7 Reasons You Won?t Want a Windows 7 Slate

Word on the street is that Microsoft plans to announce a Windows-powered iPad contender at next month’s Consumer Electronics Show.

We’ve seen this movie before.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer waved around a Hewlett-Packard “slate” running Windows 7 at CES 2010. HP later hyped up the device with specifications and a possible price tag, and then killed it before it even shipped.

So it’s a bit like d�ja vu reading in The New York Times that Ballmer is taking the stage to talk slates again. Mind you, this time he’s going to show off not just one Windows 7 slate, but several, according to NYT’s Nick Bilton.

But increasing the device count isn’t going to make a Windows 7 slate any better. Here are seven reasons buying a Windows 7 slate would be a bad idea.

• Windows is not for fingers.

Windows 7 is designed for desktop computing, not multitouch tablets. Dragging around windows to switch between applications is not the kind of thing you’d do on a tablet. It’s why we use keyboards and mice.

At CES 2010 there were a few pilot tablets running Windows 7. They were difficult to use, because the Windows 7 interface on a tablet was an ergonomic nightmare. Scrolling was laggy, and some devices we tested even froze while we were shooting video demonstrating the products.

Even with a touch-friendly skin on top, there are still going to be times when you wish you had a mouse — like when a dialog box pops up that hasn’t been optimized for touch, and its control buttons are too tiny for your fat digits.

• Windows is too bloated for mobile devices.

Windows 7 is a big improvement over Vista and XP, but it’s still got a lot of the same Windows headaches. Plug in a peripheral, for example, and Windows 7 has to search a sluggish database for a device driver. The idea behind a mobile device is that you’re on the go and you need apps that keep in pace with your movement, and Windows just isn’t optimized for that.

On top of that, the power management is not designed for an always-on, carry-everywhere experience. For a tablet competitive with the iPad you need an OS with extremely fast boot times that can run on low power for epically long hours, and Windows 7 has neither of those features. (The iPad, for instance, has a standby battery life of 30 days.)

• There will be too many unpredictable variations.

Microsoft’s modus operandi with Windows is to license the OS to any manufacturer that wants it, and the OEMs ship Windows notebooks with their own custom software (aka bloatware). There are a thousand different variations on keyboards, controls, aspect ratios and more. The same would happen with tablets. By contrast, Android and iOS have more-or-less predictable hardware, something that Microsoft itself recognized was important in Windows Phone 7, its mobile OS.

• You’ll have to maintain it like a Windows machine.

Windows has always been a prime target for the authors of viruses and botnets because of its gigantic userbase. On a Windows 7 tablet you’d have to install antivirus software, which would inevitably affect battery life and overall performance.

Then you’d probably want to install memory-optimizing utilities, a better disk defragmenter, and maybe a registry cleaner. After a year it would start slowing down like Windows machines always do, and you’d have to do a clean install of the OS.

In short, a Windows tablet would give PC users lots of flexibility — but it would be antithetical to the experience of an easy-to-use consumer device that you don’t have to maintain.