Has anybody seen this operating in sunlight?
The Ipad2 is only just usable in sunlight, with a £20 matt filter on the front, and I would not want anything worse.
The Lenovo tablet runs win8 and can run winXP (either directly or under a virtualiser) so would run "everything" anybody needs, especially Oziexplorer, satellite phone dial-up networking, etc.
Other windows tablets have been bulky but some did come with superb sunlight radable LCDs, albeit at a price - example which was £1800 in 2005.
The other solution to the sunlight issue is to buy a pressurised plane which has tiny windows 
But then one cannot get any half decent photos!
The other solution to the sunlight issue is to buy a pressurised plane which has tiny windows. But then one cannot get any half decent photos!
Ha! I fully accept that I have compromised my photojournalism. Never really thought of the pressurisation as a way to get more iPad readability.
I honestly don't have any issues using the iPad or phone in my cockpit, without any anti-glare foil. A high wing aircraft with the fantastic Rosen Sun Visors is all you need. Given that we haven't had a high-wing-is-better-than-low-wing thread yet, I have to add that it's better for taking pictures, gives you shade and protects you from rain on the ground, makes it easier to enter the aircraft, doesn't raise the cabin floor due to the wing spar, let's you park your car in the hangar under the wing, etc. pp.
Yes, but you live in southern Germany so having a plane which is slower and has less range doesn't matter because Croatia is only just over the hill, and Greece is only just down the road
a plane which is slower and has less range
Citing the POH:
FL160 ISA 72% BHP 164KTAS 52.9l/h
FL200 ISA+20 72% BHP 174KTAS 51.9l/h
FL200 ISA 69% BHP 166KTAS 49.5l/h
333l fuel capacity. Rate of climb with MTOW at FL200 ISA: 530ft/min. And the oxygen I need doesn't occupy my back seat so all 4 adults on board (in addition to full fuel) are comfortable 
Returning to the topic: I talked to a friend of mine who owns the ThinkPad Tablet 2 (gift from Lenovo so not his choice). He is rather negative about it, especially the impractical 16:9 form factor which is inconvenient for anything other than watching movies -- not enough vertical screen espace. He also claims the touch is imprecise and unreliable and (like everyone else says) Windows 8 is a POS.
I am sure win8 is a POS, and I am sure the touch screen operation is too, but that would not concern me for what I want to do with this, which is the very specific thing i.e. a replacement for the LS800, which is hopefully cooler, thinner, lighter, and has a meaningful battery life.
I had to mod the LS800 with a little fan on the back of it, for high altitude operation (the thin air doesn't get the heat out) which doesn't help the thickness.
In fact if the touch screen needs the pen (does it?) that is a bonus, compared to the Ipad which is easy to accidentally screw up by touching it.
Looks good but my major problem is the Windows 8 bit. I am a happy member of the M$ camp (Microsoft) and have held a number of their technical qualifications over the years, but Windows 8 is more dumbed down than something from Toy's R Us aimed at 2 year olds. I have a copy on one of my laptops and I cant force myself to begin to like it in any way. I would resent downgrading (well actually, upgrading) to Windows 7 and paying for another Windows 7 license. I have played around with Ubuntu a bit (sneaking out of the M$ camp for a brief moment), and unless M$ come out with something much better after Windows 8 (like they did with their other mistake - Windows Vista) I might make the switch. Sorry, slight thread drift, but this is the IT section after all :-)
Besides the occasional sunlight issue (and once having my polarised spare sunglasses once and thinking the iPad was dead), the iPad has all the flying apps I need, the power, durability and reliability I need for my kind of flying, and I hope I can still say that in a few years time as well.
In fact if the touch screen needs the pen (does it?) that is a bonus, compared to the Ipad which is easy to accidentally screw up by touching it.
I'd be really surprised if it needed the pen. That's not the intentions for Windows 8 which is supposed to based on "touch". I imagine the pen is intened to be like Samsung's S Pen; useful for taking notes (where more precision is required than can be gotten from a finger) and drawing, but everything else works with your finger.
Much as I hate to say it, but I've now had the Tablet 2 for a week and think it is brilliant, despite having Windoze 8.
It actually does everything...
WWW
FlightPlanPro
Remote stuff (RDP, VPN, etc) works straight off
Oziexplorer runs straight off, even with the internal (crippled-Ipad-like-API) GPS, so you can fill your boots with maps
Memory Map should run, with no restrictions on the use of own QCT maps if you use v5.x, but I have no use for it right now since almost everything under MM has been moved to Ozi
AFPEX should also run (not tried it yet but will as a 2nd flight plan filing method is necessary)
Dial up networking (for a cheap £300 Thuraya satphone for tafs/metars etc) just works
For masochists, you can run winXP under VirtualBox and it all works too, and enables the use of old apps or drivers
Back up the whole lot in one simple operation, to a wifi attached machine, with Trueimage
MicroSD card slot (32GB max, 64GB possibly?)
Ethernet with a £15 USB adapter
Works with a normal bluetooth NMEA GPS (unlike the IOS devices)
Compared to the Ipad2, it's like a breath of fresh air. Size/weight-wise it is like an Ipad but more "landscape". There is a stylus so apps with decent functionality / rich user interfaces can be run easily.
Issues:
The on-screen keyboard does not always pop up automatically, especially with non touch screen apps. One has to activate it off the taskbar and it sometimes covers up the box you are entering text into, so something needs to be moved.
WIFI does not work with ad-hoc networks, so no tethering to a phone with Joikuspot, though bluetooth works at ~ 3mbits/sec and probably draws far less power. There are impractical solutions involving a fixed IP for the wifi.
No POP3 email - need to install some email app. Micro$oft do one but it is buggy.
When used while being powered, it does need the full-power USB power unit - 5V 2.1A. Just connecting it to a normal (500mA capable) USB port won't maintain the battery it while it is on, whereas an Ipad2 does just about hang in there, I think.
I am also very impressed with the Asus Vivotab Smart
it is comparable with the Lenovo but much cheaper.
If I had not bougt the Microsoft Surface Pro as a replacement of my laptop, that is probably what I would go for. Actually the whole Asus line up is now incredibly impressive and superpriced. Our customers are all switching from the traditional HP or Dell to Asus (followed by Lenovo and Samsung).
Windows 8 runs absolutely fine, allthough I did bring back the startbutton with Classicshell. It is so nice to see that it actually boots really quick. Full startup is a maximum of 12 seconds, hot start a lot faster.
The only drawback is that iexplorer 10 is not always the right choice. Hit f12 and switch to ie9 or 8 usually solves the problem. Office365 licensing models are perfect so you can have everything anywhere.
It is really amazing and awsum to see Ipad size tablets run full Windows and thus all applications you are used to on your desktop on a simple Atom processor and still be fast. This development also means that Windows 8 RT is completely unnecessary.
