I tried Daiso where I am right now (Kuantan) and they don't really have any that can fit (tightly) the W4 with CC attached. Everything I found either couldn't fit, or was loose enough to allow the W4 to slide around - which isn't really what a sleeve was supposed to do IMHO.

Plus, some of the patterns were... err... questionable. At least for my xy chromosome tastes.

Hence the DIY project. Even better that it has that nifty pocket in front. Durability is highly suspect though - I know it will protect the W4 (especially with the Chamois in place), though I'm not sure it can stand the test of time. Which was why I got spares.

Next up, engineering a velcro flap to allow for in sleeve charging.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Apr 17 2014, 02:43 PM

Got GNSS / GPS. Also supposedly bigger battery (prolly to offset for the extra drain from the data hardware).

Not sure it's worth the extra 500 over my PC fair special though - even without considering the free extended warranty I got. Besides, GPS duties are already very well handled by my droid phone - which actually STILL handles day to day internet interactions far better than a Windows Tablet unfortunately, however handy it is to have the extra firepower of "a proper OS" on hand when you need it.

And there's the fact that "connected standby" is STILL very iffy as of now, so it's prolly better to use like any "normal" laptop - aka as an on demand info puller paired with a large batt capacity, hotspot-able phone.

Or in my case, through a BT PAN to my Note 2 (saves more battery vs hotspotting).

Anyways, anybody found tempered glass protectors that could fit the W4 yet?

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Apr 22 2014, 10:51 AM

The ONLY wireless (capacitive) active pen that works directly with Windows 8 touch is probably the Hex3 YuFu Focus and YuFu Pro: http://www.hex3.co/products/yufu - and even then the Win 8 support is "promised" rather than currently available.

Unfortunately we do not have a digitizer built in (like the VivoTab Note 8) so no, Galaxy Note Pens DO NOT work. Except probably the Samsung C-Note Pen, as that one is just a small capacitive stylus.

ALL passive pens work on the W4, with varying levels of accuracy. I have a normal rubber capstylus and a Adonit Jot Mini, and while they both work fine, the Jot likes to scratch the screen protector from time to time due to the nature of its design.

I'm now looking for a cheap, decent microfiber tip capstylus.

External digitizers tablets should work (we're running Windows after all), but you usually need to stick the pad up your only available USB so that's that.

Another alternative (if you have a Samsung Note device) is to use VirtualTablet: http://www.sunnysidesoft.com/virtualtablet/

Seriously, if you NEED to use an active stylus you should've gotten the Asus VTN8 - regardless of the fact that it has horrible QC (a lemon every 10 units or so - according to the TabPCReview forums) and 'dat infamous Asus Malaysia warranty support'.

A better option is prolly the Dell Venue Pro 8, ONCE Dell FINALLY figures out how to make the Synaptics pen work PROPERLY (if ever).

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Apr 23 2014, 11:05 AM

At least we can hope that the Surface Mini comes WITH active input AND full Windows.

Or that the next refresh of the ThinkPad 8 comes with active input.

Failing that, we still have the ThinkPad 10 to look forward to, however more cumbersome a 10 inch tab still is compared to a 8 inch one for mobile use.

Oh and yeah, the YuFu SUPPOSEDLY will work with Win8 because they met a stretch goal back in KickStarter. SUPPOSEDLY. Time will tell if they make good on their promises.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Apr 23 2014, 08:37 PM

Went retail therapy-ing myself at Digital Mall today, got a few interesting stuff:



From the left:

1) The Titan 5A 3 port car charger - The only readily available charger that does above 4A, charges both my Note 2 (directly) and W4 (with charge booster) simultaneously without breaking a sweat. Plus it's cheap as chips compared to the Anker, Inergie and TYLT 4.2A chargers.

2) The Simplism Grip Touch Pen - For a rubber nub stylus, works surprisingly well for writing notes and stuff, at least better than most of the other r-nubs I've tried. Just don't try to write in tiny cursive though.

3) The Apacer thingy - Was curious if it would do charging + OTG. Unfortunately, it doesn't (both on the N2 AND the W4). It's not THAT expensive however so no real loss, and it still functions quite well as a mobile card reader/OTG adapter.

Also, ThunderMatch had a VivoTab Note 8 on display (sans the pen). So I whipped out my N2 pen and had a blast with the digitizer. YES, Win8 desktop benefits GREATLY from active pen input for sure.



It's on sale for RM1.2k. Would have been tempted if not for the lemon horror stories (oh, the stories), the very meager 32GB internal storage and the current bad state of of the local Asus warranty services.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Apr 28 2014, 02:09 PM

Personally, I'm using Microsoft Defender that comes built-in with Win8 + careful browsing. Resources are already scarce on these Bay Trail tablets and I don't really feel I can afford the extra overhead from a bloated modern AV app.

And Microsoft Defender is just a rebranded version of "Microsoft Security Essentials", which was a pretty good free AV solution to begin with.

If you wanna stick with proper paid AVs, I recommend getting JUST the "antivirus" part of anything - not the whole security suite. For instance, JUST Kaspersky AV and NOT Kaspersky IS.

Trust me, a full security suite is often overkill for our normal needs.

Also, NOD32 is another low resouce AV worthy of your consideration.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Apr 28 2014, 02:21 PM

You have to create a system image, using:

1) The old Win 7 System Image tool - It's included in Win8, you just have to find it.
2) A free third party Disk Imaging tool like Macrium Reflect, EaseUS or Paragon Backup.

That said, that AV conversation with you made me think about paid alternatives compared to Win Defender, considering my paid Kaspersky AV on my other machine is gonna die in 3 more months anyway.

Best one so far (value/performance/detection) is Avira AV Suite at RM95 (promo) for 3 years on unlimited (yes, unlimited) devices. That's like RM30 per year which is actually extremely good (vs the normal RM120 for ONE YEAR).

Especially for something that scores as good as Kaspersky on most AV comparative tests - AND something you can install on ALL the devices you own at no extra charge.

Of course there's Avira free too if you can stand the ads and the nag screens.

Currently downloading the Avira trial to see if it's really as resource friendly as they say.

The benchmark right now for me is ESET's NOD32 - been trying that one for a few days and it was like I was running nothing in the background. Unfortunately, it costs like RM120 for ONE PC and ONE year so it's considerably more expensive.

Plus Avira is actually better detection-wise VS NOD32 in most of the recent tests I‘ve seen so far.

Here's the Avira AV offer link if anybody's interested: http://bit.ly/1rCcEAm . The offer was SUPPOSED to end by 16 March 2014 so you better check it out really quick.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Apr 30 2014, 02:38 AM

*Holy dual-postage Batman!*

BTW, you should be thankful you couldn't install Kaspersky. For the great detection that it offers, even the AV only version slows down my main laptop somewhat sometimes - and we're talking about a Haswell i7 machine with 16GB of RAM here.

Guess what a full Internet Security install would do to an Atom tablet with 2GB of RAM then lol.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Apr 30 2014, 12:26 AM

You're welcome. BTW, you should try out Avira, if even just the free version. It's really not bad.

I ended up buying the offer and installing it straight into the W4 and my older Core2Duo lappy with 1GB of RAM (read: very slow) - just to check if it REALLY does work on unlimited devices. It's working marvellously on both so far, with minimal slowdowns. It even caught quite a few viruses that have accumulated on the old lappy due to me letting Kaspersky lapse on it since 2009 - so it's definitely working.

As a bonus, I get the paid version of Avira for Android too, even if I really don't do Android AVs.

So far, for RM30 per year for 2 computers (plus a third one in 3 months and whatever else device I'm going to be buying in the span of the following 3 years) I'm not really complaining. Maybe I should even get another 3 year purchase on my spare email address, though I really doubt it works that way.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Apr 30 2014, 10:33 AM

I just checked the link I gave above and it's still on. God knows for how long though.

That said, I'll prolly hold off getting another three year key. Just in case they start to get crappier as time goes by, let's see in 3 years if they're still worth giving money to.

That said RM30 per annum for a top range AV for UNLIMITED devices is still very, very tempting.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Apr 30 2014, 11:36 AM

You're welcome, bro.

Looking though Garage sales, most AV programs are being sold at that price (RM30-40) anyway (OEM keys probably, the legality of which demands an entire argument of its own) although there are very little choice besides the usual Kaspersky (bloat), Norton (used to be bloat, now not so sure), Avast (good but quickly getting bloated) and Bitdefender (good but slightly bloated) - and the fact that for ALL of the other brands, it's usually sold "device-centric" (limited to a certain number of devices: 1PC or 3PC).

Even the Avira resellers in garage seem to not want to upsell (or are not aware of) the fact that Avira is actually free of this "limitation" (within reason of course - buying a 1-user licence and deploying it on 100 corporate computers would obviously warrant a blacklisting from Avira). Then again, if everyone knew it would really hurt sales lol.

That said, for a typical Malaysian household, RM60-70 (normal Malaysian MRSP for Avira) for 1 year "premium" protection of 10+ devices in the house of whatever OSes (Window/OSX/Linux/Android) is a pretty sweet deal indeed. If you don't mind the slightly archaic UI of course.

The only other brand to offer this is Bitdefender with BD Sphere but that is RM200+ for 2 years and I can't even find a local distributor for the stuff.

Really, the other vendors have to stop this "device-centric" madness soon. Having to go for yearly subscriptions is bad enough, and I really hope what Avira is doing will become a trend.

And again, the free versions of AVG, Bitdefender and of course, Avira, is plenty good but they will of course slow things down with ads, nags and promos so that's that.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Apr 30 2014, 10:51 PM

Yum. How much is this and where from (which All IT)? I already have a billion OTG cables but this seems to be a great backup.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Apr 30 2014, 08:58 PM

On the subject of OTG cables, the cheapest I've found the stuff for offline are RM5 in the night market in front of Sogo. And these are the better built ones, not those cheapo ones with crappy plastic casing and flimsy cable.

Anyhows, anybody find a tempered glass protector that fits our W4 yet? I've seen people use Nexus 7 protectors for the Venue, maybe it could fit the W4?

That said, I've never even seen anyone selling the N7 glass protectors locally in shops lol.

BTW, All IT has a promo going for powerbanks right now: The Huntkey HPBA6000 6000mAh lipoly with a single 2.1A output for RM30.



I tested it in-store just to be sure, especially I got burned by the RM50 for a crappy powerbank scam a few weeks back in Lowyat Plaza (supposedly discounted from RM90, apparently the 2.1A output port on it couldn't even do 500mA).

The Huntkey chugged along like a boss with a 1800 in the GCC app on my Note 2. Plus, as a bonus, it charges my W4 *directly* sans booster adapter, and even does it at an oklah speed. Woohoo.

Sure, another port would be nice, but it's RM30!

Needless to say, I took two. Maybe I should go back and take one more lol.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: May 4 2014, 09:34 PM

Apparently it is authentic because the RM30 thing is only temporary. From tomorrow it'll go back to the normal price of RM60++. Which is more reasonable for a single port powerbank of that capacity, albeit still worth it as does 2.1a *properly*.

I just found out that bit of info about the end of the promo BTW. Now I am kicking myself for not buying 4 or more of the thing. I would have had 24000mAh with 4 dedicated 2.1a ports at my disposal for an investment of *just* RM120.

Provided it's a real 6000mAh pack, anyway.

Of course I'll have to charge it all separately (and at 1a input it's gonna be quite a while), but that still doesn't really lessen the regret much.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: May 5 2014, 10:47 AM

Actually, my W4 just fell on the road and lived too... with just the crunch cover... for the second time...

Besides one semi deep gash and some scratches on the border at one corner (complementing the light scratches it already has on the other corner), it's still kicking fine.

I'm beginning to think that this is the reason why Acer put such a thick plastic border around this thing. And apparently that border is ALL plastic right to where it meets the screen area.

That said, does everybody's power button click like the volume and start buttons? Mine's all mushy and I'm actually not sure if its normally like that or if the fall did something. It still works like it used too though.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: May 7 2014, 12:58 PM

Anyway, anybody notice just how much of a drag it is to multiselect in Explorer? Turns out Acer knows this, and have even come up with a nice set of tools to help with touch: The Acer Touch Tools.

For those who haven't seen these yet, check them out here: http://bit.ly/1kVQTdU

I like the concept of these, but I wonder if there is a more customizable third party version out there? Like always on top floating buttons to simulate certain more important keys like tab and whatnot.

I mean the "system" layout on the modern keyboard is great and all, but it's very cramped for actual use.

As it is, it's plenty useful - if not to just make Photoshop *actually* usable with touch input alone.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: May 7 2014, 04:13 PM

Personally speaking, if you use Bluetooth tethering with your phone, both of them can very well go for even longer (as Bluetooth eats less power). And it isn't actually that slow actually vs WiFi tethering - it's just a bit more troublesome (a bit more steps to prepare and to connect).

Just consider it a little tip for when you really need the W4 + phone combo to last longer on a single charge.

About the Surface Mini... lets just hope Microsoft is NOT going to waste the opportunity by NOT releasing a "Pro" version of the Mini. Though unfortunately the rumours so far suggest that they ARE going to waste it and there will only be an RT version.



Such a shame if its true.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: May 13 2014, 11:22 PM

Yeah I heard, 4000mah is nothing to be sneered at. A shame I could never prolly live with the MTK processor - I'm too spoiled with the performance of Exynos and the fact that my N2 comes with the Wolfson DAC (audiophile preferences).

Anyhows, the Asus Vivotab Sudden Death Syndrome situation is becoming quite... acute. A shame because that's prolly the ONLY other tab I'm lusting over now that Dell is not doing ANYTHING about bring the V8P in officially. And that the chance that the MSM is gonna come with Win8 non-RT is becoming slimmer by the moment (Qualcomm processor rumours now).

I guess I'll just have to live with the W4 and fat capacitive stylii for my tablet note taking needs for now. Heeesh. That said I already have enough stylii to do a shootout review in a week or two, will post a linky here when I finish that later.

If anyone can live with a huge slate the ThinkPad 10 is coming though lol. I know I can't.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: May 14 2014, 09:50 PM

Oh mai. Hope it's okay. That said, thanks for what may be the first disassembly pics of the W4 so far.

BTW, is it hard to pry open the back panel? I might have to do it to check out my sinking power button lol.