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The new HTC Kaiser based on Qualcomm 7200 chipset is the first handset to support HSUPA ( 2Mbps uplink). In addition it has GPS and support for Linux!! It is being tested
Overview Of the 7200 chipset
The Convergence Platform fundamentally redefines wireless mobility with consumer electronic features, superior processing power and advanced applications that take mobile communications to a new level.
Ultra-sleek handsets powered by the MSM7200™ chipset for WCDMA (UMTS)/HSUPA and GSM/GPRS/EDGE (EGPRS) networks will become all-in-one devices, utilizing next-generation wireless technology to offer consumers the in-demand features that can change the shape of their day-to-day lives.
Benefits
Establish long-term customer loyalty with high-end devices that have the processing speeds to power the data-intensive applications consumers use every day
Deliver easy-to-access premium content over high bandwidth WCDMA/HSUPA and EGPRS networks with integrated Launchpad™ solutions
Reduce BOM and development costs with an integrated chipset that supports more features for stylishly chic handsets
Cash in on the demand for multi-tasking devices that combine in-demand consumer electronic features and high-speed wireless
Technical Features
Supports WCDMA/HSUPA and EGPRS networks
Multimedia Broadcasting Multicast Service (MBMS)
Integrated ARM11™ applications processor and ARM9™ modem
QDSP4000™ and QDSP5000™ high-performance digital signal processors (DSP)
400 MHz ARM11 Jazelle™ Java® hardware acceleration
Support for BREW® and Java applications
Qcamera™: Up to 6.0 megapixel digital images
Qtv™: Playback at 30 fps VGA
Qcamcorder™: Record at 30 fps VGA
Q3Dimension™: Up to 4 million triangles per second, and 133 million depth-tested, textured 3D pixels per second fill rate
gpsOne® position-location assisted-GPS (A-GPS) solution
Support for Linux® and other third-party operating systems
Digital audio support for MP3, aacPlus™ and Enhanced aacPlus
Integrated Mobile Digital Display Interface (MDDI), Bluetooth® 1.2 baseband processor and WiFi support
What exactly does it mean "support for Linux"???
Will the device be offered with OS other than Windows Mobile?
Will its bootloader be open so other OS can be installed?
(That'll be the day...)
Last time I looked Linux did not need special support in hardware, just enough information available about the device to port it, like open source drivers. Unfortunately I don't see HTC doing something like that in the near future.
While this sounds exciting for now for all intents and purposes it just looks like a remake of the TYTN.
I was wondering what would be a DREAM Phone could be like which can be reality with todays tech or 2 yrs from now.
Keeping HTC HD2 Specs as standard, what the other features you would like to see in future Phone of HTC's.
To keep it easy i have some ideas (may be stolen )
Suggest yours (Be realistic - dont suggest a 10X optical zoom cam or a mini drilling machine.)
Video Out analog + digital
USB Host
FM Transmitter
Thermometer + Humudity ctrl would be a plus
Dual Sim in world phone mode
Battery larger than 1500 Mhz
Solar Charger
HD Videos Player
3D Graphics Engine with HW acceleration
Four Hardware buttons near edges for Playing Games
I don't mean to be rude, but your list doesn't get close to the sort of things that I would like to see in ideal a device. In no particular order:
Picture Camera; 3-5mp No more than 5 as too many pixels for a small sensor would render the pictures too noisy. Decent optics and a proper flash (not LED) with manual as well as auto. Digital only zoom would be fine, with the option to specify size/resolution. Able to record HD video with zoom (without assisted lighting).
Front Camera; for voice calls, but more importantly available as a webcam for voip and messaging applications. 640x480 and capable of 25fps. Able to record.
GPS; assisted GPS with voice turn by turn navigation software, downloadable maps of all available territories, capable of walking and cycling modes as well as driving.
Compass; to assist the above standalone as a walking tool and also integrated with the GPS for streetview.
FM radio; not requiring headset as aerial so it can be played through the device speaker(s) or a bluetooth headset. FM transmitter.
Video; able to play HD video and support for accelerated flash videos.
Connectors; HD Video out, stereo out via standard 3.5" jack. USB connector for charging and supporting USB host.
IR; transmitter receiver with programmable (both the IR codes and the button appearance and grouping) multi-device remote control application. Good range transmitter.
Screen; Large resolution (capable of widescreen HD) AMOLED capacitive touch screen with a small capacitive compatible stylus built in to the phone.
Phone; Voice and video phone with integrated Voip. Dual Sim where both can be active (with separate controls for ring, vibrate, and silent) or individually disabled and password protected.
Sound; stereo with decent bass and volume. Full media player including video, audio, and lossless formats.
Networking; GSM and 3G with top current specs and multi-band (ideally able to support voice and data in Europe, Japan, and the USA - although this is a point that can be compromised on given its impracticality). Wireless-n compatible wifi. Tethering (and ethernet) via bluetooth and USB port.
Memory; large program memory (1GB?), large ROM for OS and built-in apps, large storage (16Gb) microSD slot (HCSD high speed).
Processor; 1.5Gb Snapdragon.
Barrery; large capacity >12hrs talk time >240hrs standby >6hrs video playback
OS: Linux kernel with root access android.
Form factor; Like the Touch HD.
Now although close, this is unachievable at present (combining form factor and battery life for example). I strongly doubt anything like it will exist any time soon (despite the wishlist not being that outrageous on an individual item by item basis). It would be ideal, though.
My old SPV e100 had a thermometer!
Id like TV out. I plug the laptop into the tv, but then I cant browse the net! Nightmare!
I don't mean to be rude, but your list doesn't get close to the sort of things that I would like to see in ideal a device. In no particular order:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No Problem Mate : Even i was thinking the same after posting.
However i agree with your ideal device exept i just want it to be running Win Os as i use a pc a lot so hacking / modifing is lot easier.
now coming to the post...
USB host with video out (digital) can completely elminate netbook / notebooks as we can connect a full desktop keybaord adn monitor ...few ppl at my work place hav asked for such technology...
My wishlist for a dream device
2Ghz processor
1Gb RAM
HTC Universal unbeatable form factor
4" VGA pivoting screen
Slim and nice design
A hardware keyboard
5Mpx camera
Front VGA camera
quadband
3G capable in México
Included all the great business features in Rhodium, like conference call
Maybe 2012.........
I want a usb port so i can plug in flash drives and extra hard ware. i also want at least dual micro sd card slots.
and i want it to look similar to the universal but with a screen that nearly takes up the whole lid plus more hard ware buttons.
Based on nexus one hardware (OLED 480*800, good memory, processor), i.e. best features of HD2 and Omnia 2
More hardware buttons (possibly detachable)
3.5mm audio line-in
Compass (good idea trendend)
Dual microsd slots (giving 2*32Gb storage)
USB host (unlikely!)
Software:
Nice new Windows Mobile without the niggles
An audio application 1/10 as good as rockbox
A working version of skype
A proper Onenote mobile, syncing to the cloud
Gaming platform (not that I'd use it, but it would help WM to progress)
Some things I don't see the need for:
FM radio: obsolete with internet?
Video out: I guess this is for showing off to friends, but are you likely to have the right cable to hand?
Thermometer/humidity: does this integrate with anything else the phone does? Otherwise just get an analog one and glue it to your phone!
CSMR said:
Some things I don't see the need for:
FM radio: obsolete with internet?
Video out: I guess this is for showing off to friends, but are you likely to have the right cable to hand?
Thermometer/humidity: does this integrate with anything else the phone does? Otherwise just get an analog one and glue it to your phone!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
FM Radio is ubiquitous and of high quality. Still the best option for local news and sport as well as traffic reports. I like FM radio and don't want to carry a separate device. Video out becomes more useful when the device can record video. Shoot video, edit it, show it on a big screen. I'd rather carry a cable than another dedicated device and a cable.
As for temperature/humidity. I'm not particularly interested in it built into the device, because calibration could be a nightmare (given the device itself generates heat). I could be interested in remote devices (that connect via the USB host, perhaps?) with the likes of themocouples, pressure sensors, heart rate monitors, pulse oximeters. That could be useful with the right software....
I'm talking about my dream device. I do not require you to subscribe to my dreams. In return I'll stay out of yours.
Not perfect, but I'd probably settle for Something like this. Except with android.
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Preface
Retailers use various marketing and technical terms to describe the droid they sell. Some of those terms represent meaningful phone characteristics, while others are mostly hype. To help smartphone shoppers understand what they're looking at, the definitions of the most commonly used specs(If you look at a detailed smartphone description, most of these terms are to be found under a heading marked ‘Specs.’ That’s short for specifications, which usually consists of a jumble of techno-speak supposedly describing the inner workings of each device) and explain why they are important.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
These definitions can help you choose a phone whose specs meet your needs,they can also come in handy when you're trying to separate the truth from the hype in the sales pitches you encounter in commercials or in stores.
Before jumping over software,there is one thing you should decide, that is Get the Right Screen Size
Smartphone screens keep getting bigger, but what’s the right size for you? At this point, we would avoid anything smaller than 4 inches. The new sweet spot for smartphones is quickly becoming the 4.5 to 5-inch range, which is where you’ll find such handsets as the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One. You have to stretch your thumb a bit to reach all four corners of the screen, but these phones nicely balance portability with the extra size users crave for gaming, watching movies and even just typing on a larger keyboard.
Display:
Most smartphones and regular cell phones today use LCD (liquid crystal display) technology, which offers reasonably sharp graphics and is relatively inexpensive to produce.
There are two main types of LCD displays on phones. TFT (thin-film transistor) displays use thin-film transistor technology to improve image quality. Unfortunately, viewing angles and visibility in direct light are poor, and TFT displays are relatively power-hungry. As a result, they tend to appear on lower-end, regular cell phones (sometimes called "feature phones").
IPS-LCD (in-plane-switching LCD) displays, found on the Motorola Droid X (marketed as a “Retina Display”), offers improved viewing angles and lower battery consumption than TFT LCD displays. Relatively powerful phones often use them.
AMOLED (Active-matrix organic light-emitting diode) display technology is gaining popularity in high-end phones like the Google Nexus One and the HTC Droid Incredible. The displays are much easier to view in bright, natural sunlight than their LCD counterparts; however, some users have noted that AMOLED displays are prone to rendering oversaturated colors. Supposedly, AMOLED displays require less power and thus conserve a phone's battery life; but in real-life battery tests, they consume just as much energy as LCD displays.
Samsung’s Galaxy S was the first smartphone to showcase the company’s own Super AMOLED technology.
Processor:
The processor inside a smartphone acts as the device's brain, handling most or all of the device’s central processing functions on a single integrated circuit, or chip.
The number of cores in the central processing unit (CPU), coupled with CPU frequency (MHz/GHz), is often touted as the most important set of parameters in the specification of a mobile platform.
If you like gaming with your droid,the more number of cores gonna give you are better performance.
For example,For example, Broadcom’s new concept quad-core (2+2) architecture facilitates intelligent offload to both GPU and VPU (Vector Processing Unit) cores. Resultant power-savings enable performance up to 1080p high-definition video and support for up to 42-MP camera solutions.
So,while shopping an Android, take time to assess the tasks you want your smartphone to perform. If you expect to consume a lot of multimedia content, browse the Web frequently, or run complex apps for extended periods, you might be happier with a 1GHz chip inside your phone.
RAM:
As is true of computers, a phone's ability to run multiple applications simultaneously depends on the amount of RAM it contains. Vendors rarely advertise the amount of phone RAM a particular model has, so do some research before you buy. When it comes to RAM, you can never have too much.
In terms of memory, 2GB of RAM has become standard on higher-end phones, as has 16GB of storage.Heavy app users and multitaskers should aim for 512MB as their minimum RAM figure.
Battery:
What good is a high-powered smartphone that runs out of power by lunchtime? Based on the LAPTOP Battery Test, which involves continuous 4G Web surfing on 40 percent brightness, the average phone lasts 6:06. That’s good, but we’ve seen several handsets last 7.5 hours or longer. For example, the Motorola Droid RAZR Maxx HD, which has a massive 3,300 mAh battery, lasted 8 hours and 13 minutes on our test. The Galaxy Note II, which benefits from a 3,100 mAH battery, lasted a whopping 10 hours and 12 minutes.
Camera:
Is there much practical difference in image quality between a picture shot with an 8-megapixel camera and one taken with a 5-megapixel camera? The megapixel count reflects the size of the camera’s sensor--a small device inside the phone that converts an optical image into an electronic signal. The higher the pixel count, the higher the resolution of your photos. But you’ll probably view most of your photos on your phone’s display or on a PC, where the two resolutions are typically indistinguishable. If you plan on printing your photos, however, a higher megapixel count will make a difference.
The HTC One, for example, shoots only 4-MP images but captures 300 percent more light than competing phones, giving you brighter photos. Also, pay attention to special features. For instance, the Galaxy S4 can shoot using both the front and back camera at the same time.
4G and HSPA+ Service:
The major wireless carriers are currently upgrading their 3G networks to 3.5G (HSPA+) or 4G (LTE or WiMax). Whether a specific smartphone supports these new network technologies (and their faster speeds) should be stated in the device's specifications.
Noise Cancellation/Suppression
“Noise cancellation” in smartphones might be better termed “noise suppression.” The phrase refers to isolating the sound of the speaker's voice while suppressing background sounds; noise suppression depends on having the design of a phone’s voice microphone (or microphones) work in concert with sound-shaping technology in the phone’s chip set.Since people rarely use cell phones in quiet rooms, noise suppression technology is an important feature.
Removable Storage: MicroSD Cards
SD (Secure Digital) cards and their smaller MicroSD and MiniSD memory-card cousins are the types of removable storage commonly used in portable and wireless devices to store data such as video, music, and image files. The main difference between standard SD, MicroSD, and MiniSD cards is their size.
If you're planning to store a large quantity of large media files (such as video) you may want to choose the largest-capacity card that your device will accommodate. The capacities of the MicroSD cards used in most cell phones range from 2GB to 32GB.
The SD Association has established various speed classes for SD cards. These classes represent the minimum speeds required to write various types of data to the card. Following are the most common speeds, together with the types of content they support, according to the SD Association.
Class 2 : H.264 video recording, MPEG-4, MPEG-2 video recording
Class 4: MEPG-2 (HDTV) video recording, DSC consecutive shooting
Class 6: Megapixel DSC consecutive shooting, professional video camera
Class 10: Full HD video recording, HD still consecutive shooting
Gyroscope vs. Accelerometer
Most smartphones come standard with an accelerometer, but only a few also include a gyroscope. Accelerometers help keep track of the position your phone is in; if you turn it onto its side, the display switches from portrait orientation to landscape mode. Accelerometers are also used in certain applications. In driving game apps, for example, the accelerometer lets you steer your car by tilting your phone from side to side.
Gyroscopes permit more-accurate recognition of movement in a 3D space. If you move your phone away from or toward yourself, the gyroscope can detect that motion. The feature is chiefly useful for gamers, as it makes precise motion-based gaming controls possible. In the future, the gyroscope may play a central role in controlling new and different types of apps. But for now, nongamers are likely to be content without this piece of hardware.
Bluetooth and Wi-Fi
Both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi have become common features on smartphones in recent years.
Bluetooth is a wireless technology that enables you to transfer and receive data between two devices at relatively short range--similar to the way two-way radios work. You can use Bluetooth to transfer files between a phone and an accessory such as a headset, or between a phone and a PC--for example, to transfer photos between your phone and your laptop for editing and viewing.
Wi-Fi 802.11 comes in several different protocols (a/b/g/n), each with different speeds and a different range. Having Wi-Fi on your phone allows you to connect to your home wireless network and use it to surf the Web, download apps, send e-mail, and perform other tasks. Most Wi-Fi enabled phones will at least support b/g wireless broadcasts (54 mbps for g and 11 mbps for b) as these are the most common protocols and have decent range (around 125 feet).
Get the Best Special Features
In the new smartphone arms race, designers want to deliver special features that let you do things with your phone you couldn’t before. For example, the Samsung Galaxy S4, LG Optimus G Pro and HTC One can all be used as TV remotes, because they integrate an IR blaster and a dedicated app. Samsung goes the extra mile with the Galaxy S4, offering new Air Gestures, health and translation apps, and the ability to broadcast the same song to multiple S4s simultaneously.
HTC touts Beats Audio for both its Android and Windows phones.
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Credits:
Blogs & sites I referred to
http://www.pcworld.com
http://blog.laptopmag.com
http://androidandme.com
http://androidandme.com
http://www.androidcentral.com/
& of course XDA & Me.
Peeps,I ain't a technical geek/pro or whatever..Than why this thread? Because,I saw my friends struggling in getting their new Androids,so thought it will be helpful for all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I may need this one
Nice guide buddy!!
Great guide. Nice work!
yajnab said:
Nice guide buddy!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hartok said:
Great guide. Nice work!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All suggestions are welcomed.
If I have missed something, please do let me know
Thanks!
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Earlier this year, Cube astonished us all with the i7, also known as the first Core M powered tablet from a Chinese brand. The tablet itself enjoyed great amount of success in the domestic market, winning numerous awards and receiving more than 99% of positive customer feedback on JD.com (higher than the iPad Air 2). However, the RMB3,599 ($565) original price was a little bit uninviting for consumers with a lower budget. Trying to attract more buyers, Cube released two more Core-M powered Windows tablets - the i7 Stylus and the i7 CM, and priced them at RMB1,999 ($314) and RMB2,499 ($392) respectively.
As Cube has a tendency to confuse the buyers with their product naming, we feel that we need to help our readers distinguish the many Cube tablets with “i7” in their names.
The Cube i7 CM is considered as a lite version of the flagship Cube i7. It is powered by the same Core M 5Y10c processor and 4GB RAM, and has the same 11.6-inch Full HD IPS display and Windows 8 professional, only the SSD has been downsized to 64GB, and the dual 4G LTE support (TDD and FDD) has been downgraded to dual 3G (WCDMA and TD-SCDMA) support. Compared to the only slightly shrunk specs, the price drop seems quite enormous.
Cube i7 CM specs:
• OS: Windows 10 Professional
• Screen: 11.6-inch IPS, 10-point multi-touch, IGZO
• Display Resolution: 1920 x 1080 (16:9)
• CPU: Intel Broadwell Core-M 5Y10c
• CPU Frequency: 0.8GHz (Base clock) – 2.0GHZ (Turbo clock)
• GPU: Intel HD Graphics 5300
• RAM / Storage: 4GB DDR3L / 64GB SSD
• Function: WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, 4G, USB Host, HDMI
• WiFi: 802.11 b/g/n, WiFi hotspot
• GSM: band2, band3, band5, band8
• TDS: band34, band39
• WCDMA: band1, band5
• Camera: 5MP back camera, 2MP front camera
• Battery: 7.4V – 5,000mAh
• Ports: Micro SD Card Slot, Micro USB 3.0 Port, Micro SIM Card Slot, 3.5mm Headphone Jack, DC Charging Port
• Size: 297*180*9.1mm, Weight: 840g
Retail Package
All the high-end Windows tablets from Cube have very beautiful and premium packaging, the i7 CM is no different. Inside the box we found an i7 CM tablet, a DC charger of 12V-2.5A, an OTG adapter, a user manual, a warranty card, a VIP card, and a quality certificate.
My test unit comes with a keyboard base, which is sold separately.
Design and build
The i7 CM doesn’t bring anything new in its design, instead it has the exact same chassis as the original Cube i7. The front is dominated by an 11.6-inch IPS capacitive screen, you can find the touch-sensitive Windows Key below and a 2MP front-facing camera as well as the light sensor above.
All the physical buttons and ports are hosted on the sides. You can find a power/standby key and a volume rocker on the top side.
Like the i7, the i7 CM is an incredibly promising tablet when it comes to connectivity. It has a 3.5mm headphone jack, a Micro SD card slot which supports cards up to 128GB, a Micro-HDMI port for an external display and – best of all – a micro USB 3.0 port as well as a Micro SIM card slot. With these two, it can connect to any USB 2.0 or 3.0 device that will run on Windows and access the internet almost anywhere. Fortunately, the i7 is charging through an independent DC port, and I personally prefer this design rather than charging through the Micro USB 3.0 port because we often need to use the USB port to connect to other USB devices such as a mouse or external storages. The only negative is that unlike the dual 4G SIM card slot on the original i7, the slot here on the i7 CM can only support 3G network (WCDMA and TD-SCDMA). But in a world where every smartphone supports mobile network sharing through Wi-Fi hotspot, it is not really an issue.
Look at the bottom of the tablet and you’ll spot a 5-contact connector which connects the keyboard base magnetically. With a keyboard base attached Cube i7 could rival the Surface 3 as a convertible ultrabook-style device.
The rear side of the i7 CM is a magnalium plate painted in matte blue, which gives the tablet a premium and expensive look. Unfortunately, the coat proves to have very little resistance to scratches, the unit that I am testing has already got 2 scratches on it back. The bottom side is also very easy to scratch when you try to insert the keyboard base into the tablet.
The build quality is extremely good, especially for a tablet from a second-tier Chinese brand. It is obviously not altogether as epic as the Surface Pro 3, which includes a flexible kickstand and a full USB 3.0 port, but it is already great.
Screen and sound
1920 x 1080 is the new baseline resolution for a high-end tablet, despite the operating system it runs. So we get a full HD 1080p 11.6-inch screen on the i7 CM. That’s tangibly larger than the screen on your average tablet, bad news for pixel density, but good news if you plan to get some work done, as that little extra bit of screen real estate makes it easier to see what you’re doing if you’re working on Office documents, browsing complex web pages or running several desktop applications on the foreground. With that said, we still prefer the 12-inch display on the Surface Pro 3, the 3:2 screen aspect ratio makes better sense for business use, which is the ultimate selling point of Windows tablets.
Quality of the i7 CM’s screen, meanwhile, is extremely good. Images appear detailed with no jagged text, and it proved very responsive to touch in our tests, and while the display isn’t the brightest we’ve seen – particularly when you compared it to the ultra-bright QHD display found on the Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro– it does have wide viewing angles and an impressive richness and depth of color to compensate. It’s an excellent screen for entertainment, and a wonderful screen for productivity, as well.
We had mixed feelings about the audio performance of the i7 CM. The sound from the i7 CM’s built-in speakers (located on the left and right sides) is clearer and more detailed than you generally get from a tablet, with a wider stereo sound. Unfortunately it’s also a little thin, a little bit wearing and doesn’t offer much in the volume department, particularly if you’re playing music or watching some Action films. The Cube i7 is nowhere near what the Dolby enhanced Acer ICONIA W700 can do in terms of the volume and bass.
Plugging in a pair of high-end headphones could make a huge difference, as the Realtek ALC269 sound chip could drive the headphones at an ear-splitting level, easily blowing your average tablets and smartphones out of the water.
Keyboard Base
The keyboard base can easily be attached to the i7 CM through the 5-contact magnetic connectors, instantly turning the i7 CM into a full laptop. Sadly, the base can only make the i7 CM stand with a fixed angle, which can be uncomfortable for the users sometimes.
Here, the keys aren’t as squished as the ones on the Microsoft Surface Type Cover. The i7 CM’s keyboard is more expansive, with no shrunken or undersized keys. It didn’t take me long before I was typing at my usual brisk pace.
The keys offer decent travel, with every keystroke, I make a loud “clack,” letting anyone around me know I’m getting stuff done. Just so you know, I’m typing this sentence from the i7 CM. The thing is sitting on my lap, even. And you know what? I’m doing quite alright. This isn’t my favorite keyboard, but I do feel comfortable enough. Also, the i7 CM’s keyboard base is not as flimsy as the Surface Type Cover, Instead it is as sturdy and comfortable as most laptop keyboards.
The Cube i7 CM’s keyboard base brings a touchpad as well, and that’s a good thing, because the latest Windows 10 update made the OS much more mouse-and-keyboard friendly. Even though the touchpad is pretty precise and responsive, it’s still many steps behind the sort of glass touchpad you’d find on the MacBook Air or many Windows Ultrabooks. It sometimes takes multiple tries to get two-finger scrolling to work. Ditto for clicking and dragging windows and other objects around the screen. Other times, I accidentally navigated backward out of a web page when I was really trying to do some other sort of gesture. If you intend the i7 to be your daily driver, you are better off with a wireless or Bluetooth mouse.
Besides the standard functions a keyboard is meant to offer, the i7’s keyboard base also provides the users with two additional full-sized USB ports, making it easier to connect the i7 to a mouse and storage devices while saving you from the burden of always carrying the OTG adapter.
Software
The i7 CM ships with licensed Windows 8.1 Professional which, of course, is more adept at business tasks and networking than the Android and iOS. Fortunately, the i7 CM doesn't come pre-loaded with bloatware. Users can install the software they need right out of the box without having to spend time uninstalling unnecessary software or be left with annoying antivirus software subscription popup notices.
While most of the Atom-based Windows tablets such as the Cube i10 include one year subscription of Microsoft Office 365, the i7 CM only comes with a trial for Microsoft Office, you need to pony up to get this critical productivity software.
As we were testing this tablet, we got the official OTA upgrade to Windows 10, which is believed by many to be the best version of Windows yet, and greatly enhances the experiences of the i7 CM in both desktop and tablet modes.
Below are the top ten improvements we found in Windows 10:
1. Include 4 themes matching the following: Windows Classic, Luna, Aero, and Metro.
2. Allow customized placement of the start button.
3. Add a collapse button for the Metro Tiles on the start menu.
4. Include a thorough recycle context menu option for the Recycle Bin.
5. Add the option to add and remove extra taskbars to act as program docks.
6. Include an improved version of the NTFS file system that prevents file fragmenting.
7. Implement more choices of animations for minimizing and maximizing windows.
8. Provide an option for overclocking or underclocking and controllable fan speeds if supported.
9. Include the option to make a password encrypted partition and an option to hide/show available partitions in the disk manager.
10. Improve legacy support for older hardware and older software.
Besides the improvements mentioned above, the Windows 10 also brings many new features, the most talked about are Cortana and Edge.
Cortana
Cortana brings plenty of notable features to Windows 10. While setting it up, you can choose to have Cortana always listen for your commands (enabled by saying "Hey Cortana!"). You can ask her about basic things like the current weather or what's on your schedule, or you could have her search the web using Bing. Cortana can answer some queries without even launching a web browser. If you're not a fan of voice commands, you can also type in queries into the Cortana search box on the taskbar, and you can choose to have her only activate voice commands when you hit a button.
Cortana's true strength, much like Alex on Amazon's Echo, is her ability to handle voice commands at any moment. If you're in the middle of a work document, for example, you can tell Cortana to set a quick reminder or look something up without interrupting your workflow. Siri requires manual activation, unless your iOS device is plugged in, and while Google Now has become more widely available for voice commands on Android phones, it's still not as reliable as an always-on assistant.
Inspired by actual assistants, Microsoft also gave Cortana a notebook that contains all of your personal preferences. Many of them she learns over time, but you can also hop straight into the notebook and tell Cortana things like your food preferences, and what sort of restaurant you prefer. All of that will help her return more personalized answers for future queries. Cortana is also part of Microsoft's plan to bring its services to all of your devices: Microsoft is bringing it to Android soon and iOS eventually, and in each case the app will include Cortana's notebook of your preferences.
Cortana handles voice commands about as well as Siri and Google Now. It's pretty accurate when it comes to recognizing your voice input (although that also depends heavily on the quality of your microphone), and in many cases it even fetched more useful results than Siri. It's not nearly as preemptive with information as Google's offering, though. That assistant is smart enough to warn me when I should leave for my next meeting, or when my latest Amazon orders have arrived. Those are things we'll eventually see on every virtual assistant, but at the moment Google Now remains the smartest one overall, even if it's not much of a conversationalist. Cortana is the most human-sounding assistant; so there's that.
Edge
If you ever wanted Microsoft to just give up on Internet Explorer and create a web browser from scratch, Edge may be just what you're looking for. It forgoes all of the legacy protocols, like ActiveX, that turned Internet Explorer into a slow and insecure beast. And it takes a few lessons from Google's Chrome with a minimalist style and speedy browser engine. In fact, I ended up preferring Edge to Chrome in my testing, mainly because Google's browser has become a major memory hog over the years.
Edge may be the most elegant piece of software to come from Microsoft. Its interface is simple: tabs on the top; back, forward and refresh buttons below; and an address bar. The latter is smarter than other browsers as it also features Cortana (without the voice commands). You can type in questions and often get them answered right within Edge's location bar -- no need to hit Enter to complete your search. That's something Google has been dabbling with in Chrome, but Edge takes it to another level.
You can manage your Favorites, Reading List entries (articles you save to read later), History and Downloads from Edge's Hub, which mostly stays out of the way until you need it. Microsoft also gave Edge annotating capabilities: You can highlight and mark up web pages any way you like (the Surface's stylus comes in handy for this) and send them off to Evernote with just a few clicks. Those marked-up pages also retain your notes when you visit them again.
Performance
The Cube i7 CM is powered by an Intel Core M-5Y10c CPU, which has a base clock of 0.8GHZ and a Turbo clock of 2.0GHZ, Aided by the incredibly beefy Graphics HD 5300, 4GB of DDR3 RAM and a 64GB Solid State Drive, it is surprisingly fleet of foot. For those who don’t know much about Intel’s Core M-5Y10c processor, it belongs to the new Broadwell architecture for high-performance Windows tablets. Its strength is the high per-MHz performance with a very low power consumption compared with the Haswell precursors. The TDP is 4.5 Watts; the comparable Core i5-4202Y forerunner still had 11.5 Watts. The integrated HD Graphics 5300 (100 to 800 MHz) now replaces the HD 4200.
Given that the Core M is a lower-powered chip designed in large part to improve battery life, it's no surprise that the performance takes a slight hit versus the fourth and fifth generation Intel Core processors you'll find in most every other Ultrabook. The truth is, though, that's only borne out in benchmark tests. Yes, there's a bit of a dip there, especially in graphics tests, but in everyday use, the i7 CM felt just as snappy as any other skinny laptops. Bootup takes just nine seconds, which is about as fast as you're going get on a notebook priced twice as much.
However, the Fritz Chess Benchmark and many other benchmark scores show that the i7 CM’s performance is superior to the Acer ICONIA W700, which is powered by a Core i5-3317U CPU.
The AS SSD benchmark returned sequential read and write speeds of 450MB/sec and 73MB/sec respectively, while the read speed is almost on par with the 504MB/sec of the original i7 and the scores of most ultra-books, the write speed is only half as high as the 139MB/sec we got on the original Cube i7. With that said, it is already much faster than the eMMc in the Microsoft Surface 3 and many other entry-level Windows tablets.
Although the i7 CM is considered as a tablet, for a more all-day experience, you’ll want to add a keyboard and touch pad or mouse. Cube makes it easy, with a snap-on keyboard base that transforms the combined system into a traditional clamshell laptop.
Unlike the entry-level Atom Bay-trail powered Windows tablets, which normally struggle with heavier desktop applications. The Cube i7 CM is built for serious tasks, most of the heavy desktop apps worked brilliantly.
The i7 CM is clearly not a system designed for heavy 3D game lovers, although it is able to run most of the 3D games in acceptable frame rates. But as it is fanless, the heat could be overwhelming if you keep running graphic-intense games for a long period of time.
But if we are talking about business and everyday use, the Cube i7 CM, when paired with the keyboard base and a mouse, is nearly the perfect choice. After receiving the i7 CM, I can finally leave my 15.6-inch HP laptop, which weighs over 3KG with the battery and the charger at home during business trips. With the keyboard base connected, the i7 CM can do everything a normal laptop does, and offers a better battery life. The touchscreen can also come in handy when dealing with some special tasks.
The i7 CM might have been marketed as a business-focused tablet, but its potential in entertainment and social networking is also limitless. With countless desktop media consuming apps and traditional PC games at our disposal, we no longer need our iPads or Android tablets for tasks such as streaming TV shows and live sports, or browsing the updates on Facebook or Twitter. The large display of the i7 CM can even help you do many things simultaneously.
Battery Life
As power-efficiency is one of the greatest selling points of the Core M processors, you might expect an amazing battery life from the i7 CM. In fact, though, the runtime is not really all that exciting, especially when you compare it to those Atom-based models. With the keyboard base removed, the i7 CM held up through 7 hours and 21 minutes of continuous video playback. That's only ranked in the middle of the battery performances of today’s super-skinny laptops.
In a test which imitated the real everyday use, we opened 5-6 Google Chrome tabs, streaming high bitrate video on YouTube, with some social networking applications running in the background, we managed to run the i7 CM for 5 hours and 15 minutes. This may not look impressive for a tablet, but it’s definitely a very solid result for a system PC.
After a certain point, I suppose, you either need to make room for a bigger battery, or settle for slightly shorter runtime. That's a reasonable trade-off, but I also wouldn't want the battery life to be much shorter than this.
Cameras and Microphone
2 megapixels at the front, 5 megapixels on the rear. How do both cameras perform? The 5-megapixel primary camera just doesn’t deliver, with distorted colors and grainy snaps even in daylight. The front-facing camera is not good, either, but it should suffice for Skype chats.
Recordings with the stereo microphone are affected by a consistent noise that sounds like a subtle rustling. However, the voice is recorded with an almost consistent volume no matter whether from a distance of 30 centimeters or two meters.
We Liked
The i7 CM offers a lot of power in a compact and portable form factor. The 11.6-inch IPS screen with full HD resolution is quite good, and on maximum brightness it is even usable outdoors.
The keyboard base of the i7 CM is probably the one of the best tablet keyboard docks out there, with comfortable key size and decent key travel, and also two extra USB 2.0 ports to enhance connectivity.
In daily use, the i7 CM could become a relatively affordable tablet that replaces a laptop, tablet, and desktop and allows enterprises to focus on the task at hand rather than having to manage files, synchronize documents, and track changes to files if they were to use different computing devices.
We disliked
While the i7 CM delivers great performance in both tablet and laptop mode, usage as a tablet, especially when it is held in portrait orientation is a little awkward. Because of the 16:9 aspect ratio, portrait orientation made the tablet a little too long to be comfortable. In this view, reading letter-sized PDFs, digital magazines, and ebooks left a huge amount of black letterboxing at the top and bottom of the screen.
Additionally, the 11.6-inch widescreen display feels a lot more cramped than the 12.2-inch 3:2 aspect ratio of the newer Surface Pro 3. Personally, I wish Dell had gone with a screen with 3:2 or 4:3 aspect ratio, which feels more comfortable to deal with business tasks.
The keyboard base, as heavy as it is, doesn’t have a battery in it, so it has to rely on the power output from the tablet, thus shortens the battery life of the i7 CM.
Final verdict
The i7 CM offers a nice balance of performance and portability in a travel-friendly size. It allows you to access CPU and GPU taxing apps which the Atom-based tablets or convertibles just couldn’t handle, and also gives you the kind of portability you can’t find in business laptops. With a $392 price tag (the keyboard base is sold separately for $62.6), it is definitely much more cost-efficient than similar products from more celebrated brands. The Lenovo Yoga 3 11, which also features a Core M 5Y10c processor and 11.6-inch display, costs $799. The Microsoft Surface 3 (64GB model), with a weakerl Atom Z Cherry-trail processor, a slower eMMc drive and only 2GB RAM, is priced at $499, and you need to spend $129 for the Type Cover.
For those who relies heavily on horsepower and performance, the confines of an 11.6-inch display may be a little too rigid to maximize productivity. Opening more than a few windows on the small display will trigger claustrophobia. If you need to be more productive, there are bigger ultrabooks with touchscreen, such as the Lenovo Yoga 13 and the Dell XPS 13, but they all require you to dig a lot deeper into your pocket.
Thanks For review
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Dear XDA,
So in lew of a new phone, I have been checking out store retail models and running benchmarks to make my buying decision better. I ran Antutu on Pixel XL and it got 139000+ and I was amazed (my note only did 138000 before thermal throttling).
So how indicative are these benchmarks to real world scenarios? Like for PC, they are useful for gauging pure compute power and have some accuracy to real world case. So for android, how do benchmarks such as Antutu, geekbench, 3dmark, etc. translate to performance for my use case's:
-Used the phone for calling,texting,social media, etc.
-Media consumption using a 1440p screen for youtube, netflix, and some native HDR contant, music using lossless files with poweramp and music streaming with spotify
-Heavy 3D games, emulators, and pokemon Go, etc.
-Using hpc applications, loading compute payloads using otg, gnuroot to run workstation applications (programming, scripts, sensor data, machine vision, etc.); Use for on the go work but mostly a side/independant work
-Using drafting application on native andriod and linux (part of the previous point)
-Used fingerprint and iris scanner, SD card encryption, phone encryption during start up, secure folder, etc.
-Listen to music using a 3.5mm jack at home and bt headphones on the go/gym
-Taking pictures, videos, using slow mo and video/picture editing
-etc.