Anyone using an Intel Atom Z2760 powered tablet with Windows 8 and Logos 5?

I have been using Logos 5 with a Dell Latitude 10 tablet, which has the same specs as the Acer W510, the Samsung ATIV SmartPC, ASUS Vivotab Smart, Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet 2, and others, with the Atom Clover Trail chip set.

Logos 5 does run on it. However, it is very slow. And, what is even worse is that Logos 5 is very touch interface unfriendly. In fact, it may be the worst software I have ever tried to use with a touch interface.

This is really unfortunate, because virtually all other office type software works beautifully on these new tablets. Logos is the exception.

If you are going to use Logos on one of these tablets, I suggest you do it with a keyboard and mouse, or as a minimum with an active stylus. (A passive stylus will not be much use.) Why an active stylus? Because then you can take advantage of the hover pop-ups in Logos, similar to when you hover your mouse cursor over hyperlinks.

Highlighting, in particular, is very slow. This is very disappointing to me, since I have typically relied a lot on the highlighting feature of Logos 4 and 5.

Logos does have a Windows 8 app too, which works really well on these tablets. Unfortunately, it is missing many of the features that the iOS and Android versions have. Hopefully, it will get feature parity soon. If that happens, then this would be the way to get around the performance limitations of Logos 5 running in Desktop mode.

Bottom line: Logos 5 is usable on these tablets, but it is slow. It requires patience on your part, and using a keyboard and mouse will improve your experience quite a bit, since Logos 5 is devoid of any touch support.

I already answered the win 8 app question, but regarding highlighting and Logos in general, the biggest problem is there is no right-click menu after selecting text which gives you access to highlighting when using a stylus or your finger. So, you have to have the highlighting tool window open the whole time taking up valuable screen space and generally slowing everything down because it is one more window requiring redrawing by the machine. The only work around at present is to have a keyboard attached so you can use keyboard shortcuts, but that kind of defeats the purpose of using a tablet. :-/

If Logos would add highlighting to the right-click menu it would make the use of a tablet so much more usable, no matter how fast or slow a tablet is at running the Logos software. This is simply a usability issue with pen and touch support in Logos.

I can confirm what pistos says about using a tablet with Atom Z2670 and Logos 5. I have ASUS VivoTab Smart. It is very disappointing that Logos 5 did not support touch interface as the developer preview of Windows 8 has been available since August, 2011. Microsoft Office 2013 provides the model for how the touch interface should work. The ESV Bible app works just like the Office 2013 programs for copy and paste functions. They got it right - now, how about Logos!

I have a co-worker who just purchased the Microsoft Surface Pro with Intel i5 processor. He is a heavy Logos user and plans to use his Surface Pro while traveling. He does have the Digitizer Pen and the addtional functionality of that allows copy and paste. He has also purchased the keyboard cover and bluetooth mouse. However, he also found that using finger touch caused Logos to become unresponsive, just as mine did.

His Surface Pro starts Logos and changes resources faster than my ASUS with Atom processor, but I have worked with Logos on Windows XP that was much slower than my tablet. Logos is quite useable on Atom Z2760. Battery life for the Atom is twice the Surface Pro’s i5. To me, a tablet with the same battery life of my laptop defeats the purpose of using the tablet format. I just hope and pray Logos will soon support the touch capabilities of my tablet. I can still use Xiphos in a pinch. It is much less processor hungry and I can copy and paste from it.

Finally, the Logos app is very basic and can be used as a reader only. Copy and paste function is not found in it either.

Hopefully some kind Logos admin will read through this forum and come up with a full function version on Windows 8 that is efficient and touch friendly soon.

Some quick time results, not at all scientific. But will give you a general idea, perhaps...

Time to launch program: 30 sec

Time to do a Bible search of top Bibles for word, "knowledge": 14 sec

Time to do a Basic search of Library for word, "knowledge": 17 sec

Not bad if you consider the portability and battery life for this little tablet.

Test was run on a Dell Latitude 10, 64gb storage, Logos 5. Timing was done with a stop watch. These are NOT the times reported by Logos for a search.

I hope they fix the Win 8 Pro version and make highlighting work too.

After using the full version of Logos 5 for several weeks now, running under Windows 8 Pro on my Dell Latitude 10 tablet, let me add the following:

After making a few changes to the way I use Logos, the application is now quite functional and I am happy with it. On my desktop computer, I typically have between 15 and 20 windows/tabs open all of the time (several bibles, dictionaries, commentaries, search windows, information window, etc). On my tablet, I run a much simpler layout and it made a big difference in the performance. I usually only have a couple of bible windows, a single commentary window, a single search window, and the highlighting window open. I never have any of the windows open that want to constantly "update" the information in them, like Power Lookup. I have also learned the "timing" of the application, so that I don't push it and expect it to react at the same speed as my desktop computer. By simply being conscientious of the "timing" of the user interface I have improved my overall experience dramatically too. I have even learned to use the application pretty well with "touch" (i.e. using my finger) for everything but selecting text for highlighting and copying. For selecting text, a digitizer pen is still the only practical way to go.

Actually, while Logos 5 can run well on my ASUS VivoTab Smart tablet with Windows 8, the program still does not support the touch functionality. I cannot copy and paste a verse to a blog post for example. I can use the Copy Bible verse tool, but then if I want to quote a paragraph from a book, selecting and copying text is not supported using the touch interface.

A co-worker who has installed Logos 5 on his Android device showed me yesterday that his version had been updated to provide the touch capabilities for copy and paste. It is not available for Windows 8 yet. Nor is it possible in the Logos app found in the App store. The Logos modern app provides a reader for the books in your Logos account, but no other functions - no highlighting, no copy and paste, no note taking.

In a related Logos issue for tablet users: my ASUS VivoTab Smart tablet has a 64 GB solid state drive. Of that amount approximately 40 GB will be available for user programs and documents. Logos can create a space problem on such a small hard drive. Here's how I worked around that:

I first attempted to install Logos on a Sandisk 32 GB microSD card and that worked fine. Logos allowed me to choose where the application would install to. However, in practical use Logos would begin indexing its resources and never finished even over a day and a half. During its indexing time, the tablet was crippled as far as trying to run any other programs. Everything slowed to a crawl. This is normal for Logos indexing on any computer but indexing should finish in a couple of hours at most.

Next I tried locating the resources for Logos on the SD card as this can free up 10-20 GB of space on the hard drive. The Logos forums have instructions for doing that for Logos 5. This is not a supported installation and Logos will not try to fix problems encountered with this installation. I moved the resources - 10 GB - to the SD card and followed the instructions for making a Junction in Windows, which mounts the new location as if it were running from the default location. Logos opened and seemed to be running fine until I started scrolling through books. As soon as Logos needed to read the resource actively while scrolling it crashed. I tried several times with the same result. I had kept the Logos resources on the hard drive for this test, having just renamed the file. I removed the Junction and named the file back to its default name and Logos started running okay again.

I removed Logos resources from the microSD card. I decided to try a different route to freeing up space on my tablet's hard drive. The SD card's description mentioned running apps from it, so I downloaded and installed Portable Apps and portable versions of Firefox, Chrome, Thunderbird, etc. Performance of those programs from the SD card was indistinguishable from running them from the hard drive. I uninstalled all those programs from the tablet hard drive. My Thunderbird profile alone freed up more than 2 GB. I reinstalled Logos to the hard drive using its normal installation locations. After install and some cleanup of temp files and such, I had 12 GB of free space on my hard drive and all the other programs I am used to having ran from the SD card.

Bottom line: Logos does not like running from a non-default location.
Relevant links:
http://community.logos.com/forums/t/3559.aspx
http://wiki.logos.com/Install_in_different_folder_or_drive
http://comptb.cects.com/2268-overview-to-understanding-hard-links-junction-points-and-symbolic-links-in-windows
http://superuser.com/questions/167076/how-can-i-delete-a-symbolic-link

glorybound9 said:

Actually, while Logos 5 can run well on my ASUS VivoTab Smart tablet with Windows 8, the program still does not support the touch functionality. I cannot copy and paste a verse to a blog post for example. I can use the Copy Bible verse tool, but then if I want to quote a paragraph from a book, selecting and copying text is not supported using the touch interface.

A co-worker who has installed Logos 5 on his Android device showed me yesterday that his version had been updated to provide the touch capabilities for copy and paste. It is not available for Windows 8 yet. Nor is it possible in the Logos app found in the App store. The Logos modern app provides a reader for the books in your Logos account, but no other functions - no highlighting, no copy and paste, no note taking.

To clarify what glorybound9 is saying here, he is referring to the Windows 8 modern interface Logos app, not the full version of Logos 5. The full version of Logos 5 running under Windows 8 in desktop mode on a tablet DOES supports copy and paste just like when running on your desktop or laptop computer. There is no functional difference in what Logos 5 does on my tablet and what it does on my desktop computer, other than speed.

One other point of clarification: glorybound9 refers to using a "touch interface" to select for copy and paste. However, you can select and copy and paste just fine with a digitizer pen, which is an option that comes with, or is avaiable, on most of the WIndows 8 tablets. My digitzer pen works great with my tablet and Logos. It has essentially the same functionality that a mouse gives you.

I fear there is a lot of confusion being generated in people not understanding that tere are two very distinct applications being talked about interchangably in these forums. There is the desktop application of Logos, which runs great under Windows 8 desktop mode. There is also the Windows 8 app which runs under the modern interface mode of Windows 8.

Actually, I was referring to the full desktop installation of Logos 5 on a Windows 8 tablet. And the information about installing on a 32 GB microSD card was an attempt to install the full desktop version - or L5 - on the storage device to preserve valuable space on the tablet's hard drive where the operating system is installed.

I find "copy and paste" using my finger does not work in L5. The ASUS ViviTab Smart does not come with a digitizer pen. However, I referred to a co-worker in a previous post who had purchased a Windows 8 Surface Pro which does come with a digitizer pen. Copy and paste and other functions work okay with the digitizer pen. But even on the Surface Pro, my friend could not get "copy and paste" to work using his finger touch.

I referred to another co-worker in my last post who had an Android tablet with Logos installed. I am not familiar with the functionality of that program, but he did say that the "copy and paste" function using finger touch showed up in his Android version after the last update. There does not seem to be an update for Windows 8 L5 for that yet on my ASUS tablet.

I don't find the Windows 8 app store "Logos Bible" app very useful as it is only a reader with no other functions included, i.e., no copy/paste, no highlighting, no notetaking. The ESV Windows 8 app store app does allow copy and paste and functions much better as a reader in general. I recommend it over the Logos "Bible" app.

Everyone has read my posts in and on here and your reply has made me realize I need to abandon all immediate hope that Logos will run properly on a Windows 8.0 Pro Tablet (I want full touch functionality and access to all my books with split screens just like on my windows laptop).  I do not want to use a tablet JUST as a reader!!!!

I will have to settle for using it on my windows laptop and cart it around instead in my home.

Heavy Sigh!

Joshua Lieder said:

Everyone has read my posts in and on here and your reply has made me realize I need to abandon all immediate hope that Logos will run properly on a Windows 8.0 Pro Tablet (I want full touch functionality and access to all my books with split screens just like on my windows laptop).  I do not want to use a tablet JUST as a reader!!!!

I will have to settle for using it on my windows laptop and cart it around instead in my home.

Heavy Sigh!

Joshua,

With all due respect, Logos does run "properly" on a Windows 8 Pro tablet. I have a split screen like you want, access to my all resources and touch functionality. I can scroll through screens with my finger or stylus. To highlight, I have to use a stylus but that is not an issue for me. Actually, I like highlighting with a stylus on the Logos desktop app on my Surface Pro more than on the iOS and Android tablets I have used in the past because there are less steps involved.

Because Logos is a desktop app, the inherent limitations of the desktop impact Logos when viewed on small 10.6" and 11.6" inch screens. The controls are small because the hardware resolution is so high. This is more a criticism of the hardware than Logos. 

It was great reading D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones' sermons on Ephesians from my full Logos installation on my Surface Pro propped up on my seat back tray table on my flight on Tuesday. 

alabama24 said, "My 2 cents? A software program designed for keyboard and mouse will not run well with touch input because it isn't designed for it. One day, Logos probably will have a "touch" version, running a "full version of Logos," designed for tablets"

Your point would be well taken, except for one thing noted in a previous post: Windows 8 Developer Preview was available in September of 2011. Logos 5 was released November, 2013, a few weeks after the final Consumer Release of Windows 8. I, for one, would have thought for the cost of upgrading my Logos program, which is not an insignificant investment, that I would have received a version that worked with the latest Windows operating system and hardware.

There seems to be a lot of enthusiasm among my missionary co-workers to invest in the Microsoft Surface Pro right now. I am asking them to wait. But, I can't blame them for being tired of dragging their 5+ year old Dell/HP, 4-5 lb. laptops to the ends of the earth! We have seen good things in the one Surface Pro already purchased, but the battery life is not good. Intel is promising a new "Haswell" version of the i5 and i7 processors to come out in June. Its power consumption is touted to be half that of current i5/i7 processors which should mean significant gains in battery life. Three people have already opted for ultrabooks which are comparable to the MacBook Air in weight and size. The ultrabooks are only slightly heavier than Surface Pro, have better battery life more storage space and are less costly. Joshua may find one of these will be a better choice as they already will run L5 without any problems.

W8 was available for developers for a long time but there were not any devices available that made it worthwhile to pursue with regard to touch ui. There were some hybrid devices that were very interesting but they didn't present a draw for people the way full on tablets do. And even when the tablets were announced, with their specs, I'm not sure anyone thought they would work as well with Logos as they do. 4 GB RAM? I never suspected it would run Logos as well as it does.

Now we have some tablets (MS Surface Pro & Samsung Smart PC Pro) that have proven themselves capable of running Logos well. If Logos can get something working with the touch ui, I think it's a potentially perfect combo that can draw in a LOT of people. Fully functioning Logos, to go! On an easy to use, take anywhere tablet. Who wouldn't want that? (Apple lovers!) And it's not that far off. Logos really doesn't need a huge amount of work to get there. It's fully functional and only slightly awkward with a digitizer. With a (relatively) little work it will great on any touch screen.

I also suspect from some of the other things I've read that it /may/ be possible to get Logos working on the slower atom tablet, in a limited (but still extremely workable) kiosk-like mode - only allowing one of each resource to be open at once by default (one bible, one passage guide, etc.), reusing the same window when a new resource is opened. Possibly allowing the user to explicitly open add'l windows. IDK. Seems like it might work, but don't know if they will try to pursue it. There are certainly a lot more of those devices moving right now...

I think this is the crux of the discussion. In the near future, there will no longer be a division between Desktop and Tablets. And it will be wise for Logos if they want to be a relevant software company to see this. The division between the two will slowly fade as more and more people get accustomed to switching between a Desktop experience and Tablet experience. 

alabama24 wrote: "I'm not sure of your point. What does that have to do with Logos changing their program to a touch screen based UI? In my opinion, a complete rewrite of the UI should be done for touch interface. It shouldn't look anything like L5 now."

The point is that for two years during development of L5 it was clear the operating system being built for (Windows 8) was changing to a touch ui. The ultrabooks purchased by my co-workers have touch interfaces. They can use L5 as they would on a deskptop or laptop, but not with the touch interface.

Randy Sims wrote: "even when the tablets were announced, with their specs, I'm not sure anyone thought they would work as well with Logos as they do. 4 GB RAM? I never suspected it would run Logos as well as it does."

Randy does make a good point. When I researched tablets for my co-workers, it was very hard to get specs on the Atom processor. And Logos does not guarantee a great experience on 2GB of RAM as many tablets have, including my ASUS VivoTab Smart and pistos' Dell Latitude 10. Plus the tablets were late in coming, none of the manufacturers met their target release dates. I think the fact that L5 can run on a tablet with 2GB of RAM should bring kudos to Microsoft for Windows 8's capabilities. I have already seen Vista capable computers become like new after upgrading to Windows 8.

Randy Sims wrote: "Now we have some tablets (MS Surface Pro & Samsung Smart PC Pro) that have proven themselves capable of running Logos well. If Logos can get something working with the touch ui, I think it's a potentially perfect combo that can draw in a LOT of people. Fully functioning Logos, to go! On an easy to use, take anywhere tablet. Who wouldn't want that?"

It is a very exciting prospect. As I noted in previous post, people want less weight and smaller form factor for traveling, while still having all the capabilities of their old 4-5 lb. Dells/HP laptops. Windows 8 is making that possible. And everyone who has tried the touch interface loves it.

Randy SIms wrote: "it /may/ be possible to get Logos working on the slower atom tablet, in a limited (but still extremely workable) kiosk-like mode - only allowing one of each resource to be open at once by default (one bible, one passage guide, etc.), reusing the same window when a new resource is opened. Possibly allowing the user to explicitly open add'l windows."

Randy, you underestimate the capabilities of the Atom tablets. Despite my griping about the lack of touch friendliness in L5, it does work quite well on my ASUS VivoTab Smart. I have had much more frustration with Logos on Windows XP in terms of slowness and responsiveness. I have five Bibles, two dictionaries, and three books I'm reading open in L5 on ASUS. It is not as quick as running on my Lenovo laptop with i7 and 6 GB of RAM, but it is surprisingly nimble at switching resources and almost instantaneous in looking up words in Strong's or Louw-Nida.

Since I heard from my fellow IT worker that copy/paste function has been added to Logos on Android, I have high hopes that Logos will soon be making my ASUS Windows 8 tablet even more functional.

Randy W. Sims (Shayne) said:

I also suspect from some of the other things I've read that it /may/ be possible to get Logos working on the slower atom tablet, in a limited (but still extremely workable) kiosk-like mode - only allowing one of each resource to be open at once by default (one bible, one passage guide, etc.), reusing the same window when a new resource is opened. Possibly allowing the user to explicitly open add'l windows. IDK. Seems like it might work, but don't know if they will try to pursue it. There are certainly a lot more of those devices moving right now...

Please read previous posts by myself and others in this thread. We have already clearly stated that L5 works just fine on atom tablets with only 2GB ram. This is not a "may" work. It is a definite reality.

The next generation Atom processors are supposed to allow more than 2 GB of RAM (4 GB I think). Whether this will make a difference in running Logos 5 on the desktop remains to be seen. The Surface Pro, with an i5 processor and 4 GB of RAM works really well, so I am hopeful a bump up in RAM with these chips will make it work.

When the price of the Asus VivoTab Smart came down to $449, that was my cue to try it.  It has a Windows Experience Index rating of 3.1, which is better than I expected.  I'm in the process of downloading my resources to it now.  

in addition to the suggestions to improve performance that people have already posted, let me suggest using the Hidden Resources feature to remove resources you don't ever use from your SSD.  It will take an investment in time initially, but it should pay off in faster searches and more free hard drive space.  

Mark, my understanding of the Hide Resources feature is that it hides the resources from view, but it does not really remove them from the device.

I called Logos tech support a couple of month ago asking for how to remove some of these unwanted resources and they told me there was no way to do it. All that I could do is "hide" them, but that would not really remove them from the device. Can you or someone else confirm that the resources are actually removed from the device?

I would love to dump the entire Perseus Collection from my tablet's library, for example. I have no use of any of that on my tablet, and it takes up a huge amount of storage space.