Before I get into the fun stuff, I would like to comment on the use
of Windows 7 with tablets. There is much criticism about this
all over the web and it's not entirely unjustifiable, however, Dell
makes a valiant effort to compensate for this with their Dell Stage
software which, I'm sure, will evolve in to something amazing some day
soon. But the 2 problems with Win 7 tablets is 1) Most tablets
don't have the power to run Win 7 (Till the Duo, with some
adjustments) and have it act responsive enough to enjoy. 2) It's
hard to navigate Win 7 with your finger. Well, in my humble
opinion, these are totally fixable issues if you put in a little
time to become familiar with how to customize your GUI. If
your goal is to have your Dell Duo "only" do what the ipad does, it
is simple enough to set the GUI up to accommodate this in just as
user-friendly a way as the ipad, with a large, finger-friendly
front-end interface (like Dell Stage). But let's remember
folks, if we wanted something that "only" does what the ipad will
do, we would just get the ipad. But NO, we get the Win 7
because it has USB ports, it has a bigger screen, it has endless
software apps, it has complete networkability, let's face it,
with Win 7 the uses of a tablet are ENDLESS! We get Win 7
tablets because we WANT more complexity!! It's worth noting
that if you want to pre-configure the Duo to do just a few basic
things and have a simple front-end (GUI interface) to navigate, learn
some basic web design and you can configure the GUI however your
imagination sees it.
I recently read a review on the Duo and they timed how long it
took to load Dell's various Stage apps. Well, the times were
not great, in fact, it took 57 seconds to load Music Stage right out
of the box (same time it takes the Dell Duo to boot up). Of the
Dell Stage suite, Music Stage had the longest load time. Well, would you believe that with the
modifications listed in this review, I knocked Music Stage load
times down to 26
seconds and the others load in in just a few seconds. That's right,
doubled the speed,
which believe me, is what the Dell Duo Tablet needs! No joke
folks! And it costs nothing, you're just turning things off
that you will probably never use. Music Stage is a great
program to base your benchmarks on because it seems to have the same
load time no matter how many times you load it. In other
words, it doesn't write itself into cache. At the bottom of
the page you will find a chart of load times for each program after
all my mods so you can gauge for yourself.
All that being said, let me say that I LOVE this MACHINE!! LOVE LOVE
LOVE it!!! Straight out of the box this machine is slow and
annoying. It takes some
configurations to make this tablet enjoyable. I will never
figure out why Dell would not properly pre-configure this machine, but
it is what it is. Obviously, Dell's plan was to create a hybrid so
when frustrated, the user could just throw it into net-book mode and
use it like a notebook therefore reducing consumer complaints. We'll
see if that works for them. My guess, Dell Duo Stage software
will evolve into a fully functional tablet front-end making the
traditional windows GUI unnecessary to the average end user, and it
will carry Dell into the evolving world of tablet PC'ing possibly
making them a top contender if they do it right. Fortunately
for us, Dell is developing this software for the Android OS which
will help drive its development for tablets. Unfortunately, no
body is buying cell phones from Dell and they might give up on the
idea. Like most things in the world of technology, we will
have to wait and see.
| So here is a list of the MUST DO's for your Dell
Duo: |
- Go in to the
"run" section of the registry and disable
all the crap that you don't need (ie. Dell Data safe,
Syncables, gps and location utility, etc...) Also check the "run once" section
for "Data Safe" crap. I don't like to delete the
entries but instead, I edit them by adding a "rem" to the
front so I can always re-enable at a later time. You
can also use the MSCONFIG command to accomplish this.
- Go to "Services" (from computer management or
administrative tools)and stop/disable the "Dell GPS and
Location Service" and the "Dell Datasafe Service".
- Go into your advanced appearance features and increase
the "menu" items font to 15 which will now enable you to do
things like use the touch screen to hit buttons and close
windows. Basically, you have to be able to hit buttons
with your finger to use a tablet or it becomes useless
(sarcasm).
- Install
Google Chrome
which runs like a race horse on the Dell Duo (although by
the time you finish all these configurations IE will work
much much better). Not only does Google Chrome run super
great, but it gives
the user the most browsing space possible on the screen.
The design of chrome was approached with a minimalist point
of view which is exactly what a small screened tablet needs.
Chrome will feel awkward at first but it is great and does a
lot once you learn how to use it (but you MUST learn!!).
Use blogs to help you learn Chrome
- Go into
"Programs and Features" and disable the "windows gadget
platform" which is killing your memory and speed. It's
not worth it for the stupid desktop gadgets!
- Go into
"Pen and Touch" settings
and go to the Flicks tab. Increase touch
sensitivity settings to the most "relaxed" settings which
will make surfing, page flipping, AND typing much easier!
- Go into
"Pen and Touch" settings
(from control panel) and go to the "Flicks"
tab. enable the "Navigational and Editing" flicks.
Choose customize and set the diagonal flicks to
something more useful (leave the others alone cause they are
super important). My opinion is that you should make
these tools that will improve your web browsing experience (ie.
I made my four extra flicks "Fullscreen" which is F11, "Win"
button so I can hide the task bar but bring it up at will,
"Refresh" which is F5, and "ESC" which is a pretty universal
exit button). I think you will find these VERY useful!
A nice upgrade to this feature would be the ability to make
"program specific" Flicks, so you could have
customized
flick sets apply depending on the program you are using.
- Go into
"visual effects" and disable everything except the
bare essentials (ie. thumbnail icons, desktop composition,
and visual styles). I recommend disabling everything and
then re-enable the few little fun extras that you must
have. After some custom coloring in the "advanced
appearance menu" you can make windows look very cool without
all the transparent crap mucking up your memory. By now,
you should be noticing the Dell Duo windows are FLYING!!
- I uninstalled MacAfee and put in
Norton 2011. I
love Norton 2011 and personally I think the Dell Duo runs
great with it.
- Install
Microsoft One Note!! This is a super
powerful app for a tablet and you won't believe all that it
does! You will never touch a paper notebook again!
- Install
Zinio Reader. This is the same magazine
reader the Ipad uses and it's fantastic! A must have
on a tablet. I found that v3.7 is my favorite ver.
Once you learn a few page flipping tricks, you will love it
too! Update:
Zinio 4 beta has finally reached a version I am happy
with. You will find that you can only read newer
magazines releases with ver 4 now. Also, You should
install
Adobe Digital Editions to read the ebooks that book
stage (aka. Blio) won't read.
- If you are disappointed in the layout of the new MS
Office 2010 Outlook, join the club, but there are really
great workarounds to make it appear the same as your old
outlook ie.
you want one big inbox for all accounts, not separate boxes
for every account you have. To do this, create a "Main
Inbox" folder, add it to the "Favorites" box, set up a rule
for each email address to
forward all incoming email to the "Main Inbox", go to
"advanced options" and set outlook to go to the "Main Inbox"
folder when it starts up.
When you are done, you won't know the difference (if you do
it right) and you will actually notice it gives you a little
more control over your email (ie. you will now easily know
what junk is going to what address for the purpose of
removing yourself off spam lists).
There are many web blogs on this.
Another note is that an upgrade from previous outlook
version will carry over the mailbox folder structure the way
it was. This sux, but if you really want it to be like
the old oulook, install outlook 2007, set up the pst the way
you like it, then upgrade to 2010, you will get a brilliant
result!
- With Windows 7, I find the new taskbar to
be much better than its predecessors.
I like to keep
all icons off the desktop and just keep the most essential
shortcuts pinned to the taskbar
- Also, For some reason you will need to adjust the
permissions of some folders so you can make edits (ie. the
start menu). I like to rename start menu folders to
the program names instead of manufacturer names which are
often hard to remember.
- I Bluetooth it to my blackberry and using AT&T
communication manager I get a SOLID 1mb/sec internet
connection with no wires and I can even stream Video from
most sites with no problems (I have to use the USB cable to
stream HD stuff. I guess Bluetooth doesn't have the
muscles).
You can get a really great Sat phone for about $1,300 which
can provide your tablet with a per minute Data Plan as well.
Basic plan is $40/month which will come with just 10 min.
You can also try
this link. With that, you will have internet on
your tablet ANYWHERE in the world! Plus, you will also
have a cool sat phone that you can use anywhere.
- Another must have for the Dell Duo Tablet Hybrid is the
"Capacitive Pen" (which, btw, has a rubber tip and is
very friendly to your screen).
Tablets can actually
support pens (capacitive only) and fingers but sometimes a
pen is a great thing to have, especially when selecting
text, or playing games like solitaire and mahjong. It
also helps keep the finger prints in check. But you
should disable the "pen button" options in the "Pen and
Touch" settings because this just chews memory for no reason
and Dell nor Microsoft are yet to be selling the pens with
button/eraser features (that I've found). You should
get in the habit of disabling any feature you don't use.
While a stupid, small feature might not take up much memory,
30 of them can be a memory killer. In the long run,
disabling these features will provide you with better
performance. The same goes for "quick loaders".
Software designers like to use startups to load some
components of their program into memory so it loads fast
when you call on it. While one of these is not much of
an issue, they will accumulate over time and before you know
it, your Duo will take 10 minutes to boot up and run like a
turtle. You must always remember that you have ONLY 2
gigs of ram and Win 7 will chew up 1 gig of it leaving just
1 gig for you to work with. That's not much, but it is
enough if you consciously conserve it. You
should also remember that every program will install itself
as though it is the sole purpose for that computer's
existence, which is not usually in your best interest.
- The battery in the Dell Duo is permanent and does not
eject. Furthermore, the reality is it only lasts about
2.5 to 3 hours depending on how you use it. This kinda pisses me off because a
tablet is a tool that you want to use for hours and hours
with no worries. I would call this the most disappointing
aspect of the Dell Duo design. I would easily
sacrifice a little more size and weight for better battery
life/usability, but that's me, others might disagree. I bought the
Energizer XP18000 Universal battery for extra power.
Check this out, I hooked this bat up to my Dell Duo with no
power savers, only high performance settings, and had it
playing high def movies and this battery ran it for 6
HOURS!!!! That, with the internal battery, gave me 8.5 hours which is
great for a long flight (tested and proven). This battery pack comes with
more adapters than you can imagine, fits almost everything,
and can charge/power 3 things at once. It is the
size/weight of a small external hard drive. I recommend it!
- Oh, another note,
"Daemon Tools" are a great alternative
to the DVD-ROM. Basically it is a virtual DVD player
and all you do is load ISO's into it and it acts EXACTLY
like a real rom. Great for games and other stuff that
require the actual disc.
Just create an ISO folder and use Power ISO or something
similar to "Back up" your DVD's/CD's to ISO files.
Also, You can get a portable dvd player/burner on amazon.com
that is great for travel. It's better to by this
seperate because Dell will over charge for it. They
come it Blueray too.
- Another MUST is to disable the auto dimming feature.
The auto dimmer is totally annoying,
especially when trying to watch a movie. A piece of
tape over the light sensor will help the situation from
rogue sun rays gleaming by the sensor, but I recommend
turning it off in your power saver features.
Furthermore, there is a "service" running for the auto
dimming light sensor which you can disable.
- After all this work, I finished by installing
Norton
Ghost and making an image of my drive which I suggest you do
too! Dell does not provide a re-install disk so if you
hose your OS than you are kinda on your own unless you come
up with a good backup strategy.
|
Side Note: Duo Stage software is a cool concept
which could be
great, and is a decent transition into tablet mode, but
it will definitely fall short of your expectations. I can find no way to edit the icons or Add/Subtract
menu items which is just ridiculous! You would think they'd give you a simple config.xml to edit the front end. I'm
sure it's coming soon because they have it fully configurable for the
Android 2.2. I think the Duo was rushed out for the holidays
as is everything else in the universe. Speaking of which... if
you don't have the Xbox Kinect than you are out of your mind!
Go get that thing now!!! It blows the competition away! The
most fun you will ever have!
Well, I didn't baby you through it but if you put the time in and
Googled enough of the key terms I used, you should make it through
ok. If you print this page and bring it to Best Buy with your
Duo, the Geek Squad can do a lot of this for you, for a price.
So now you have a snappy running Dell Duo that is fun and
simple to use with windows, menus, and web pages flying by crisp like a new
computer should. Enjoy it and pass this page on to others!
This page was a pain in the ass to write and I only did it to save
the rest of you the heart ache I went through trying to enjoy this
thing. I consider this a "Pay it Forward" for all the posts
that have saved my but over the years. Please pay it forward
too! Contribute to the web, it's evolution.
If you buy a Dell Duo Tablet from the
Microsoft store, they will do some of this for
you for an additional $100 option in the checkout(because Microsoft
knows better and won't sell an unusable product!)
Some accessories that will make your Dell Duo
sizzle with Kewlness:
Quick Dock review:
Well, I like it. Bottom line.. You need something like
this if you plan to watch a movie with your Duo (unless you
plan to use earphones) Adds great sound! Has the USB's,
the LAN, and the card reader. The dock software (which
is already pre installed to the Duo) is pleasant. The
slide show plays music of your choice, the clock has fish.
I think its stupid that u can't run that stuff unless you're
docked, but... whatever. My biggest complaint would be
that I was hoping the dock power adapter would be
interchangeable with the duo by its self and it isn't.
I really want another adapter for my office but dell has yet
to sell them. You will find a company on EBay selling
identical adapters with same model number for just $14 and
they work PERFECT for me. Just noticed they are selling Duo's in
colors now for $50 more and dell also offers student
discounts if you have your University Member ID provided by
your school.
After hours of holding the Duo, it wears on you so you will probably find
yourself using the dock more often then you think. A
handheld Bluetooth mini qwerty backlit keyboard is a nice
thing to have when docked.
The Ipazzport is great. I have all three that are
shown here. Quick review on them would be this...
First thing you should know is, as much as you will love the
one that is just a keyboard, you will love the one with the
touch pad even more so don't sell yourself short. As
far as choosing between the black design or the white
design, well, they are TOTALLY different interfaces so
choose carefully. I can tell you this.. On the black
model the touch pad tracks faster by default which is nicer
for my taste (White model tracks slower but is more accurate
and you can always speed it up in mouse options).
Black also has a scroll bar built in to the right side of
the pad which I love (no scroll bar on white model).
Black model is Bluetooth, which is awesome, but it will stop
working now and then and require you to hit the reconnect
button or sometimes even reboot (white model is RF so it has
a small USB receiver, but it easily works on ANY computer
and works almost instantaneously after you plug it in
whereas the Bluetooth takes a couple minutes to start
working). Black model has no tab key which sucks
(white model has a tab key which rocks, but no shift-tab
capabilities). No shift, Just a caps which you have to
turn on then off EVERY time, same for all models. Black ONLY
has F1 F2 F8 and F10 keys whereas the white model has ALL
F-Keys which is crucial for "refresh" and "full screen"
capabilities while web browsing on a tablet. White model has
a laser pointer which is fun if you have pets that love to
chase the red dot. Both models have multimedia controls but
I like the layout on the white model better. Bottom
line, if I could take the white model keyboard and build it
with the black model touch pad, plus throw in a shift key,
it would be the PERFECT model. So, which one do I use?
I'm not sure if I've decided yet but I find myself using the
black model more because of the touchpad fluidity, the
scroll bar, and the desire not to plug a USB receiver into
my tablet which prevents the USB cover from closing (which
is not a problem for the dock since it has it's own USB
ports). I
figure that the better touch pad compensates for the lack of
keys because of the ease of using windows buttons with the
better pad. Again, the white pad tracks fine if you
speed it up in mouse options, but then the built-in pad
tracks too fast and I hate having to constantly make
adjustments every time I switch. ...end of rant.
If you're looking for better sound without purchasing the
dock,
J-lab makes this fantastic "B-flex" ad-on that you will
LOVE!
Found another miracle invention that is a "must have" tablet
accessory! It's called the
X-Band and it is the schiznittt! Like most Tablet
products, They use the Ipad to market their product though
it will work fine with other tablets. Since the Ipad
is 7.5" wide and 9.5" tall and the duo is 7.5" wide and 11"
tall, they are very similar in size and a lot of product
will work with both as long as there is 1.5" extra to play
with.. This product fits well but the corners don't
wrap perfectly. That being said, I think a little
trimming with some scissors and the X-band will be a perfect
fit.
 
Before trimming
 
After trimming
|
I went out and purchased every darn bag I could find till I
achieved perfection with a
Kensington Sling Bag that is PERFECT!
Energizer 18000 external Battery pack that will charge
everything!
|
I found the sim card slot is under a door
under the Duo but It seems like a dummy port. It's hard to notice but it's there. Looks like part
of the monitor hinge. just jiggle for a loose door and you will
find it. It slides off with little effort, but don't just yank it.
It's not snapped on like dell usually does, it's more like a huge
battery door that slides.
If you want to have some "touch screen" fun,
install
Art Rage 2. For $20 it is a fantastic,
fun art program that is designed for tablets. Try the Demo!!
Load Time Bench
Marks After Doing ALL Modifications
First number reflects the first time program runs after
booting up. The second number reflect program load
time after it's been cached in memory. ie 10/5
| Program Name |
Seconds to load |
| Windows Boot Time |
60 |
| Outlook |
8/4 |
| Music Stage |
26/26 |
| Video Stage |
35/17 |
| Book Stage |
14/14 |
| Photo Stage |
15/9 |
| Internet Explorer (loading to google homepage) |
10/5 |
| Google Chrome (loading to google homepage) |
5/3 |
| Zinio Magazine Reader |
5/1 |
|
|
