What was seen at the Xataka awards. The swan song of Windows 8 RT?

This past November 21 I was able to enjoy my third attendance at the Xataka Awards, which award the best technological products of the year according to our editors and the community around the blog.

Around these awards, the main manufacturer brands promote their most innovative products, in some cases prototypes, and exhibit them on the event grounds; constituting a small technology fair, where we have been able to enjoy equipment that is still far from being distributed and put on sale to the general public.

In our hands, what will be the future

The first surprise, and a bit of banal pride, was finding the Lenovo Flex 20 – which I told you about a few weeks ago – with the update to 8.1 and the configuration of applications that I left installed during the analysis.

Right next to it was one of the most spectacular stands, LG's, not so much for its huge 80” or more television, with 4K quality, but for being – without a doubt –the one that had the most spectacular hostesses of all And let's not forget that we are talking about a techie event, with an audience made up mostly of young men.

The most crowded was the Mountain exhibition, which was dedicated to powerful desktop computers, oriented to video games; and where I got to try out the brand new Oculus Rift virtual reality headset – getting totally real dizzy on the synthetic roller coaster.

This is what I saw on Oculus, but in Virtual Reality

Nokia brought back its full range of devices, including its Windows RT phablet and tablet. And this last one caught my attention – I think it was a prototype – because it wasn't as fluid as I expected. Of course, maybe this is a first look at the use of Windows 8 on smartphones; something that I think could happen in the short/medium term.

But the most important thing for me started to emerge when I first got my hands on the HP Omni 10 tablet. As light as a Surface RT and with similar battery life; but it has an Intel processor at its heart, which allows you to use Windows 8.1 PRO.

Intel's response to ARM may be the end of RT

Little by little I was blown away as, as the owner of a Surface PRO and a RT, the difference between the two tablets is important.Lo and behold, this HP gave me the feeling of size, mobility and battery life of an RT, but with the full capability of Windows 8 PRO, to use desktop applications.

Next stop was the Asus expo, where I got to sample the spearhead of what the company has to offer – since its announcement to stop making any more RT devices – in the form of the Vivo Tab. A transformable/hybrid that once again shows the power of an entire Intel computer with the lightness and mobility that could only be seen in RT tablets, but at a reasonable price. the height of its benefits.

But the most interesting thing came at the Intel Stand... At least four tablets from different manufacturers that, if I didn't manage to read the type of processor that drives them, I would have undoubtedly confused with ARM devices. In addition, it was not limited to two or three models of processors, but was faced with two different complete families – Atom and iCore - with a great variety of types in each of they.

Why an RT if I can have a PRO?

If there is one thing true in the computer hardware manufacturing industry, it is that secrecy and discretion are an inherent part of how things are done. And it has been very striking the abandonment, by manufacturers, of the RT platform from practically its birth; despite the fact that it has always been the perfect device to gain market share from its natural competitor: the iPad.

Now that a year has passed and Intel's response to its mobile and tablet competitors is beginning to take shape in all its magnitude, I begin to understand why Microsoft (now Microsoft's) loneliness also Nokia) with the Surface RT; since it is the only manufacturer that continues to bet on the platform.

For computers that require little power, that prioritize battery life and lightness, Intel offers the range of Atom processors.Those who moved the failed Notebooks with Linux and Windows XP, but super vitaminized and mineralized; and that they have nothing to envy to the most current Tegra or Qualcomm

For high ranges such as ultrabooks, hybrids or high-performance tablets, Intel offers the iCore family, with its i3, i5 and i7, but with the advantages of the Haswell https architecture: //www.xataka.com/componentes-de-pc/intel-core-haswell-toda-la-informacion – especially in consumption.

Thus, logic indicates that, if the Wintel combination comes back on its own, the trip should be terminated with ARM. And it makes no sense to maintain the Windows RT/PRO duality, both for manufacturers and for Microsoft itself.

Landing in the real world

As happened last year, of the wonders we were able to enjoy at the Xataka awards, there is not a single one on the counters, to be bought Big tech outlets have once again eschewed touchscreen PCs and Windows 8 tablets.

And, what's more, in some establishments they have released the "old" RT and PRO tablets at a bargain price, while the low-end Android tablets and, above all, the Apple area have grown to encompass all available space.

Even areas in stores, which were timidly appearing, dedicated to promoting the Surface, have disappeared - except in the occasional establishment. In other words, the massive arrival of touch devices with Windows 8, in any of its formats, will be delayed again – at least – until next year

Of course, the future of Windows 8 as an operating system is more than assured. The long rows of laptops and computers on the shelves carry it in all cases; having been banished – finally – version 7.

In short, more of the same. “If you don't sell, I don't buy”, and the industry continues to be especially cautious, moderate and stingy in the promotion spending on tactile products, while they fight over the crumbs of the overexploited market for “traditional” equipment.

Perhaps it is the ideal time for a touch device to come out that produces the same effect that the iPad produced on tablets, or the iPhone on SmartPhones, and that then complain.

In XatakaWindows | Lenovo Flex 20, analysis of the super tablet In Xataka | Xataka Awards 2013, Oculus Rift: analysis, Prices of the new family of Android and Windows 8.1 tablets from HP, Intel Core 'Haswell', all the information More information | Tablets with Intel Inside