Topic by Jake Johnson

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  • Jake Johnson
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Topic: Pianoteq on the newish Nextbook that sells for $150?

This is a follow-up to the discussion of using a very small computer inside or attached to a MIDI controller:

There appear to be several versions of this coming out in rapid succession. The early ones use Android, but the later ones have an Atom processor, such as the Nextbook Windows 8.1. A tablet that runs at 1.6 GHz, is quad core and has 16 gigs of hard drive memory and a gig of RAM.

See:

http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/13/technol...=obnetwork

and http://www.nextbookusa.com/productdetai...duct_id=22

Walmart will be selling one version (not sure which, probably the Android version to clear them out) for $99 on Black Friday, the Friday after the U.S. holiday Thanksgiving.

No keyboard included, but one can be attached. Has Wifi, of course, so files could be saved and opened from a hub.

Might be the simple solution for people accustomed to Windows. (Afraid of Linux, in other words, like me.)

Last edited by Jake Johnson (13-11-2014 23:47)

Reply by Jake Johnson

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Re: Pianoteq on the newish Nextbook that sells for $150?

Correction:

According to CNET, Walmart will be selling the later version with the Atom processor, which runs Windows 8.1:

http://www.cnet.com/news/walmart-to-sel...ck-friday/

(Thought I should post this as a reply, instead of adding another edit to the original post that might not be seen.)

Last edited by Jake Johnson (14-11-2014 04:49)

Reply by Luc Henrion

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Re: Pianoteq on the newish Nextbook that sells for $150?

Probably a bit too "light" also in terms of memory and CPU power, no?

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Reply by Mossy

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Re: Pianoteq on the newish Nextbook that sells for $150?

With Atoms, you gotta be careful about that "burst" cpu speed.  It can do 1.83ghz but only if the thermal conditions are optimal.  What this usually means is if you have a single program running on 1 core, it can burst up to 1.83ghz because the other 3 cores are either idle or perhaps even turned off.  Once multiple cores kick in (which Pianoteq will use all), it's unlikely it will go above the "regular" 1.33ghz speed.  It might even get thermal clocked downwards if used in a hot environment.

The good thing is it does have 4 cores which Pianoteq will utilize to some degree (not all thread jobs split across cores equally).  I suspect it can probably run 32-64 polyphony OK.  (Unfortunately, my Avoton server went down for the count again so I can't run some artificial tests via limiting cores/clock speed to simulate a 4x1.33 config.)

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Reply by Jake Johnson

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Re: Pianoteq on the newish Nextbook that sells for $150?

Luc and Mossy,

Yeah, it may just be too underpowered. But this is apparently the latest and greatest version of the Atom processor, so it may push things a bit forward. Probably better to go with something like a Surface or build one's own. Interesting, though, that inexpensive tablets are becoming better and better.

Still, I'm tempted to try one of these just to see how it would do.