I don't understand their branding. I'd love to buy "The Ubuntu Tablet", I don't really want to buy a "BQ Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Edition". It doesn't sound like I'm getting something from Canonical, but instead some alternate edition of a device by a company I don't know of. Especially since this is the only model being launched, why not offer a definitive edition?
It's like if Google had called the "Google Nexus 6" the "Huawei Nexus 6P Android Edition"
The M10 is an existing device sold with Android. You are getting an alternate edition of a device by a company you haven't heard of. (Confusingly the full device name is either M10 HD or M10 Full HD, with 800p or 1080p displays, respectively; the Ubuntu one seems to be the Full HD model.)
The Nexus 6P is not available in another edition. But Google did, in fact, sell other devices much like you describe, though they were called "Play Edition" (running a non-customised stock Google Android).
Really good point, but I think Canonical is wielding much less influence in their hardware relationships than Google can, thus the <hardware manufacturer><software developer> official name.
It seems childish to want your name first, but I believe it means a lot to some companies.
My guess is that this is just their launch device.
I bet they will add other tablets from other manufacturers over time. Like with normal laptops, you can choose the hardware based on your needs. To me the software is key, not if the tablet is Ubuntu-branded.
I would buy an Ubuntu tablet in a heartbeat. I've been on a Mac for years now and I keep pondering the switch to Ubuntu but I'm having a really hard time justifying the investment in actually switching because these Mac's keep on chugging along.
The MS Surface is really appealing to me on form factor, but I won't switch to anything that doesn't have a Unix/Linux base. I really like the new iPad from a form factor standpoint...but I won't buy an iPad specifically because I'm not going to be coding on iOS.
Keep in mind that an Ubuntu tablet is likely going to run the arm version of Ubuntu which has far fewer packages and PPA repositories available than the amd64 branch.
Dealing with other tablets and Touch is pretty hit and miss - you might be able to get it to work, but more likely not unless you're pretty experienced in low-level hacking in OS and devices.
Certainly that hardware doesn't have enough memory to keep Beru happy all the time, which is a pain, but I'm prepared to put up with the minor inconvenience in exchange for not having an reader that reports everything I do back to central.
If an official Ubuntu tablet can be disconnected from their report-everything-to-central mechanisms to the same degree that Ubuntu on the desktop can, then an official tablet may be worth the additional cost just to use as a reader.
Seems like taking a Nexus 7 and gutting its OS simply to make a privacy-conscious eReader is a waste of a perfectly good tablet. Wouldn't it be easier and probably cheaper just to get a "dumb" e-reader (i.e. some kind of Kobo)?
Oh, this is kind of interesting. I mostly use my desktop workstation, with my Dell tablet serving as my portable thin client over ssh. I use Termux ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.termux&hl=... ) to get my essential command line fix and it really is a wonderful example of a quality Android app for people like us, but I'd still kill to have a real desktop Linux on my tablet. How I pine for the option to sometimes drop into a good old i3 session on my tablet...
Has anybody used the Android version of this tablet? It looks decent but it's hard to say and my Spanish is too rusty to read most of the pages that talk about it.
What's the battery life? That's a HUGE issue on mobile devices and it's something that you really have to optimize for. I'm surprised it isn't mentioned on the page (or, suspicious it's not good and was omitted on purpose).
Running generic Linux (as opposed to something highly customized like Android) makes me worry the battery life won't be that great.
According to theverge[1], "Canonical’s engineers tell me that given the technical capabilities of Ubuntu’s users, they’ll soon find ways to get the OS on other devices."
In the same way Ubuntu Touch / Plasma Mobile get really good support on the Nexus 4 and 5, it is likely this one will have an official image for the Nexus 7 / 9.
Will an Ubuntu tablet ever be able to match an iPad as far as power consumption goes? I'm a fan of both Ubuntu and Fedora but both do pretty poorly on my laptop with respect to battery life compared to Windows (and Windows battery life is pretty bad compared to a comparable Macbook in my experience).
I've not tried it personally, but I've read good things regarding Ubuntu's battery life on phones compared with Android. My understanding is that a lot of it is down to background apps being paused, like in iOS. I think the tablet mode would do the same, while the desktop mode won't, but in that cause you could probably plug in.
When you connect a mouse and keyboard, is it running "full" Ubuntu or the sandboxed mobile version? (i.e. is it like an iPad compared to a Mac or like a Windows tablet compared to a PC?)
I ran their developer version on an old Nexus 7 for a while, and it was more like the latter (Windows analogue). There is still a full terminal experience available even on the phone as I understand it, just a lot more proprietary software.
All Ubuntu mobile devices are running Unity 8, which is the next version of their desktop period written in Qt set to replace Unity 7. Currently they are still shipping Unity 7 on the desktop, though. Whenever desktop Ubuntu gets Unity 8, it would be able to shrink the screen down to a phone-like UI if you shrunk the display.
I signed up for email notification. I am a huge fan of iPad (I have a mini 4 and a Pro). This looks to be about a $250 product so the price is nice as well as being able to do software development on it with a keyboard. I do a ton of work on my iPad Pro (writing, research, SSH to servers) as well as reading and watching movies. A Linux tablet could be even more general purpose depending on how well it is executed.
Sigh, I would love to try Ubuntu on my x86 based Lenovo tablet. But this is not that. This is tablet maker X trying to get unit volumes up by adding another OS choice other than Windows 10 (so I presume they only have ARM tablets)
Well I looked at the images for the phones and they all say 33 minutes of talk time on their lock screen. Why wouldn't they put a higher number or leave that off completely?
The big killer here is the lack of availability. I'd love to try an Ubuntu tablet, but this only for Europe. Given my issues with Android, I'd love to try an Ubuntu phone as well, but the only ones they sell, aren't available on my carrier or even in my country.
Heck, I wanted a Lumia 950... and Microsoft has decided not to support my carrier, even though the phone's hardware does.
A large part of why nobody has broken the Google/Apple duopoly seems to be that nobody can get another option in my hands.
Your right, but the routes to market for hardware devices are quite limited.
It's slightly easier to get tablets into market, but the major OEM's are very conservative.
For Phones the issue is that people buy hardware from their network provider - there are very few other routes to market. First, the network operators primarily focus on 'general' consumer users so they are conservative about the options they choose. Second their scale means that unless they believe they can sell _millions_ of units there's nothing in it for them. Finally, the rest of the market for mobiles is completely locked down - there are only a few alternative routes to market. All the software vendors (ie Mozilla and Canonical) have been trying to work with alternative (primarily online) providers.
The raft of issues is massive and far beyond the essential problem of creating software that's good enough!
Unity 8 is the reason why I bought a touch screen laptop 2 years ago, but it's just not production ready... Sported elementary OS from the SSD for a while, and o boy was it fast... I gave up on it and I've been using Windows 10 just because it works really well with the touch screen, but it's slow and annoying for any meaningful development work. Hopefully, Unity 8 is gonna be released soon.
But the BQ Aquaris M10 still has a low resolution, compared to what most tablet users have come to expect. I deeply wish there were open source small (~10" diag.) high PPI touch displays outside of iOS or Android devices.
Yeah, it's ARM-based. Fortunately this isn't a big deal when the idea is to use a mix of new application created specificaly for this platform and existing open source applications, nearly all of which compile on and have been packaged for ARM.
[+] [-] squeaky-clean|10 years ago|reply
It's like if Google had called the "Google Nexus 6" the "Huawei Nexus 6P Android Edition"
[+] [-] morsch|10 years ago|reply
The Nexus 6P is not available in another edition. But Google did, in fact, sell other devices much like you describe, though they were called "Play Edition" (running a non-customised stock Google Android).
[+] [-] tshannon|10 years ago|reply
It seems childish to want your name first, but I believe it means a lot to some companies.
[+] [-] axx|10 years ago|reply
I bet they will add other tablets from other manufacturers over time. Like with normal laptops, you can choose the hardware based on your needs. To me the software is key, not if the tablet is Ubuntu-branded.
[+] [-] blentrop|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brightball|10 years ago|reply
The MS Surface is really appealing to me on form factor, but I won't switch to anything that doesn't have a Unix/Linux base. I really like the new iPad from a form factor standpoint...but I won't buy an iPad specifically because I'm not going to be coding on iOS.
An Ubuntu tablet would entirely fill my need.
[+] [-] gnarbarian|10 years ago|reply
Why not install it on your Mac and dual boot?
[+] [-] rocky1138|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] exratione|10 years ago|reply
https://www.exratione.com/2015/10/turning-a-nexus-7-fhd-tabl...
Dealing with other tablets and Touch is pretty hit and miss - you might be able to get it to work, but more likely not unless you're pretty experienced in low-level hacking in OS and devices.
Certainly that hardware doesn't have enough memory to keep Beru happy all the time, which is a pain, but I'm prepared to put up with the minor inconvenience in exchange for not having an reader that reports everything I do back to central.
If an official Ubuntu tablet can be disconnected from their report-everything-to-central mechanisms to the same degree that Ubuntu on the desktop can, then an official tablet may be worth the additional cost just to use as a reader.
[+] [-] AdmiralAsshat|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arjie|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AdmiralAsshat|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] gh02t|10 years ago|reply
Has anybody used the Android version of this tablet? It looks decent but it's hard to say and my Spanish is too rusty to read most of the pages that talk about it.
[+] [-] swah|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MBCook|10 years ago|reply
Running generic Linux (as opposed to something highly customized like Android) makes me worry the battery life won't be that great.
[+] [-] Jaepa|10 years ago|reply
As for usage. Yeah I have no clue. BQ's Ubuntu Phone apparently gets around 2 days worth of use for most users, so who knows.
[+] [-] matzipan|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ntakasaki|10 years ago|reply
Also, typed Ctrl-F "linux" on that page and didn't find a single mention, which is interesting from a branding perspective.
Edit: Can this run, say LibreOffice or Gimp or any other Linux program?
[+] [-] Animats|10 years ago|reply
Would someone in Shentzen please put this on generic $39 tablets and sell them on Alibaba? Thanks.
[+] [-] bryanlarsen|10 years ago|reply
1: http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/4/10914004/canonical-m10-ubun...
[+] [-] zanny|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] criddell|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abrowne|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skykooler|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] umlaut|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zanny|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mswift42|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mark_l_watson|10 years ago|reply
I signed up for email notification. I am a huge fan of iPad (I have a mini 4 and a Pro). This looks to be about a $250 product so the price is nice as well as being able to do software development on it with a keyboard. I do a ton of work on my iPad Pro (writing, research, SSH to servers) as well as reading and watching movies. A Linux tablet could be even more general purpose depending on how well it is executed.
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] espadrine|10 years ago|reply
However, without a system to maintain it upright, and with those specs, the following marketing image, while very enticing, is a bit misleading.
https://assets.ubuntu.com/v1/1273c568-tablet-overview-conver...
[+] [-] pachydermic|10 years ago|reply
Doesn't really give you a "laptop" experience, but at least you can still set up shop on a table.
Anyways, it sounds cool. To me, the specs seem pretty conservative so hopefully it's a low cost device. Something cool to hack on.
[+] [-] spaceisballer|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ocdtrekkie|10 years ago|reply
Heck, I wanted a Lumia 950... and Microsoft has decided not to support my carrier, even though the phone's hardware does.
A large part of why nobody has broken the Google/Apple duopoly seems to be that nobody can get another option in my hands.
[+] [-] slgeorge|10 years ago|reply
It's slightly easier to get tablets into market, but the major OEM's are very conservative.
For Phones the issue is that people buy hardware from their network provider - there are very few other routes to market. First, the network operators primarily focus on 'general' consumer users so they are conservative about the options they choose. Second their scale means that unless they believe they can sell _millions_ of units there's nothing in it for them. Finally, the rest of the market for mobiles is completely locked down - there are only a few alternative routes to market. All the software vendors (ie Mozilla and Canonical) have been trying to work with alternative (primarily online) providers.
The raft of issues is massive and far beyond the essential problem of creating software that's good enough!
[+] [-] matzipan|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lucaspiller|10 years ago|reply
http://www.amazon.es/Aquaris-M10-MediaTek-MT8163B-Lollipop/d...
The Ubuntu version has a faster CPU and better camera.
[+] [-] xbryanx|10 years ago|reply
But the BQ Aquaris M10 still has a low resolution, compared to what most tablet users have come to expect. I deeply wish there were open source small (~10" diag.) high PPI touch displays outside of iOS or Android devices.
[+] [-] fuzzythinker|10 years ago|reply
If it can be made to be used as passthrough to be an external monitor, I'm sold.
[+] [-] nashashmi|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adrusi|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wila|10 years ago|reply
If the CPU is MediaTek then pretty much by definition it isn't an intel. There are intel based tablets with a mediatek chipset though.
BTW, a cursory search seems to the suggest that MT8163A is a quad core ARM cortex A7 based CPU. [1]
[1] http://skinflint.co.uk/bq-aquaris-m10-full-hd-16gb-black-b00...
[+] [-] throwawayaway|10 years ago|reply
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2840401/ubuntus-unity-8-deskt...