Hmmm... Doesn't look good for us to get any good Windows 8 ARM devices anytime soon.
Joanna Stern just posted a quick article over at This Is My Next investigating all she could learn about ARM tablets at Build.
While the x86 version of the Windows 8 Developer Preview was released last night and attendees were given Intel Core i5-powered tablets, there’s been very few public demos of the new OS on ARM devices here at Build. And while we’d love to say that’s changing today, it seems all the Win 8 ARM devices are being guarded quite closely. Reference design tablets running the Developer Preview from Nvidia, TI, and Qualcomm are now on display at the show, but sadly, most of them are behind glass with just the Start screen showing.
She goes on to talk about basically three different tablets "on display" (if you can call it that) at Build. However, none of these three was actually a "product". All three were reference designs from ARM chipmakers (one from Nvidia, one from Qualcomm, and one from TI). And, worse, the only one even remotely "working" was the Qualcomm one. The other two were only shown under glass, just showing a static display of the Start Screen. She was able to get a very short demo of the Qualcomm one, but they couldn't touch the screen themselves, couldn't take video, and didn't really look at any apps of any kind other than flipping around the Start Screen and desktop.
This is almost certainly not a good sign if you were hoping for a competent ARM tablet to ship close to the launch of Win8. These aren't consumer products. These are reference designs, that would then be taken back by Samsung, LG, Lenovo, ASUS, and the rest and used to make actual consumer products. If the reference designs are in this state (and if they're only being shown under glass, we can assume they really aren't "running" competently), then Asus and Samsung and the rest probably haven't really even
started the process of designing their own.
That makes me think that Windows 8 ARM tablets might not be a viable contender until 2013. That's a LONG time from now.