs oh so fast and it is the “cats meow” (really great). Now the software they are writing is going to be used by the average person who buys a computer at Walmart. Now some people can afford the better computers at Walmart, but many will opt for the lower prices ones. These computers will have slower CPU’s, less memory and less than stellar video chips on board. Now the programmers fantastic application runs so slow and tends to choke the end users computer always needing more and more resources.
Get the picture ?
Now programmers get away with excusing themselves by simply saying, “you really need to buy a better computer”, but that is not really a valid excuse. Now along comes the tablet PC and because of size restraints, weight restraints and most important energy restraints (aka. battery life) these computers have less power than a desktop PC made 5 years ago. Now the programmers can’t make excuses any more. True some blame Intel saying their Atom CPU’s are just to slow. If you take a look at the benchmark page I linked to above, you will notice they don’t list CPU’s in the 200 mhz to 750 mhz range. Not too many years ago I was developing on a 233 mhz Pentium and it probably would barely register on todays benchmarks. Yet I viewed it as a powerful CPU (and it was).
You see, if you are a programmer who writes software using tools designed to get the maximum from a CPU you will find that even the lowly Atom CPU is amazingly powerful and fast. True there are faster CPU’s, but that does not mean the Atom is slow. The problem is how programmers write software today. Windows 7 and the software written for it is the problem, not the CPU’s. Programmers today need to start writing software with compilers optimized to produce small and fast applications. I have nothing against using a UI framework, since my own software could be considered one, but such frameworks need to be “lean and mean” (small and fast) rather than large and bloated.
If you are programmer looking for a better way to write software which runs like lightning on a Tablet PC, then check out the PowerBasic compiler:
If you are looking for a powerful “lean and mean” UI framework with a small footprint, perfect for Tablet development, then check on my own EZGUI 5.0 Pro:
It is possible to write software which runs great on even an Atom based Tablet PC today. You just need to use the right tools.
Another example for you. The OS/2 operating system developed initially by Microsoft and IBM, later fixed by IBM after dropping Microsoft was a 32 bit, object oriented, preemptive, multi-tasking operating system that ran window’s applications faster than Windows could. I used this quite well on a PC with less than 8 meg of memory.
Your attitude about writing tight code means that your stuff will run on almost anything and will work like it has been optimized for speed.
As a retired IBMer whose last work with them was writing code to test the firmware of SCSI, SSA and FCAL drives in development I appreciate the difference between clean code and convoluted, sloppy code.