Technology Ramblings

On May 24 - MS released their 12th build of the Redstone 5 (RS5) branch of Windows 10 to Fast Ring & Skip Ahead Insiders.   Build 17677 was the first build in the last 5 or so that wasn't a nightmare to install.  Across all 3 of my test platforms - desktop, laptop and tablet the build downloaded and installed without drama.   In all 3 cases the end-to-end process took from 60 - 90 minutes. Of all the devices - my 5 year old Dell Inspiron 3847 running a 4th Gen Core i3-4150 w/ 4GB RAM along with a Samsung EVO 850 SSD and Intel 3160 WiFi card actually runs the the best.   There is little to no lag launching apps and while it doesn't support capabilities like Hello facial recognition, touch or pen, it is a good overall test bed device.  My more powerful AMD based laptop still is experiencing performance that I didn't have with RS4 and shouldn't have with 4 Cores, 16GB of RAM, NVMe SSD, etc.   Being set to Skip Ahead mode...

According a recent report by Bloomberg News - MS is working on a budget tablet under the Surface brand with a $400 price target.  Powered by an Intel-M CPU the device is targeted to entry level users. So MS has tried this before - First with the Surface 3 - which was actually a 10.8 variant running an Intel Atom CPU and second was via a number of OEM products back in the Windows 8/8.1 Era with products like the Dell Venue Pro (which I own) and HPs Stream line.   But with the combination of slow sales and Intel's decision to drop the Atom line - those products faded. While some of vendors did continue to support 8" - 10" form factor tablet most moved to Android as the OS. You can actually buy a range of Windows 10 based tablets today from folks like Chuwi and their Hi - Pro line - in 8" - 12" sizes.  Some models are even available as dual-boot Windows/Android and come with LTE capabilities.  The various models support either Intel Cherry Lake or MediaTek CP...

At it's I/O Conference - Google announced the availability of the public beta of Android P.   While the spectrum of supported hardware did open up a bit - it's still a somewhat limited portfolio.  And missing as always is the single largest Android OEM - Samsung.    One of the reasons I chose my Pixel 2 XL device was to have the ability to join Android beta programs and get a first hand view of the latest from Google. So after a quick registration - the 1GB+ update downloaded and installed easily. For a beta the build I'm running PPP2.1800412.013 has been very stable and fast.   From an app compatibility & usability standpoint - I've only experienced two issues so far. First is with ATT's Visual Voice Mail app - it simply does not work and it's kind of not surprising as ATT kind of sucks at apps.   The second is the lack of a clear all or "close" app functionality when browsing through app History. I've had no issues with ...

Windows 10 has entered it's 7th branch cycle - known as Redstone 5 (RS5).  The build releases started back in February with 17604 for Skip Ahead members. Since that time MS has performed 11 releases - most limited to Skip Ahead users and not until build 17661 did both Fast Ring and Skip Ahead receive the builds.  The most recent being 17672 released May 16.    As I've documented in previous posts - the road so far has been pretty bumpy and 17672 was no exception.    I use 3 platforms as my testing pool.  An Dell Venue 8 Pro tablet with an Intel Atom CPU, an HP Elitebook 745 G3 Laptop with AMD CPU and a Dell Inspiron 3847 Desktop with Intel Core i3.    Of the 3 only the Inspiron has been able to perform what I describe as relatively normal updates.  The Elitebook and Venue have really struggled.    While all 3 suffered from the ridiculous "preparing to install" delays that came with builds 17661 and 17666 - I experienc...

In a recent interview with TechRadar - Windows GM Erin Chapple of MS kind of shrugged off the first wave of new Always Connected PCs (ACPCs) introduced in March by HP, Asus and Lenovo..  in her words "We're about choice in the ecosystem and working across our partners".  This was a pretty touted new platform when MS and Qualcomm first stood up to announce the partnership and the initial plans were for a 2017 release.    These devices did not fair well in their initial reviews and I like many didn't really promote their purchase. While presenting a potentially compelling combination of always on LTE and 20+ hour battery life - unfortunately they experienced pretty bad performance and confusing app support.  Some like the HP model were also pricey with a $999 starting price and top models over $1,200. And so while an improvement over the Windows RT devices of 5 years ago - this may be another experiment that will fade to black. During my initial take on ...

On May 3 - MS released Windows 10 Build 17661 to both Skip Ahead and Fast Ring Insiders.  This combined the two tracks and so both will receive the same builds throughout the remainder of the RS5 branch... The big feature add in 17661 was a new screen snipping and markup capability really focused towards pen based systems.   There were also some updates to the new HEIC Video Codec, Sound Settings along with some additional Asian language support.  MS also returned to the Sets experiment model - where only some testers will have the feature turned on..    I have a mix of machines I use for testing - some where set for Fast Ring and others set for Skip Ahead... While not called out at all in the 17661 release announcement, MS must have been attempting a new update process and it was a mess.. On all machines, the "preparing for install" phase in Windows Update stalled at either 80 or 100% and hung there for 30 - 60+ minutes.   When looking at...

At the CES this year a number of vendors including Acer, Asus and HP committed to releasing NUC-like devices running Googles ChomeOS called ChromeBoxes.   Well those devices are beginning to show up and offer a very viable alternative to Windows.   Versus the early days of ChromeOS devices - which were often under-powered with low-end features - these OEMs are now including the latest 8th Gen Core CPUs, good RAM and Storage options along good graphics and WiFi. Each of them has taken slightly different approaches to product options - but in almost all cases you can get a device with Core i7, 16Gb of RAM and 32, 64GB or more SSD Storage.  These devices also have plenty of USB ports including Type-C, HDMI, etc. Now while this has pushed the price tags from the $200 - $300 range all the way to the $800 range - it also had provide customers with a lot more options and shows how ChromeOS devices are taking hold.    It also shows that OEMs are look...

On April 30, MS made RS4 or the Spring Creators - now finally named April 2018 Update available to the public via Windows Update. I was easily able to update all of my families machines that were not registered Insiders by simply logging in as me, then running Windows Update.   One interesting note is when logged in with my families credentials the update did not show at all. The good news is from an update standpoint there was no drama - all of the machines where 7th Gen Core with SATA SSD and 802.11ac Wifi - so the download was smooth and the update process progressed well.    There was some post OS issues however. On my Intel NUC device - Windows identified the 450MB OEM partition and assigned a drive letter to it - so all of a sudden it showed up in Windows Explorer and immediately began showing notifications of low drive space. The fix involved running DiskPart at the command line - then selecting the volume and un-assigning the drive letter....