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Microsoft reportedly working on $400 Surface tablets to compete with the iPad
Microsoft is working on a new line of budget Surface tablets to better compete with Apple's low-cost iPad options, according to a report from Bloomberg.
According to the report, the new Surface tablets won't just be smaller, cheaper Surface Pros. Rather, Microsoft is said to be completely redesigning the devices, with 10-inch screens instead of the 12-inch size currently found on the Surface Pro, rounded corners that more resemble an iPad than the more rectangular Surface design, and USB-C for charging. Most importantly, priced at $400, they will be more in line with Apple's cheaper tablets, too.
Google also recently introduced an education-oriented ChromeOS tablet to compete with Apple's iPad.
Also at Laptop Magazine.
Related: Microsoft to Challenge Education-Oriented Chromebooks With Windows 10 Laptops Priced From $189
Apple Expected to Compete Against Chromebooks With Cheaper Education-Focused iPads
ChromeOS Gains the Ability to Run Linux Applications
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday May 17 2018, @09:27PM
There was also the Pixel Qi / One Laptop Per Child transflective technology that worked quite well, even if the colors got washed out to greyscale in direct sunlight. I wouldn't mind programming, etc. in greyscale out in the woods, especially since they drew far less power with the backlight off. Sadly that seems to have been abandoned - from the videos the later versions had much more vibrant colors, almost on par with a mediocre standard LCD indoors. It's a shame they never caught on - I had been tempted to buy one of their replacement screens, cost more than my laptop, despite the fact that they were supposed to be affordably mass-producable on a standard LCD production line. Economies of scale and/or trying to stay afloat without enough demand.
I also saw a video way back, apparently credible (probably on Slashdot), of someone who hacked an early kindle to play video - a bit smudgy perhaps, but e-ink is capable of much faster refresh rates than normally used. What that does to its lifespan I don't know. Certainly it would draw a LOT more power - I think I've heard than an e-ink refresh draws a considerable amount of power, to the point that it can rapidly exceed the power consumption of an LCD at high update frequencies. However, if the controller supports it, it's also possible to refresh only small sections of the display at a time - so you could for example only update the pixels changed as your cursor moves, or you type a character, no need to refresh the whole screen at high speed, just the bits that are currently changing, which is typically not much for 2D productivity software.