Running Windows 8 Pro on dual screen tablets: Toshiba Libretto W100 and Acer Iconia 6120

Looks cool no ? This the view of my Toshiba Libretto W100 running Windows 8 Pro and full metro Apps in it's perfectly lit dual 7 inch touch screens ...

As the Jan 31 deadline for upgrading to Windows 8 Pro for what used to be the price of a Commodore Amiga game back in the day approached.. I rushed to upgrade 3 of my Windows 8 RP running tablet PCs ... would it be worth it ...or would I mourn the loss of my Crysis 3 , Aliens Colonial Marines and MetalGear Rising Revengance money that I had just used to buy 3 licenses of Microsoft's OS?

I have had Windows 8 ( Preview ,CP and RP ) installed and running on tablets ever since the old Sinofsky keynote back in 2011, installing it on Atom powered tablets,Pentium, i5,i7 single and dual screened ones too. The thing about Windows 8 is it may be murdering your desktop or rig at the moment, with features your mouse hand finds alien and updates that can and will often lead to infinite reboot loops but Windows 8 Pro has it where it counts when it comes to tablets and cute monkeys: 

I find when throwing innovative or obscure hardware at it brings the finest out of Windows 8 Pro. This is a full touch based, true multi tasking OS, optimised for all types of X86 CPUS and non dedicated gpus too.

So let's see how Windows 8 Pro works on a 7 inch dual screen tablet the Toshiba Libretto W100 one that has a native res of 1024 by  600, but one we are going to set to run at 1024 by 768 to enable Metro Apps to function:

Result! Windows 8 Pro runs without issue on the little Libretto W100, the i3/Pentium powered dual touch screen device is an excellent show case for Windows 8 Pro, you know that eventually  we will have the successors to Haswell powering dual screen hand held tablets , but right now owners of the Toshiba Libretto can run Win 8 Pro with relative ease ..  And moving from Windows 8 RP to Pro has eliminated the shrunken screen issue on one of the screens.

My addiction to dual screening also led to me get hold of the Acer 6120 some time ago now , as you can see from my adventures with it here : Installation of Windows 8 requires no reg hacks on this device, it's native resolution easily handles Windows 8 Metro ( you know what  I mean) apps . 

Unlike those fancy yet to be released Win Pro ultrabooks with touch screens , 
The Acer 6120 allows you to take the back off, allowing for a full hdd. This a significant complaint I have against surface pros and other Win 8 tablets, what is the use of having those fancy fast cpus and gpus with only 64 to 128 gb of space ? And then not allow anyone to just open the back up boost the RAM, hdd, or install/upgrade a msata device? Yes there are going to be 20 inch all in one surface type computers but the problem there is again a sealed back, one screen which you cannot carry around. The 6120 folds up just like a laptop, folds open into a dual screen surface computer .. give me one with a Haswell and 2560 by 1600 twin touch screens ( the kind you have on some Android tablets these days) and I would buy that for $1700 ...and with Windows 8 such a machine is possible...

   

 Back to reality: currently the Acer 6120  is the only dual screen 10 point touch per screen   Windows 8 tablet you could put a 2 TB 2.5 inch drive into, upgrade the ram, wifi ,etc. Which means for me I can use it as a dual screened desktop replacement with added Windows 8 touch features . Really my desktop dual 30 inch  screens sit gathering dust as I mess with this device which easily replaces my dual screen desktop but in a form factor the size of a 14 inch laptop ... I use it in portrait in anticipation for the day I have my paper thin graphene touch screen displays and in landscape to work as I am doing now, with youtube etc editing videos in the lower screen whilst I work in the screen above. 

I have had over a year and half of use out of this device and I would say that for Windows 8 touch features, 14 inches is the minimum size devices should use . Below that and then you will need a digitizer pen like on the Lenovo X220T, X230T and soon the Helix. 

11.6 inch and below devices are going to be  hard to use with Windows 8, anything above that an you are golden . This is because a Win 8 Pro device is a full desktop or laptop replacement and the  OS itself is something which you will use as you did  Windows 7 more than you will use Windows 8 Metro style . All those tiny little mouse clicking boxes are still as tiny on Windows 8 and require a mouse click or pen touch to get right . So a larger touch screen will just make it easier to operate all those legacy Windows 7 chrome features . Want to test out the theory .. try closing a browser or explorer window or pecking at a desktop icon on a Sony VAIO duo ... Eventually Windows 8 Metro Apps will replace the old legacy OS apps altogether...don't worry though you will still be able to run a cmd prompt ... this is Windows and Microsoft after all! 

Let's see how the full Windows 8 Pro OS runs on the Acer 6120 ...

You get  the most out of Windows 8  using dual screen tablets, the hardware and software  really shine when it comes to replacing Windows 7 with 8 , I am using one now to type this in one screen  whilst editing my youtube videos in the second on one machine, the size of a laptop. In olden times I would do this on my desktop with dual LCDs heating my room. It would take around 2 minutes for all the fans, the Boreas TEC chiller, the POST routine and the RAID array spindle drives to spin up and take me to the Windows 7 log on screen and beyond to open a browser and type this , whilst a further 12 fans kicked in my Lian LI and that familiar jet engine taking off under my desk noise kicked in too, admittedly with gorgeous blue neon LEDS and I began to type into blogger...  Overkill... Now I just open a dual screen Windows 8 tablet onto a desk or in my hands , like a magazine or a book ..wait 8 seconds for the machine to boot up and work ..if I need the grunt of my desktop I can stream it using Splashtop on my iPad or Nexus 7 whilst I work on my other Windows 8 machines  .

Working this way with around 3 to 4 devices with Windows 8 ,iOS and Android actually gives me more computing power than a single expensive desktop (currently in mothballs) , access to 6 touch screens . And as we work in the cloud one machine is uploading video to youtube to use in this blog, a Nexus 7 is keeping up with my email ,and providing me a way of checking old blog posts which I need to refer to in this post, two dual screen tablets are in front of me that I am filming and working on too , with the iPad . Trying to do all this on a single desktop even with my 60 inch 5120 by 1600 2*30 Inch LCDS ..from one OS is ...like old dude ! So 2008... when they say the desktop is dead ... I have to say great ...I have done my share of 13 years of building rigs , that was cool in 1998 , now it is 2013 and I expect graphene paper thin tablets with 0 effort required on my part ...Are we there yet ? No? But PC users have started to turn away from the desktop form factor ..today I expect a gaming laptop to approach the level of last years best gaming desktop ..and the gap is closing.. Intel is stopping making Desktop boards after Haswell to concentrate on tablet hardware...and if that is not a sign of drastic changes, then consider Apple is on a vector to replace OSX with iOS and Ubuntu phones want to replace your entire computer set up altogether ..the old Rig of old is doomed ... 

Alongside the arrival and maturation of Windows 8 many technologies have emerged that change the way we compute these days, you have the coolest storage in postage stamp sizes msata ssds which are now up to 480 gigs and with excellent read write speeds, high res touch screens of all sizes, mobile cpus and gpu innovation is outsripping the old desktop cpu and uber expensive dedicated gpu model ( quad sli .. come one show me the drivers !). Throw all this together and we have a very healthy model of competition and innovation as well as increasing functionality for decreasing ,not increasing costs... Cloud based streaming through GAIKAI and yes ONLIVE as well as Core Online eliminates the hardware upgrade problem. When your gaming rigs value halves by the time you install your OS, remember it is not just the hardware inside that just became obsolete it is the whole form factor and the endless upgrade loop that manufacturers have had some of us on for 13 years that is doomed.. 

Thus Windows 8 with iOS and Android have  liberated me from what is really just a server of a desktop PC ... I love the idea that I have 3 different OS running machines that can still send data via the cloud to one application like this blogger post, without slowing down or grinding to a halt as even the most well endowed desktop rigs tend to do when you run two flash videos... or browsers ...

So was it worth it allocating my Crysis 3, Aliens Colonial Marines and Metal Gear Rising money towards 3 copies of Windows 8... hell yes.. if I had waited longer than the 31st it would have cost me £600!


To install Windows 8 Pro on your Toshiba Libretto W100 or W105 follow the procedure in my previous post  here to allow Metro Apps to work at 1024 by 768 on the 1024 by 600 screens. 

When installing Windows 8 on a dual screen you need to orient the screens and calibrate touch for both screens which is explained in my post here ( use the same procedure for any Dual Touch screen tablet ) 

this content is © and originated from thegameveda http://the-games-veda.blogspot.com/  if you are reading it from any other site that has not provided a link back it has been leached