I must be nuts. I’ve just paid 900 Euro for an Atom-based notebook. Or am I?

A few days ago I bought the Samsung ATIV 500T after a disappointing time with the Lenovo Lynx keyboard (of all things Lenovo!) The unboxing went well until I spotted a connectivity problem between the dock and the tablet. I really wasn’t very happy. Today I swapped it out for a new one. I also spotted the 3G version in stock so I end up paying 899 Euro. It’s more expensive than at other retailers too although, for you US people, it’s a business sale which is 19% tax-free here in Germany.

Read the full story

Thanks to guest poster Ef Jay (@efjay01) we’ve got an owner review of the Asus Vivo Tab, the Clovertrail based Windows 8 Tablet.

The Asus Vivo Tab is another entrant in the Clovertrail-powered range of Windows 8 hybrid tablet devices designed to offer an experience that covers productivity use with “legacy” Windows 7 x86 programs and the new Modern style apps from the Windows store while offering the long battery life advantages of ARM devices. I’ve been using it for over a month and here is my review.

Read the full story

Reviewed by Osiris
Many thanks to Osiris for the review which was sent to us a few days ago. Osiris is a Samsung ATIC SmartPC owner and has submitted this review as a guest post.

For the last decade I have had an on-going, on and off again, love-hate relationship with Windows based tablets. Some of these tablets have included and spanned hefty Windows XP tablets, tiny Vista based tablets right through to modern more effective Windows 7 tablets. Despite these varieties and many more shapes and sizes, typically over this time the same limits have persistently dogged these tablets; poor battery life, heavy weight, poor performance and high niche pricing. In many instances the latter two were forgivable; however trying to use a tablet for day to day, study or business purposes with the first two deficiencies makes it an uphill – and often – inconvenient battle. With the advent of Windows 8 another era of hope and optimism dawns over the Windows tablet landscape. Promises of light devices providing all day battery, choices of performance at all levels and a true windows experience in a mobile platform abound. I am familiar with these promises from almost every generation of Windows tablets since their inception, the question is could this year finally be the year it all comes true? The short answer is Yes…but we are still in an era of compromise, this goes for all tablets.Keep that in mind as I will speak more about that at the end although without further delay let’s get into looking at our first Atom clover trail based Windows 8 tablet, the Samsung Smart PC.

Read the full story

At IFA next week. Kupa will be showing the Kupa X11, a 10″ Oaktrail (1.5Ghz Atom) based tablet that is said to offer 10 hours of battery life.

Always suspicious of battery life claims, I checked out the specs and after seeing the huge 54Wh battery am fairly confident that it could indeed reach 10 hours of light usage. The battery doesn’t bring major weight issues either as the product is coming in under 1kg.

Pressure sensitive digitized and 10-point capacitive multi-touch brings the best of pen and touch input options. There’s a hi-res 1366×768 screen and 2GB Ram driven by Windows 7 Pro.

The basic model with 64GB SSD is going to retail for $699 which isn’t bad given the hi-end screen and battery. Adding 3G, GMS and storage up to 128GB takes the price to $999

We’ll keep an eye out for the Kupa X11 at IFA.

http://www.kupaworld.com/en/product/kupaX11

[ Posted via the Galaxy Tab. Ultra-Mobile at IFA 2011. For more IFA coverage, follow me on Twitter. @Chippy ]

The HTC Flyer I ordered on Friday has literally just arrived at the door and Im looking forward to ripping this open and seeing how it compares to the Galaxy Tab which is currently the most popular 7″ tablet on the market and has been a very good companion to me for over 6 months now. Expect an unboxing video soon. The Live Review will be held on Wednesday evening at 2100 CEST (Berlin.)

In terms of features, there are definitely a few to talk about and some that are unique to the Flyer ensuring at least some sales. The #1 feature is the digitizer input layer and active pen that integrates with a special input mode on the Flyer. Annotations and notes.made though this layer can be captured into the Evernote cloud storage, OCR and search application. It’s a well known and well trusted application and the integration will carry a lot of value. I hope a full Evernote license is included for offline notes.

There’s also the 1.5Ghz CPU to consider. It should provide a noticeable jump in performance over the Galaxy Tab.

There are two major issues to consider and either of these could be show-stoppers. Firstly, assuming you want to use a 7″ tablet for pen input (something I’ve never been a big fan of over the years that I’ve been reporting about tablets) you’ve got to remember to take the pen with you. There’s no integrated.storage which is really quite an issue. I’ll have to test that all-important palm rejection too.

Then there’s the price. As i write this, the Flyer 16Gb WiFi version is €499. The Galaxy Tab WiFi is available for €269. This issue will reduce over time as margins reduce but it may never catch up with the price of the Tab due to the screen technology used. You’ve got to be a pen-input fan that remembers to take the pen or someone that really really needs the extra CPU power.

Or are the other features worth considering? It’s true that not many tablets offer video content for download and streaming so HTC Watch will be an important service to check out. If the content and price is good, it’s a great feature. OnLive-CloudGaming is also a feature to check out. Dual-location on-frame buttons (that enable and disable depending on rotation) Skype video and HTC Sense are also unique features.I’ll also be interested in the ‘HD’ video recording  support and other hidden features that are sure to crop up.

On the downside, it looks like there’s no voice stack (I assume that includes SMS, MMS and Video calling (over UMTS) support. Its something I use a lot on the Galaxy Tab thatnks to Multi-SIM. I get the same number on my Tab and my smartphone.

Is there enough to entices people here? As time goes by and the price comes down into the same range as the Galaxy Tab and Acer Iconia Tab A100, I think there will.

Stay tuned here for the unboxing or subscribe to Twitter, RSS Facebook, or YouTube for notifications.