I was a little surprised that ASUS didn’t mention the Transformer Book T200TA in the press event at Computex yesterday but at least it showed-up on the Asus booth today. This 399 Euro 2-in-1 should raise some eyebrows.
Mobilegeeks got hands-on and here’s a round-up of the specifications for you. Video below.
I’m reviewing an 830 gram / 1.83 pound 11.6-inch Core i5 Windows tablet for Notebookcheck.net this week and after 24 hours I’ve got a good feeling for where this HP Pro X2 410 G1 is going. There are some really impressive specs and performance figures here but they’re sitting alongside some fundamental issues. One of those issues always will be an issue and it’s something that also affects the Surface Pro 3 that was launched this week.
Weight. The Pro X2 proves to me once again that large format tablets need to be exceptionally light to be truly useful. Yes, there are some of you out there that have a need for a powerful tablet and I accept that you’re happy with a trade-off, but there’s not many of you – especially when this has a 1366×768 screen, doesn’t lean back far enough in the dock to allow ‘lapping’ (because the tablet weighs too much and it would tip over) has no tablet stand and doesn’t have a digitizer layer. Total weight: 1.6KG.
The really sad thing about this design is that internally it’s looking very good indeed. I’ve just tested the SSD and seen some amazingly good speeds. The speakers are great, the backlight is strong, build quality is good, keyboard is great, there’s a total of 50Wh of battery and that Core i5 (4202Y) is running fanless. This is great electronic engineering. I’ve never had so much fanless PC power in my hand.
HP are pitching this into the business market but I’m struggling to see any major demand for it at the price they’re asking. Over $900 / 900 Euro for a Core i5 with 4GB and 128GB SSD. You can get more power, in less weight, with a recent Ultrabook. Go for a 256GB SSD option on the HP Pro X2 and the Surface Pro 3 looks like a much better option, especially as you get the digitizer and 8GB RAM.
I believe in 2-in-1s. I believe that one day the technology will allow us to build some amazingly light large format mobile screens that have the power of todays mainstream PCs. It might take a next-generation wireless display technology (WiGig is one to watch) or it might take a ‘screen as SoC’ technology to get things slimmed down but the modular approach seems like the sensible option. Right now the 11.6-inch screens are too big for workable 2-in-1s which means that 10-inches is the way to go right now. Truly table-top productive 2-in-1’s may take a few more years.
I’ll be continuing my HP Pro X2 410 G1 testing over the next week and you’ll probably see an overview on the YouTube channel in a day or two. Maybe the performance will win me over. Maybe I’ll find a hot-desk scenario that wins me over. Maybe that battery life (I’m expecting 8hrs of productivity) is the key. Maybe there’s enough in the laptop part (the keyboard sure feels good!) that the tablet part is just a bonus. Maybe the fanless aspect is good enough to make it unique for schools or some vertical that I can’t think of now! We’ll see over the next week but if you have any scenarios you think might work for this, let us know in the comments.
Thx Notebookcheck for allowing me some personal time with the HP Pro X2 410 G1. You can check out their reviews here.
We’ve just spotted the Gigabyte X11 in retail channels and it’s marked up as being available shortly, possibly in 1 week. Pricing is available and full specs and model variants have been listed in Europe.
We’ve pulled together as much as we can find on the Acer Aspire S7, the touchscreen Windows 8 Ultrabook just presented for the first time at Computex.
Acer Aspire S7 11.6″ Information Acer Aspire S7 13.3″ Information
Following up our story last night which looked at the similarity between the Gigabyte X11 and the Mouse Computers Luvbook X, the Gigabyte X11 has finally been revealed as an Ivy Bridge Ultrabook. At 973gm it beast the Luvbook X11 that we still think it is based on by just 5gm. There doesn’t seem to be uch in the way of specifications yet so we wonder if this information is leaked or from a press release.
The processor on the Gigabyte X11 will be revealed in run-up to Computex (3rd or 5th June we hear) but you can expect the Core i5-3317U to be in the line-up somewhere; it appears to be the mainstream choice when it comes to 2nd-Gen Ultrabooks.
The live review and Q&A with the Samsung 900X1B went well on Saturday and we got through the 2 hours without any major issues or showstoppers cropping up. Battery life during the 2 hours was good at a projected 6hrs which included constant Wi-Fi and even some high-performance mode gaming. Wi-Fi, something that’s been highlighted by others as an issue on the 900X1B was stable but in a test across a couple of walls to a remote hotspot we confirmed that the throughput was poor. That’s the only potential issue on the 900X1B, the rest of the device was perfect, as long as you don’t mind those mini and micro ports and adaptors.
The 900X1B looks great, feels solid, performs well, is surprisingly efficient, light, quiet, has an amazing screen and keyboard and with no moving parts is a real contender for an ultra-portable. Only the power adaptor annoys. At 300gm it’s heavier and bigger than it needs to be. You might find a lighter power pack that would be more useful on a day away from the mains power.
The 900X1B is also available with a Core i5 1.6Ghz CPU and 128GB storage for a more carefree user experience and the prices have come down recently although it remains a premium product.
As usual, the live review was captured on video. Quality isn’t exactly HD but if you’re close to buying a Series 9 or considering a UX21, I really recommend watching. In fact, in my opinion, the 900X1B beats the Asus UX21 and is a good contender in the ultra-portable space.
I took a step outside my usual 10 inch, 1KG zone today by buying an 11.6 inch notebook. I explain the reasons in an earlier post so I wont go over it again but suffice to say, there are good reasons for buying it.
I’ll be writing more about the device in relation to the AMD Brazos platform and its suitability for ultra mobile work and I’ll also be covering the device in a video-editing-related post. On that topic though, be aware that the video below was shot on a Nokia N8 phone and edited and rendered on the S205 in 720p
So far I’m impressed with the build quality, screen and keyboard (all very, very important) but not so impressed with the E-350 CPU performance. I expected more.
I’ll be doing more testing over the next few days so watch out for my review notes and impressions soon. In the meantime, enjoy the video.
Lenovo S205 Specifications:
Don’t panic. I’m not changing the scope of UMPCPortal. We remain focused on ultra mobile computing solutions of 10 inch and below with a target weight of 1KG and under. What I did do today though is to go out of that range to buy in an interesting platform and a potential solution for myself. The Lenovo S205 11.6 inch laptop.
The Lenovo S201 is available now and includes the AMD Fusion platform based on the Zacate 1.6Ghz dual-core CPU. I want to get a feel for the performance / watt ratio of the platform and to think about how small a design could be made around this solution.
I’m also taking the next step in my Ultra Mobile Video Editing project for which 1.4KG of video editing solution is actually very lightweight. If I couple this with the new features I have on the Nokia N8, we’re talking about a 1.6KG 720p recording and editing suite. That’s 400gm lighter than my previous camera and netbook solution!
The other reason I bought it is because of my changing requirements. The Samsung Galaxy Tab has taken away all the social media activity I used to do on my netbook. It’s now my first port of call for email, for news updates and even for short-form blogging, image editing and uploads. I rarely use the netbook now so I can afford to think about optimising for the things I really need out of a laptop.
1.4KG is about 200gm more than the average netbook and the increased footprint isn’t going to worry me on the few occasions I am out and about with it. As I mentioned above, in my work at expo’s, conferences and events, I’ll actually be better off if I can slot the N8 in as my video camera.
The cost is interesting too. Last week I was upgrading a €299 Acer Aspire One Netbook with about 120 Euros worth of operating system and RAM enhancements that the Lenovo offers for €399 out-of-the-box!
Today I’ll be unboxing the Lenovo S201 and videoing it with the Nokia N8. I will attempt to edit the 720p video on the Lenovo and you’ll hear fairly soon if it was efficient or simply too slow. Watch out for the video and some first-thoughts later.
Update 1: Rendering out a 720p, 4Mbps video right now and it looks to be using 16.5W (screen-on 30%, wifi on. 14w with radios disabled and screen off ) and taking 4x real time to process. I’m using Windows Live Movie Maker for the first test. Importing 720p into Movie Maker required downconversion for the editing process too. That takes up a long time so i’ll be looking for an alternative software solution that doesn’t have that input conversion stage.
Thanks to Ndevil for the tip on the S201 which was available in my local Conrad Electronics Shop this morning.
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