Author Topic: Winbook tablet as MAME or visual pinball machine? (Read 9083 times)

pbj · « **on:** January 05, 2015, 01:06:34 pm »

http://www.microcenter.com/product/439773/TW700_Tablet_-_Black

That seems awfully cheap for something that runs Windows 8 and has full USB support and HDMI out.

Have any of you played with one of these?

wp34 · « **Reply #1 on:** January 05, 2015, 03:19:23 pm »

That looks like a nice little tablet for the price. Seems like it could make a good start to a touch-screen jukebox as well. The reviews look positive. One guy said he got Borderlands to (mostly) run by turning the settings down.

yotsuya · « **Reply #2 on:** January 05, 2015, 03:22:39 pm »

Too bad it's pick up, only. How many sheckels do we have to throw your way for you to pick one up and ship it?

JDFan · « **Reply #3 on:** January 05, 2015, 03:30:31 pm »

Quote from: yotsuya on January 05, 2015, 03:22:39 pm

Too bad it's pick up, only. How many sheckels do we have to throw your way for you to pick one up and ship it?

EBAY has them for about $68.99 with Free shipping -- so about $10 extra would get one shipped to you ! -- Though they took out the 1 year of Office 365 (since it retails for about the price of the thing they buy them for the 1 year extension on Office 365 and resell the tablet without it for a profit !) - But if you are using it for an emulator you probably don't nee a 1 year sub to 365 anyway !

http://www.ebay.com/itm/WinBook-TW700-IPS-LCD-7-1280x800-Quad-Core-Intel-1GB-RAM-16GB-Tablet-Windows-8-1-/261723909974?pt=US_Tablet_eReader_Accessory_Bundles&hash=item3ceff5ef56

pbj · « **Reply #4 on:** January 05, 2015, 03:35:10 pm »

Ebay deal doesn't include the Office key. That dude is buying them and selling the keys separately. Which is fine by me but just FYI.

JDFan · « **Reply #5 on:** January 05, 2015, 03:37:31 pm »

Quote from: pbj on January 05, 2015, 03:35:10 pm

Ebay deal doesn't include the Office key. That dude is buying them and selling the keys separately. Which is fine by me but just FYI.

LOL was just editing my post to mention that !! - Figure the 365 sub key works to extend a current subscription so almost makes the tablet free if you use office 365. (since MS wants $69.95 for a single user 1 year subscription )

Generic Eric · « **Reply #6 on:** January 05, 2015, 03:38:08 pm »

It can't be worse than the COBY tablet the furniture store gave us. Lemme know how MAME and minecraft run on this if anyone gets one.

yotsuya · « **Reply #7 on:** January 05, 2015, 03:50:48 pm »

I want a tablet to keep all my arcade manuals, schematics, and plans on. I was thinking a cheap ass eBay deal, but this might be a decent pickup. You buying it, James?

Vigo · « **Reply #8 on:** January 06, 2015, 01:50:19 am »

Buy it. I did. I got a coupon in the mail for $30 for that exact winbook last week. No idea why. Never even heard of Micro Center before that coupon showed up in the mail. Sent the wife over to micro center to pick it up. We both were very skeptical since we already have a couple nasty cheap tablets. We were gonna give it to the toddler for watching movies in the car, and cash in on the 1 year subscription to office365.

Absolute rock solid purchase. What surprised me was the quality of the screen. Actually good resolution and no viewing angle problems. Actually on par with my iPad2 in screen quality. Speed seem fine, but didn't do any benchmarking. touch controls are very receptive. Had to buy a micro HDMI cable, but tried it on the TV, and although the available resolutions were limited, it looked fine. USB keyboard and mouse were no problem. Didn't test bluetooth yet. Not much hard drive, but with a microSD slot, who cares. The big Achilles heel of the tablet is the piss poor battery life. Played about 2 hours of the tiny death star app, and the battery died.

I spent a whole 5 minutes so far trying mame. For some reason, the self extracting 7z file erred out when opening it and I just gave up. I'll try again by extracting on my PC and popping it in via usb drive. I can try mame on it later, but I feel pretty good it would make an awesome tablet for project machines.

ark_ader · « **Reply #9 on:** January 06, 2015, 04:46:44 am »

It is hard to get the winbook as there are no stores nearby that sell them. My HP Stream (still plugging) doesn't have HDMI out but you can see the screen enough to create a icade clone and put some controls on it. The HP Stream 7 is going for $79 and that includes office which makes the tablet worth about $19. The sound on the Stream is poor, but the display is nice and bright and like the winbook, you can put x86 apps on it.

I haven't tried visual pinball yet but it is on my list.

The winbook is the better buy though with 2gb of memory and the HDMI.

BorgDog · « **Reply #10 on:** January 06, 2015, 08:51:58 am »

Dammit. that was a quick impulse buy

no idea what I'm going to do with this tablet, but I couldn't pass up the price. Thanks for the good review Vigo.

Loafmeister · « **Reply #11 on:** January 14, 2015, 03:11:42 pm »

For uninitiated, these little babies run Visual Pinball with pinmame very well, except for SAM tables, almost all of them work near flawless. Great deal on these, I just wish these came in a 12" tablet at cheap prices too.

Vigo · « **Reply #12 on:** January 14, 2015, 03:14:55 pm »

Now you are getting my brain juices pumping....that might not be a bad project....

deadmoney5 · « **Reply #13 on:** January 14, 2015, 04:22:48 pm »

Quote from: Vigo on January 06, 2015, 01:50:19 am

Buy it. I did. I got a coupon in the mail for $30 for that exact winbook last week. No idea why. Never even heard of Micro Center before that coupon showed up in the mail. Sent the wife over to micro center to pick it up. We both were very skeptical since we already have a couple nasty cheap tablets. We were gonna give it to the toddler for watching movies in the car, and cash in on the 1 year subscription to office365.

Absolute rock solid purchase. What surprised me was the quality of the screen. Actually good resolution and no viewing angle problems. Actually on par with my iPad2 in screen quality. Speed seem fine, but didn't do any benchmarking. touch controls are very receptive. Had to buy a micro HDMI cable, but tried it on the TV, and although the available resolutions were limited, it looked fine. USB keyboard and mouse were no problem. Didn't test bluetooth yet. Not much hard drive, but with a microSD slot, who cares. The big Achilles heel of the tablet is the piss poor battery life. Played about 2 hours of the tiny death star app, and the battery died.

I spent a whole 5 minutes so far trying mame. For some reason, the self extracting 7z file erred out when opening it and I just gave up. I'll try again by extracting on my PC and popping it in via usb drive. I can try mame on it later, but I feel pretty good it would make an awesome tablet for project machines.

microcenter rules...

Locke141 · « **Reply #14 on:** January 15, 2015, 02:13:02 pm »

BorgDog benched this deal on a different thread so I sent a PM to ask if he liked it. My Dad is going to pick it up for me.

yotsuya · « **Reply #15 on:** January 16, 2015, 11:16:39 am »

Wish we had a Microcenter here in the Phoenix area. Seems like they have a lot of great deals that are pickup only.

Vigo · « **Reply #16 on:** January 16, 2015, 11:27:45 am »

I say the same thing about Fry's.

pbj · « **Reply #17 on:** January 16, 2015, 12:07:58 pm »

Quote from: Vigo on January 16, 2015, 11:27:45 am

I say the same thing about Fry's.

Fry's is terrible. I've never encountered so many 'don't give a ---fudgesicle---' employees in one place in my life.

Vigo · « **Reply #18 on:** January 16, 2015, 12:22:46 pm »

I don't go to electronics stores for the employees. I walk in to Best Buy and am approached by an employee every 2 minutes to ask if I need help. Makes me want to carry a fly swatter into the store. I see deals pop up at Fry's that I would just rather order online, but they are in-store only.

BorgDog · « **Reply #19 on:** January 16, 2015, 12:27:34 pm »

Quote from: pbj on January 16, 2015, 12:07:58 pm

Quote from: Vigo on January 16, 2015, 11:27:45 am
I say the same thing about Fry's.

Fry's is terrible. I've never encountered so many 'don't give a ---fudgesicle---' employees in one place in my life.

I secondthird this sentiment. Just trying to buy something and get the hell out of there takes forever.

yotsuya · « **Reply #20 on:** January 16, 2015, 12:56:08 pm »

You guys are doing Fry's wrong.

pbj · « **Reply #21 on:** January 16, 2015, 01:17:55 pm »

Granted, there is a "nicer" Fry's down the street from NASA, but it's still the same crap.

Price match NewEgg? Takes half an hour and they'll chew you out for not asking the right person.

"You should have asked the salesperson in that section to do it."
"Uh, I stood there 15 minutes and didn't see a single employee?"
"We can't print the form here, so you'll have to pay full price and then bring it back here and we'll give you a gift card."
"No gift card, I want a price match. How do you not have a printer IN AN ELECTRONICS STORE?"
"Ok, we can print it, but you really should have done this in that section."

The electronic components section is organized like a bomb went off and someone picked up the pieces and hung them on the nearest hook.

The NASA location does not tell you what the individual items ring up as, and half the time the price on the shelf is cheaper than what the register says. Oh, and there's no screen that you can see the prices ring up. Complain about it? Wait 20 minutes for the manager that will offer you a gift card for the difference.

Locke141 · « **Reply #22 on:** January 18, 2015, 12:19:18 am »

I don't know about Fry's customers service. At least you have the option to go or not. Try doing electronics shopping in Tanzania $$$.

As bad as PBJ make Fry's costumer service sound they can't be much worse then Best Buy. A few years ago my Mom and I wet to best buy to look at dish washer because heres was recalled. We saw a dish washer in the aisle next to a stove. There was a sine that said some % off. When the price came up as the original she asked to speak to a manager, who was a d-bag. He said that the stove was on sale and my mom should have been able to tell because the sine was on the stove, it was on two sided sing and the stove and washer were back to back. The next day I went back with my sister, the stove was gone and t was still on just the washer. I asked a staff member to look up the price and it was now coming up as the sales price. I called costumer service asked to speak to a supervisor and told them I did not appreciate the store manage being disrespectful to my mom then fixing his mistake as soon as we left the store. We ended up getting the sales price and after the recall voucher and all the gift cards she payed something around $200.

Any my Dad got me a Winbook from Microcenter and he will mail it to my Mother in-law to bring over to us.

P.S. I found a utility from Micro tech that flames to clear room on the hard drive of this tablet.
http://www.microcentertech.com/winbook/index.html

HanoiBoi · « **Reply #23 on:** February 20, 2015, 05:44:10 am »

Quote from: Loafmeister on January 14, 2015, 03:11:42 pm

For uninitiated, these little babies run Visual Pinball with pinmame very well, except for SAM tables, almost all of them work near flawless. Great deal on these, I just wish these came in a 12" tablet at cheap prices too.

Loaf, did you do a mini pin setup, or just install to see if it would run? If a setup, did you connect a keyboard decoder for controls, additional monitor or two, etc.? If you attached an additional monitor...did you try that as the playfield monitor?

If you just did an install to test..can VP be played (controlled) with just the touchscreen, or did you need a keyboard to play?

I picked one of these up on 'Zon last week, but I also now see that MicroCenter near me has some listed as Open Box starting at $42. (Considering a lunchtime trek...but it is crazy cold today)

Locke141 · « **Reply #24 on:** February 23, 2015, 02:22:41 pm »

I Just got min this passed weekend and its alright. definitely worth the price. I'll do more testing and post back at some point.

I was playing Ms.pacman on Mame32 .103 and the sound was little slow. Need to try some more games but think it needs an older version versions of mame.

Loafmeister · « **Reply #25 on:** March 08, 2015, 09:16:40 pm »

Quote from: HanoiBoi on February 20, 2015, 05:44:10 am

Quote from: Loafmeister on January 14, 2015, 03:11:42 pm
For uninitiated, these little babies run Visual Pinball with pinmame very well, except for SAM tables, almost all of them work near flawless. Great deal on these, I just wish these came in a 12" tablet at cheap prices too.

Loaf, did you do a mini pin setup, or just install to see if it would run? If a setup, did you connect a keyboard decoder for controls, additional monitor or two, etc.? If you attached an additional monitor...did you try that as the playfield monitor?

If you just did an install to test..can VP be played (controlled) with just the touchscreen, or did you need a keyboard to play?

I picked one of these up on 'Zon last week, but I also now see that MicroCenter near me has some listed as Open Box starting at $42. (Considering a lunchtime trek...but it is crazy cold today)

Sorry for not replying, have not checked this thread not logged in much lately, thanks for the nudge

VP9.9.1 now supports touch screen devices. As long as it's a full blown windows installed, it should work fine. No keyboard required but I getter if you plug in a keyboard, that should be supported as well. I connected no second monitor, I doubt the guts of this is strong enough for that. But as a standalone, it works well, full screen tables look great on it. The is a guy (a Rascal) on Vpuniverse.com who had done some cool mods to FS tables where the backbox is also shown at the same time, they look really good and work well on these small tablets.

HanoiBoi · « **Reply #26 on:** March 13, 2015, 03:31:34 pm »

Thanks Loafmeister. I was successful in getting this to run Visual Pinball 9.2.1 pretty well. Tables can reside on MicroSD of USB drive too. I've not tried tables that show the backglass too. Since this is a 7", it's already small enough. I'm just using cabinet mode and resizing/moving the DMD.

Most tables I've tried play very well, some are very choppy in audio and/or video. I've got a lot to try still.

The only other catch is that I don't think HyperPin has touchscreen capabilities, so I have to open the tables via the editor, (file, open, browse, wait, 'play', repeat for next table).

Anyone aware of a front end for VP that supports touch screen? Or, is it in the works for HyperPin? I searched, but found nothing.

(Thanks PBJ for adding Visual Pinball' to the subject)

Loafmeister · « **Reply #27 on:** March 18, 2015, 09:04:25 am »

I think someone on vpuniverse has either pinballx or hyperpin working on a tablet, search for tablet there to see.

You are way better off trying to get VP9.9.1 working on that tablet, you will get much better performance because of DX9 driver support (surprised you could get touchscreen to work with VP9.2.1 actually). If you tried but got an error, let me know and I'll try and help you get it working.

HanoiBoi · « **Reply #28 on:** March 18, 2015, 10:56:33 am »

Quote from: Loafmeister on March 18, 2015, 09:04:25 am

I think someone on vpuniverse has either pinballx or hyperpin working on a tablet, search for tablet there to see.

You are way better off trying to get VP9.9.1 working on that tablet, you will get much better performance because of DX9 driver support (surprised you could get touchscreen to work with VP9.2.1 actually). If you tried but got an error, let me know and I'll try and help you get it working.

I'll search vpuniverse again, but just to clarify, is that a front end that touchscreen can operate? I know I can install and run Hyperpin, but when I did, I didn't seem to have the ability to move the wheel or select a table using touchscreen.

With regard to 9.2.1, touchscreen works real well. There are no options to nudge, that I'm aware of, but coin, start, plunger, flippers and exit all work well.

So, with just the Winbook storage (no MicroSD or USB) and no front end, I was able to install and play 75+ tables. Now I'm contemplating upgrading to an 8" or 10" and selling this 7" guy. Until I decide, I still want to see what can be done here.

Loafmeister · « **Reply #29 on:** March 22, 2015, 10:12:49 am »

Front end and visual pinball = your prayers are answered

http://www.vpforums.org/index.php?showtopic=30912#entry302349

From the above thread:

release is specifically designed for windows tablets or low powered machines with a new PinballX lite version also included.

The Lite version is specifically compiled to use less code, display and CPU resources and should run easily at full frame rate on low end devices. The Lite version does not support multiple displays.

Low powered devices won't support 1080p videos and downscaled videos are now available on the FTP and via the Game Manager download service. Just select to use the Lite Media in the settings or click the option during install if you have a subscription. It is also recommended to use wheel images no bigger than 320x320 and these are also now available on the FTP and download service.

I have tested the lite version on a couple of Bay Trail Atom tablets and it runs very well with the latest 9 version of Visual Pinball.
The minimum RAM I tested on was 1GB and I don't know how it will run with 512MB.

To exit a table hold down the left corner of the screen for a few seconds then move inwards. In game mode has been removed on the lite version.

PinballX also now supports windows running in portrait mode and resolution switching.

The wheel should also be a little smoother and positioning, scrolling and scaling now uses fractions rather than previously integer.

Video to follow shortly.

pbj · « **Reply #30 on:** March 22, 2015, 11:20:08 am »

$5 says the ball still goes through the flippers

Loafmeister · « **Reply #31 on:** March 23, 2015, 09:31:51 am »

Pay up, that issue was resolved years ago

pbj · « **Reply #32 on:** March 23, 2015, 10:07:07 am »

Quote from: Loafmeister on March 23, 2015, 09:31:51 am

Pay up, that issue was resolved years ago

No, it wasn't.

Loafmeister · « **Reply #33 on:** March 23, 2015, 04:23:24 pm »

Says who? I own a pincab (and two real pins) and I haven't seen that ball-through-flipper issue since before VP9.X. I've been using VP9.9.0 or PHYSMOD (and now VP10) exclusively the past year but even with VP9.1/.2 , I had not seen that issue in years.


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