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 inch 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.
I’m a big fan of portrait-mode thumbing as a keyboard input method. I’ve used it for over 2 years on my Galaxy Tab and it’s been fast enough and easy enough that I’ve posted a large number of blog posts with it. The 10 inch Acer Iconia W510 with it’s light weight and 16:9 format screen offers something close although it’s not perfect. An 8.9 inch Windows 8 tablet might be the way forward due to smaller size and a potential sub 500gm / 1lb weight but for the time being, I’m prepared to accept this over the Galaxy Tab due to having the obvious advantage of having full Windows available if needed.
Here’s a video showing portrait-mode thumbing input that I made this afternoon. The video was made in a lower-quality 4:3 to test video editing on the Acer W510. Rendering speed for a 3.5Mbps output was 2X real-time which is acceptable for short videos. I’ll be testing Windows 8 video editing apps in the near future to see if I can find a process that is a bit easier on the finger too.
Intel CloverTrail is a truly ground-breaking PC platform and the Acer W510 appears, in my 48hrs with it, to offer great ways to enjoy the new features of the platform along with amazing value. At least it does in Europe where the tablet and docking station can be had for €499 inclusive tax. I have the €599 version here which includes 64GB of storage.
I’ve been extremely impressed so far. It’s light enough to use in portrait mode using thumb input, it has battery life that will last you a full 24hrs in consumption scenarios or you can get creative and plug the dock in and work, like I am now, for a good 8hrs non-stop. This is not an ARM-based Windows RT device, this is PC. ‘Post-PC’ needs to be re-thought because the dynamic range of this PC takes it into more scenarios than any computing product before.
After weeks of trying to get hold of a CloverTrail tablet through product managers, PR companies and marketing teams I’ve given up and bitten the bullet and bought one. The Acer W510, with 64GB and dock, will be with me soon and I’m excited to get right into the testing to find out what the platform is capable of.
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.
Just how long have we been waiting for a low-power productive computing platform and an operation system built to go with it? Atom has been around (largely unchanged in it’s CPU architecture) for many years but we’ve been through Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 before the OS finally matured to support touch, pen and mouse computing. UMPC’s won’t be coming soon but if the convertible Windows 8 devices do well, there’s a chance that the screen-sizes will drop.
Last week at IDF I took a look at a few of the convertibles and spent a lot of time learning about the platform and analyzing what could be possible.
The Kupa X11 is a relatively niche Windows tablet PC based on what is the lowest-energy Windows-capable platform there is Intel Oaktrail, the Z670 CPU and GMA600 GPU. With it’s 1366×768 screen, SSD storage, 2Gb of RAM, fingerprint reader, active digitiser layer and fanless design, it stands alone in the market with, as far as I know, no comparison. The model we have here, the Kupa X11 Pro, even comes with 3G. To add to the list of positives, the Kupa X11 also has a huge internal battery that can run it for 10hrs. Just what sort of customer is the Kupa X11 aimed at and how does it perform? Let’s take a closer look.
I’ve done some tests on the Kupa X11 and just like they say, it’s possible to use it for up to 10 hours on battery. It’s impressive but what about getting things done on the Kupa X11? You can have all the battery life in the world but if you can’t use the device, it’s worth nothing.
To test the real-world value of the Kupa X11 in terms of ‘getting things done’ I’ve swapped out my Ultrabook-desktop for the Kupa X11 today and as you can see in the image, I’ve connected an external monitor, keyboard and mouse.
The Kupa X11 runs a single-core 1.5Ghz Intel Atom CPU. It’s about as slow as it gets from Intel but you have to remember we’re talking about a CPU that can go in a phone here! Under Windows 7, the architecture required (USB, PCI, ACPI, display and more) means that you don’t quote get smartphone-like battery life but it’s quite impressive. You also get the advantages of being able to hit the ground running with a very flexible and productive operating system.
Average power usage as I type this, with Chrome (3 tabs), LiveWriter, Live Gallery and perfmon windows running, is 6.3W which is 6-7hrs of usage. I’m using ‘high performance mode’ but the CPU is still down-stepping to try and save power where it can. The Kupa X11 is silent.
This is not a desktop experience I’d like to have every day but I’m getting stuff done and Windows is providing me with all the facilities I need to get to work. Apart from a failed Bluetooth file transfer from a mobile phone, everything has worked smoothly. From plugging in the monitor to connecting a phone via USB to editing this article in the WordPress web interface.
The Kupa as a standalone tablet PC
Unplugging the monitor and working on the Kupa as a standalone PC is a slightly different experience. The 1366×768 resolution helps but font sizes need to be pushed up a bit and that reduces the advantage of the high resolution but here I am, with exactly the same applications running, an average power drain of 5.7W and a touchscreen in front of me that, given the right operating system (I’m talking about Windows 8) could be quite compelling, mobile and productive. Typing away with a few web apps running I’m seeing over 7hrs of battery life.
The question is, could this be better?
1.5Ghz Atom, even when coupled with 2GB of RAM and an SSD, isn’t a fluid experience in Windows 7 and it’s not going to be better in Windows 8 desktop. For my basic Web and typing requirements here it works well once all the apps are up and running but it’s not going to be good enough for, say, a lengthy session of image editing, a 500MB unzip, or some heavy spreadsheet work. Is it going to be good enough for Windows 8 metro though? If it is, the Kupa can then be used in far more scenarios. I suggest it needs to lose 20% of its weight and tidy itself up a bit to become competitive in a mainstream market but as it stands, this 10 inch tablet is going to be a pretty flexible device for pro-mobile types and that’s exactly where Kupa are aiming this. With 3G and a fingerprint reader, it really does embody the requirements of a pro UMPC. Flexible, mobile, productive.
Now that I’ve done some testing with Windows 7, it’s time to load-up Windows 8. Stay tuned.
The Kupa X11 was silent through this hour of testing. Screen brightness was set to half.
