Tablet

[highvoltage88]

First I would like to say what a great program this is. There is so much valuable information on here. So much that I can be a little overwhelming. But if you can pick up a little bit at a time you will be just fine. I have had few really nice scores in the last month or so. I have RDSS set up on my desktop at home but, restricts me to do the handicapping when I get home or the night before. I have a laptop but I don't wanna use that. I am thinking about getting a tablet . My company just got a few tablets for work and they were a great deal . I was wondering if they would work with RDSS ? Any input would be great ?

http://m.bestbuy.com/m/e/product/detail.jsp?skuId=2888473&pid=1219080835459&pcatId=pcmcat209000050008

http://m.bestbuy.com/m/e/product/detail.jsp?skuId=7952262&pid=1218862422867&pcatId=pcmcat209000050008

[Segwin]

I'm pretty sure Ted said as long as it is a Windows based operating system it will run on a tablet. I asked him this once before I think.

[highvoltage88]

Yea I used the Google search and I believe these fell into the requirements. I just wanted to get more of a confirmation before I bought one of them.

[Ted Craven]

Hi High,

Glad you are enjoying working with the Methodology!

Both those 2 Windows tablets will run RDSS2. I own a MS Surface Pro, the 2nd link you provided (the original Surface Pro, not the newer Surface Pro 2). After a year of use, here are the pros and cons:

Pros:

1. It works. RDSS2 works - and fast, Windows 8.1 is barely annoying once I added Start8 to resurrect the Start button (I hardly ever mess with the new-fangled 'modern interface'). Great full HD (1920 x 1080) display when output to a TV or nice sized monitor: gives the full 3-panel RDSS layout on an external monitor. Detachable keyboard is fine for casual use, nice pointing stylus.

Cons:

1. Battery life sucks: less than 4 hours.
2. Battery life sucks: less than 4 hours.
3. Points #1 and #2 make it unsuitable for a full day at the races with RDSS (or any handicapping program, I'd guess).
4. While the tablet display is great, you have to run it at 125% or 150% magnification settings to see RDSS screens. No problem doing that, but you then have to accept the 2-panel layout (using full HD, at 100% magnification means the type is TOO SMALL to read).

Summary:

I would not recommend the MS Surface Pro if a mobile RDSS is a major usage.

However, all the battery life negatives above are solved with the new MS Surface Pro 2 (it uses the new low-power Haswell Intel chipset, i3, i5, i7 4000 series).

Re the Asus Transformer - note that the screen resolution is shown as 1366 x 768. This also will restrict you to a 2-panel RDSS layout. If that is not a problem (or if you already only use the 2 panel layout and still love it ;)) then that's not an issue. The specs don't say how much working memory it has (i.e. not storage): 4Gb should be the minimum. You should check out the rated battery life. The price is right :)

You might also check out new tablets by Lenovo and Dell. I recommend the newer Haswell chips for better batter life.

My original plan a year ago was to get one new computer (e.g. a high powered tablet) to use as both a mobile device and supplementary working desktop (i.e. plugged into external monitor, keyboard, mouse and docking station, encrypted solid-state drive). The MS Surface Pro was not it, due to its low mobile battery life, but even when plugged in while travelling - it needs an external monitor and keyboard to do extended normal office-type activities (including correspondence and programming) - the tablet screen is just too small for me to do lots of writing, and certainly too small to do programming. It does work great though for casual use, running RDSS in 2-panel display, accessing websites including my ADW, and watching Netflix, etc.

Instead, I have decided to just get another light-weight, high-powered ultra-book computer with a 15" screen and long battery life (possibly the Samsung ATIV Book 9 2014 (http://www.samsung.com/us/news/22339)). Such a computer will work fine occasionally at the track, and on the road, where I hope to be spending a lot more time in the next few years :)

Hope that is some help, and perspective.

Good luck - let us know what you get, and then how you like it!

Ted

[highvoltage88]

Well I went to Best Buy after work today. I looked at the ASUS and quite frankly I was disappointed with it. I expected a little more flash and durability feel from it. And graphics wise the Microsoft surface pro 2 really destroyed it . So I ended up pulling the trigger on it. I got it home took it out of the box. First thing I did was pull up paceandcap.com to install RDSS. Took no time at all to get it up and running. So far I like a lot. It does come up with a weird message when I open it up but Screen size works quite well for me. I will prolly give it a test run tomorrow and see what happens. I will post some more screen shots tomorrow.

[Ted Craven]

Congratulations! Hope you enjoy it - let us know what the real battery life is (rated around 7-8 hours depending on app).

Re your screenshot and opening message, this link to the RDSS2 Download/Install page should do the trick: http://paceandcap.com/forums/showpost.php?p=89772&postcount=2 (last paragraph).

I should probably also put that in the FAQ section.

Ted

[highvoltage88]

Well gave it a little tested drive today. Display I have it adjusted to use the 3 panels and it is more then enough screen space to do everything I want. Only thing I would recommend is spending the extra money to get the bigger hard drive, or if not at least get a external hard drive. Battery life seemed really good overall between running RDSS and a browser or 2 with a couple PDFs open. Seemed fine. At least 8 hours worth. I would just turn the brightness down if you didn't have access to a charger to make sure it lasted a whole day. I definitely can see this becoming very handy.

And Ted, I ran it as administrator problem solved!��

[Ted Craven]

Good stuff! (Did it pick some winners too ;) ?)

You can get a micro SD chip which fits in the slot along the upper right edge. I got a 64 Gb one which is now my Drive D. Basically increases your storage by 50%.

Congratulations if you can read that tablet screen at 1920 x 1080! Even at RDSS font zoom 140%, here's me trying to read it ;)
37371

Ted

[Bill V.]

I recently have started working with my little Asus note book.
Its a little 8 inch monitor tiny laptop looking thing


I love it because I can run RDSS2 in 2 panel.
which is fine for me. Its much easier to work with at the track
but just like Ted said about his tablet, the battery life is very poor

I hope to get another back up battery for the live Del Mar meet

Its no problem as long as I can keep it plugged in, I can easily do this at the surf side simo center but once the live racing starts they shut down the center. and seating is limited at the live meet - although the area were we
had Pace and Cap day last summer is perfect and I'm always early to grab a spot.

Whats also fun for me is I can run Val 4 in dos and RDSS2 together on the little notebook but I can't on my laptop. On my laptop I have to go into virtual machine xp mode

[highvoltage88]

I think I will get a micro SD card for it. For 70 bucks I can the database on that and then if I decided to use my desktop for what ever reason, I could just take the card out and plug it in.

Maybe this weekend I will post some races and can get feed back from you guys. I was a actually thinking about playing breeders cup qualifier tournament!

[Ted Craven]

I think I will get a micro SD card for it. For 70 bucks I can the database on that and then if I decided to use my desktop for what ever reason, I could just take the card out and plug it in.


Yes, it's that simple! You might need a carrier card for that micro-size chip, to fit in a larger format SD card slot on a desktop. Just make a database on the SD drive using the Database Mgmt Tool (Create New), then Switch to it as the default database on each computer. When you remove that chip from each computer, of course you'll have to switch to some other database since the file will be gone.

Good luck in the BC Qualifier!

Ted