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[imugli]

I'm actually pretty excited about this.

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/01/bq-confirms-ubuntu-tablet-with-convergence-is-coming

Offering convergence between tablet and desktop when a mouse, keyboard, monitor plugged in. Thinking this could be a neat little device, especially if JRMC4L gets a nice touch UI one day (holds breath).

If it's at a decent price point, I may just have to get me one (even though it won't be supported here in Oz).

PS. Feel free to move to another section if needs be. Placed it here as this tends to be where the linux geeks hang out :-)

[mwillems]

I'm actually pretty excited about this.

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/01/bq-confirms-ubuntu-tablet-with-convergence-is-coming

Offering convergence between tablet and desktop when a mouse, keyboard, monitor plugged in. Thinking this could be a neat little device, especially if JRMC4L gets a nice touch UI one day (holds breath).

If it's at a decent price point, I may just have to get me one (even though it won't be supported here in Oz).

PS. Feel free to move to another section if needs be. Placed it here as this tends to be where the linux geeks hang out :-)

It could be really neat.  Linux tablet support is improving daily.  A significant number of folks are running linux on the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 and they say the tablet experience isn't half bad with the DE that work well with touch (Gnome, Unity, etc.).

[imugli]

My major concern will be battery life. Linux in general (Not Android) is still pretty rubbish on battery life.

[astromo]

My major concern will be battery life. Linux in general (Not Android) is still pretty rubbish on battery life.

Which is why there's financial sense to working at the cutting edge rather than the bleeding edge. If you can be patient, then let others do the field trials for you.

[imugli]

Severe lack of $$$ means I can be very patient :-D

[mwillems]

My major concern will be battery life. Linux in general (Not Android) is still pretty rubbish on battery life.

It depends a lot on the hardware and the software optimizations.  I have a three-year old Ivy Bridge Asus Laptop where (with tweaking), I get about 90% of the battery life on Linux that I get on Windows, and that's been my experience in general with modern (but not too modern) intel laptops.  On the other hand with a brand new Surface Pro 4, I get about 60% of the battery life in Linux that I do in Windows    

But that's to be expected: skylake only dropped three months ago, and with brand new hardware Linux never behaves as well because the kernel hasn't caught up yet. But Intel has made tremendous strides in power efficiency in general and on Linux in particular over the last few years.  Much older intel hardware (pre sandybridge) still has poor CPU frequency scaling (and likely always will). But if you're in the sweet spot of hardware more than a year-old (so there's mature kernel support) but less than four (to take advantage of the modern intel cpu drivers), you can get pretty decent power management with modern kernels if you know how to do the optimizations (look into TLP if you haven't already).

So if they're running on well-supported hardware they might do very well, even with a full linux stack (much less their stripped down tablet OS). For reference, I get about 4 hours of active use battery life on average with full blown Arch Linux on my Surface Pro 4, which is not ideal for a tablet, but the kernels barely even support skylake at this point.  I expect that will improve drastically over the next year or so, but for the moment battery life is the least of my worries (most of the subsystems still don't work, like the touchscreen or pen  ).   

[imugli]

It depends a lot on the hardware and the software optimizations.  I have a three-year old Ivy Bridge Asus Laptop where (with tweaking), I get about 90% of the battery life on Linux that I get on Windows, and that's been my experience in general with modern (but not too modern) intel laptops.  On the other hand with a brand new Surface Pro 4, I get about 60% of the battery life in Linux that I do in Windows    

But that's to be expected: skylake only dropped three months ago, and with brand new hardware Linux never behaves as well because the kernel hasn't caught up yet. But Intel has made tremendous strides in power efficiency in general and on Linux in particular over the last few years.  Much older intel hardware (pre sandybridge) still has poor CPU frequency scaling (and likely always will). But if you're in the sweet spot of hardware more than a year-old (so there's mature kernel support) but less than four (to take advantage of the modern intel cpu drivers), you can get pretty decent power management with modern kernels if you know how to do the optimizations (look into TLP if you haven't already).

So if they're running on well-supported hardware they might do very well, even with a full linux stack (much less their stripped down tablet OS). For reference, I get about 4 hours of active use battery life on average with full blown Arch Linux on my Surface Pro 4, which is not ideal for a tablet, but the kernels barely even support skylake at this point.  I expect that will improve drastically over the next year or so, but for the moment battery life is the least of my worries (most of the subsystems still don't work, like the touchscreen or pen  ).   

What's the view like from our there on the bleeding edge 

[mwillems]

What's the view like from our there on the bleeding edge 

Not everything works, frankly, but it's getting there  .  I joke that the Surface Pro 4 is a nice Windows tablet, but a great Linux laptop (because none of the "tablet" features work in Linux yet).

Amusingly the Linux kernel's graphics acceleration support is more stable than the graphics driver in Windows on the Surface.  So for now, it's perfectly usable as an ultralight Linux laptop, and if I want touch I boot back into windows.

[imugli]

Here are the details -

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/02/bq-aquaris-m10-ubuntu-tablet-announced-specs

[imugli]

Digging this one up again... I think this looks half decent...

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/magic-happens-with-the-ubuntu-tablet/

I think convergence from a tablet is ubuntu's BIG opporunity. I'd like a bit more RAM and storage before I'd feel comfortable moving across - wouldn't be surprised to see the next gen product have 4GB / 128 or 256GB to really move the whole convergence thing along.

But it definitely looks promising.