Didn't we see this atom chip get bested by the arm a15 in the new chromebook? Why would any manufacturer pay more for a lower performing atom chip? Until the latest and greatest atom chip comes out towards the end of 2013 its pretty clear the high end in inexpensive low power chips is going to be held by the a15 architecture.
Haswell's 10W ULV chips will be priced as much as competitors' tablets. And I don't mean just the SoCs, I mean the entire tablet.
I'm sure Haswell will be great, but unless you're willing to fork over >$900 for a tablet, and very few are, it's not going to fly with the public at large. What Intel needs is Bay Trail, not Haswell. By the looks of it, the A15 will be the king throughout most of 2013
I will willingly pay a grand or more for a tablet that rans full win8 at intel core speeds that has 256gb,8-9hrs of batt, high qual/dpi screen, and is thinner/lighter the the surface pro. I think by fall of '13 my device will be ready. Probably several to choose from. There may be an SP by then as well. Current crop looks undercooked to me.
Yes, but mrdude said explicitly, "it's not going to fly with the public at large."
You might be willing to put down $1k late next year for the tablet PC of your dreams, but by then we'll likely be in a world of $100 7" tablets by Google.
$100 vs $1k? Even RT devices will probably be $300-700. Meanwhile, Windows RT offers no benefit over Android besides a useless desktop and sync'ing at the cost of sheer multitude of apps available.
I think I agree with mrdude. Not many people will fork over $1k for a tablet that is like their laptop if they can keep using their current laptop PLUS buy a new $100 tablet every year for 10 years for the same cost of that Surface Pro.
Which means nothing, as these mobile chips are too underpowered to actually run the desktop x86 applications. It will run, just so slow you will throw the device in frustration.
It means a lot to have x86 compatible. Not everyone wants or needs to run photoshop or autocad. But Knowing that your tablet/pc can run stuff like notepad++, chrome, java and flash is A LOT to everyday regular consumer.
My girlfriend uses both ipad and my EeePC from 2 years. Both products has its usage. But with this, she can get rid of those.
Well that would be nice for us tech heads, but opening up WinRT like Win8 brings all of the negatives too. For most of your average users, WinRT is better. You can't take it online, click some ads, and get a nice trojan or two. It's really a good tablet platform overall.
So now we've got the option of some affordable Atom-based Win8 tablets. So you can pick whatever suits your needs more, WinRT (and its restrictive walls and safety) or Win8 (and all the traditional Windows advantages and disadvantages).
> You can't take it online You can stop here, lol. (No browsers, only IE) Kidding. But, actually, you can't get it as easy on x86 Windows too — UAC and other stuff should prevent it. The only thing preventing you from getting the same on RT will be it's lack of popularity for users and, thus, for malware makers. Even WiFi routers suffer from infections (see Psyb0t, Chuck Norris etc.) despite running Linux on MIPS, why would Windows on ARM be any safer?
Every single app you mentioned there runs on ARM (either the full version or a mobile tablet-oriented version) except for notepad++, and the only reason it won't run on ARM is because Microsoft forbids the use of Win32 on RT.
x86 compatibility isn't all its cracked up to be. Most of the software you use on an x86 Linux distribution works just fine on an ARM Linux distribution, including stuff people tend to use on a day to day basis like Chrome or Firefox.
I think you could make a better case for Win32 compatibility, x86 compatibility doesn't mean much for most people.
Consider, for example automotive applications that interface with your car. These are very lightweight and old tech. A laptop in the passenger seat with a TN screen is overly bulky and the crappy screen is a liability. A tablet is a huge improvement in ergonomics.
Applications like that are NEVER getting ported to android or iOS, so x86 compatibility is the only answer. I suspect that there are a number of similar industrial applications. At my work, we have some very lightweight applications at work running homemade VB or .Net applicatoins from 1.6GHz P4 machines. With x86, we could run them, but nothing else will. Some of these were developed to run on a 486 and we still use the basic program to run the equipment.
x86 compatibility is meaningful to people who do actual work with these kinds of devices. Those who treat them like toys? Probably not so much.
It cannot do the same thing that factory diagnostic tools and open source reverse engineered equivalent tools can do (like re-programming the ECU or TCU for your desires). Those tools are specialized by vehicle brand and are (x86) Windows exclusive.
Industrial applications for these kinds of things move at a GLACIAL pace. Less than a decade ago I was regularly using a program that used a *terminal program* to communicate through a serial cable to program the device... It was straight out of the 80s... iOS and Android apps for the stuff that people make money with are not going to spring up overnight.
x86 compatibility is a must for these kinds of applications. They also happen to be applications that are VERY light on hardware, so these kinds of tablets are a good option.
I'm sorry, but you attribute "actually doing work" to "requiring junky legacy apps?" Not every workplace is burdened with those. And most that are depend on the mouse+keyboard interface anyway, so the whole "Win 32' compatibility is irrelevant.
Besides, why did you write homemade VB apps anyway? VB is VB... and .Net shouldn't be that hard to port to a new version (which, obviously, would run on RT).
Of COURSE they run desktop programs. They run Firefox, OpenOffice (and older versions of MS Office you might already own), media tools, IM clients, all SORTS of things that aren't available or even possible on other platforms.
No, it won't reasonably run Skyrim, but there's a ton that it will run.
Personally I think this is pretty awesome...you get a good for the form factor CPU that oh yeah, happens to actually be compatible with what you have, and the price is the same as ARM stuff.
What's bad is the GPU...seems like they have almost a 2009 smartphone GPU in there rather than something more appropriate for 2013...and then there's the issue that metro is locked down, not a real PC...but then that's why you want an x86 tablet to begin with...at least you get the real desktop and in that mode it's a real PC.
So we have windows RT that is optimised both around the ARM cpu's and tablets. There is no old software - everything that you can get for it should both run fine on tegra 3 and work well with a small touch screen. This means stuff should just work well - this is what apple do so well, and MS are trying to emulate.
On the other hand there is full windows. Now the reason to get this not RT is backwards compatibility. Most *old* windows apps require higher performance cpu's (e.g core i3) a big screen, a mouse and a keyboard. They don't use touch at all.
Taking that into account an atom tablet has a screen that's too small, a cpu that's too slow and a bad mouse/keyboard experience - sure you could plug both in but then it's not really a tablet any longer is it? Also all that backward compatibility support uses effectively a different ui - it's not a clean and polished single interface. Stuff won't just work well - the experience won't be as good.
Hence if you want full windows you'd be much better off with a laptop/ultra book - they are still touch screen so you get any touch benefits but they have much faster cpu's, better keyboard, etc.
Not sure where you got that idea from. 99% of windows applications dont hardly use any cpu at all. Check task manager sometime. You will notice that most processes only consume a few seconds of cpu time per hour of system idle time. It is extremely rare for a windows application to peg even one cpu core to 100%.
You that that's a percentage and it depends on what CPU you're looking at right? That's like saying, "Yeah, I never need more than 1% of my horsepower even doing 150mph uphill in a headwind." when you drive a Lamborghini. Try it again in a Honda and you'll not even be able to do it, nevermind 100% usage.
One thing that stood out to me in this article, is the bugs/reboots you encountered. You pretty much blamed them on Win 8, or made it sound that way. Which i thought was unprofessional, especially for you Anand. As theres a very good chance they're to do with a particular app, drivers on this device, or even it's hardware. Win 8 is a very solid stable OS, even more so than Win 7 on release.
True. But hasn't it always been the case that app and driver instability gets fairly or unfairly associated with Windows? At the same time, when things are working well, Microsoft is happy if you think of yourself as enjoying a "Windows" PC or tablet regardless of what particular software or hardware you are using in/on Windows. I guess we'll have to see how common problems are with other CloverTrail tablets. If they show up in CloverTrail tablets from other manufacturers, then even if the underlying OS is stable it still becomes Microsoft's problem if people are having trouble developing reliable apps/drivers/tablet using it.
The issue is these were first party apps developed by MS, and I've seen some evidence of the same on other non-W510 platforms (I just don't remember this being the case with Surface RT but I've been using these x86 platforms longer than I did Surface).
I'm curious to read Vivek's take on the ATIV Smart PC to see if it mirrors my experience.
are the windows x86 drivers for powervr sgx now stable and feature complete? the first batch of reviews for atoms containing these, including the one in anand iirc, complained a lot about the stability of video drivers.
the fact that these crashes are system-wide, would rule out specific applications, but not drivers.
windows 8 by itself, especially on x86 (but maybe even more so for the rt on arm) has been very stable.
MMC is a memory card standard similar to the more common SD; eMMC is just an embedded version. Outside of the embedded world MMC is mostly used to increase the number of supported formats claimed by card readers.
Great! Hope you use a test application which could utilities all of the CPU cores. Kraken is good but not perfect, could Kraken make 100% usage on dual core?
Clover Trail is a failure. It is competitive with Tegra3. Great.
But tegra3 itself is outdated now. Anyone notice that no new top-line smartphone has tegra3. All have Krait4. And will soon have Exynos5.
If all Intel has to show for its efforts is competition with tegra3/A9 , its in some deep shit. The GPU is particulerly shitty. Either Intel need a node shift to 14nm, or a new arch or both.
Clover Trail is just a stop gap. It's using a 5 year old architecture with a GPU that even the iPad 2 from 2 years ago could outperform. I think it's purposefully designed to be cheap.
I'd be far more interested to see what Bay Trail (next-generation Atom) and Haswell (next-generation Core) bring to the table, because at least it will look like Intel is trying.
Also, the reported SunSpider time on the Nexus 10 is only for Chrome. If you were to try any other common browser, like Dolphin, you'd see a SunSpider range in the ~800ms range. Chrome is just poorly optimized for JavaScript for whatever reason.
"Optimizing around 16:9 delivers a much better video viewing and multitasking experience, at the expense of pretty much ruining portrait mode aspirations and making for a slightly awkward in-hand feel."
I'd also like to point out that this is an opinion and not a fact. I, for one, really enjoy using widescreen devices in portrait mode. Do you know just how much of a website is visible that way? A huge amount. It takes a little getting used to, but it is not by any means awkward.
I really like the idea of being able to run any old windows program and then switch back and forth from a modern tablet interface. It just adds so much versatility.
Battery life, performance, price. Pick any two. It's pretty clear that despite the best efforts of Microsoft and Intel that this narrative hasn't changed in the slightest. At $499 this is more expensive than other entry level tablets, the battery life is inferior, and the relative performance is crap.
This device cannot replace my notebook and for a toy device (iPad, Nexus, Tab) I would rather stick with my iPad. I look at this tablet and see the worst of both worlds. Performance is too low to replace my notebook and app selection and battery life are too low to replace my existing tablet. No man's land. What use case would I have to find myself in where this tablet was the solution? I can think of a few fields (medical, dental, outside sales, construction, etc) but most of these are small trades. I see no mass market appeal in this device.
I would also like to know how this tablet performs with an external monitor in a desktop environment. I get the feeling that the GPU will limit this function.
Yeah, that's about what I was worried about with Haswell -- marginally better CPU performance than the Atom we know and hate, and an utter crap GPU. Thanks but no thanks, Intel. If they stuck Brazos in these devices they'd be way more appealing (assuming a similar power-profile).
I'm very interested in getting one of these devices, but Haswell is a no-go, and I'm not sure about something like the Surface Pro. Its specs are great (asides from Intel's crap GPU, again, but at least the HD4000 is passable), but I'm thinking it's going to be too heavy/bulky, too warm, and too noisy (fans) to be something I'd take over a regular laptop.
Hopefully the 2nd gen devices come sooner rather than later, as these 1st gens just aren't cutting it.
Oh don't be an idiot. The numbers are basically that a high-end Atom is about 1.5x the CPU performance (on multithreaded tasks only? not clear from what Anand has given us here) of a high end ARM.
Meanwhile a high-end IB i7 is 5x the performance of a high-end ARM, and Haswell will improve on that. Haswell is a high performance followup to IB, it's not a followup to Atom.
One thing about Windows 8 that continues to bug me is the way that settings are split into two areas. Some settings can be handled from the Start screen, while others take you to the desktop Control Panel. If Microsoft is so keen on this new UI, why not take the entire Control Panel and make it a Modern UI component? I get that they are trying to appeal to touchscreen and desktop users, but merging the settings into one area would help alleviate the schizophrenic feel of the OS a little bit.
This is a great review, especially since I have this exact Acer tablet on the way from Newegg. My hope is that I will spend most of my time in the Modern UI, and occasionally fire up desktop software. I am hoping it will be fast to handle some older games, like Icewind Dale, and some non-CPU intense software, like the Zinio desktop app (where I can access publications that the mobile version cannot access). It's going to be an interesting experiment.
My other concern with this tablet is that it is so new, there is a very limited selection of accessories. Specifically, I am having trouble finding some sort of "gel skin" case for this tablet. There are some generic fold out tablet cases, but those are bulky.
By the way, I had hoped to get an AMD Windows 8 tablet, but where are they? I love AMD, but I have to buy based on my needs and what's available, and right now Intel has the only real x86 solution for Windows 8 tablets.
"The power adapter itself isn’t anything remarkable, however Acer did use a nifty removable plug that easily twists on/off. The W510 only ships with the plug for whatever region you purchased it in so I’m not sure how useful this feature is, but it’s nice to see design innovation from Acer here."
Just for the record, this is not new. Apple's power supplies for MacBooks have done this for, I don't know, 8 years or so. The power supply has a core that is common, and a regional plug that can be slipped on or off. See here: http://eshop.macsales.com/images/Items/APLMA538LLB...
iPad power adapters are the same. iPhone/iPod are not, I expect because they are so small that they are basically the size of the dongle that would plugin to the socket, so modularizing them this way would basically double their size.
I've no idea if this is original to Apple or not, but it's certainly not original to Acer.
I don't think you understand the mechanism. Apple uses a friction fit with a straight downward motion. The connector that Acer uses rotates on, which you can see in the picture the directions to operate. All of the other adapters I've seen (including miscellaneous ones over the years) have been similar to Apple's, usually with a mechanical clip. Acer's method is innovative, but I'm not sure what advantages are offered by it.
It's things like that 11GB recovery partition that show how far MS have to go in the light weight sector. The 13 GB for Windows, which will bloat massively with patches and installs is another example of them playing the wrong game. My windows & folder is a typical 21GB add to that a 11 GB recovery partition and that leaves nothing for user docs or programs on a 32GB model.
It would make more sense to stick the recovery partition on a 16GB USB stick or SD Card and use that to recover the system should the need arise and give back some of the expensive internal storage space to the user.
Windows 8, good first attempt but wait for Windows 9 when they fix all the things they didn't have time for and realise two into one doesn't go.
As a point of comparison, the OSX recovery partition is 650MB in size.
Now it it possible that the Win8 recovery partition does more (as opposed to "has more to do [because there are more things that can go wrong]"; I'd be interested in an informed comparison of the two, and a dissection of just what is taking up all that space.
Is it sheer incompetence (for example including 64 bit binaries on a 32bit system)? Is it including every human language on earth? Is it because no-one bothered to make an effort to include only the bare minimum OS+support frameworks (as opposed to including the AV subsystem, and .NET, and fifteen ways to talk to a database, and support for MS Office, etc etc etc)?
They do need to do something about the humungous recovery partition, but... you can put the recovery partition on a thumb drive or other removable media and free up that 11GB, if I'm not mistaken.
The recovery partition has tools that can do a bunch of things, for example run a fsck on the boot drive. If your problem is the sort of thing that can be fixed by fsck, ie some localized damage to the file system, then you will not need the internet connection.
You will need it (sortof) if you want to reinstall the OS.
If MS have the entire OS in their recovery partition, the size makes more sense, but seems more than a little foolish --- wasting so much fast expensive flash when you could ship a cheap USB stick.
In the case of Apple, it is fairly trivial when you first download/install Lion or Mountain Lion to burn a copy to a USB stick, and to use that copy if you don't have an internet connection (or have a slow connection, or pay per MB downloaded, or whatever). I do think it's less than ideal that they don't include a USB stick of the OS with new machines (they did with the first few iterations of MacBook Air), but it's possible that their numbers tell them that pretty much no-one ever needs to reinstall the OS --- the tools of the recovery partition are acceptable for pretty much all problems. Certainly in my experience that's been true, for both my and friend's machines. I have no comparable experience with Windows.
Microcenter has the 32GB model on sale for $399, so I took a chance. Your review pretty much matches my conclusions as well. It's generally a nice device, CPU performance is good, etc. The major disappointment for me was terrible game performance. I had lag and choppiness playing Solitaire! In late 2012?! I want to like Windows 8, but to have a card game take up almost 100MB of precious eMMC capacity is just sad. Until storage default size balloons significantly, it's hard to get on board with MS right now.
Another thing MS needs to work on is the keyboard auto-correct, or the lack of it. The onscreen keyboard offers no assistance, and text selection is a nightmare. In IE, I could never select text, as double tapping just kept zooming in and out. It was quite frustrating.
I found the camera and its respective app to be horrible. Not just bad, unuseable bad.
I really really wanted to like the W510, but I ended up exchanging it for a Transformer Infinity. I am much happier with it.
As far as the text selection thing goes, if it's anything like Windows Phone, you don't double-tap to select things (as you noticed, that zooms). You long-press instead. It's a little odd if you're in the habit of double-tapping from iOS/Android, but it works just fine for me on my Windows Phone.
Could we get some comments how does it work as a tablet?
Does Metro menu work efficient? Is on-screen keyboard usable? Has it sensors like accelerator, compass, GPS? Does it switch to portrait mode automatically? Any peculiarity with Metro in portrait mode? Is it usable outdoor? Is SD memory usable?
Thanks for review and benchmarks but I feel like I got more questions than answers ;)
Supposedly the WiFi problems aren't restricted to the Acer W510 and Intel admitted there's an issue with the Samsung PC 500T.
Are these the same problems you're encountering? It sounds like some users have had similar issues as well.
That brand new Clover Trail SoC already looks dated :D Matches up nicely with the Tegra 3, but if I can buy a Google Nexus 7 for less than half the price of this Acer, and get better performance at that, it really shows just how out of touch both Intel and MS are in the mobile space where tablets are concerned.
Really, even if the performance is not very good, you can run anything, ANYTHING! Forget the tablets, I would not trade a x86 tablet in the present for an Ipad 15 coming from the future in a time traveler's bag with 30x more horsepower, unless you could run some virtual machine able to emulated a complete x86 machine. There is simply nothing to complain about this device.
You do have a point, in that sure, the iPadWhatever has an impressive SoC, particularly the GPU. But... so what? What can you do with it? Play some "meh" mobile games?
Still, I'd like to see an x86 Win8 tablet with something better than a rehashed Atom attached to a dismal GPU.
I should add, I'd like to see that in a truly mobile tablet, not a big, battery-chugging monolith as the Surface Pro is likely to be (much as it may be appealing otherwise).
I sampled the 32GB version not long ago.There was no recovery partition (they give you 4 DVDs), but when it's all said and done, about half the space is consumed by the base install. Once you add a modest selection of media and a few MS apps (which can be rather large), you are looking at a few GB of free space remaining.
Do people really need the installed paid for versions of office? The free online web apps are completely amazing. Way way better than google docs... They are just about full versions of office. Only thing I could think of is for airplane trips
Only the RT version has Office included by default, and it's the more basic Home and Student 2013 RT version, regular W8 depends on the system maker as to whether a copy of Office will be included or not... Like, I believe, Lenovo offers full Office with the Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet 2 for example.
RT though is a bit stripped down from W8 and so is a bit smaller install than regular W8/Pro, even with Office included.
Regular W8 tablets though are suppose to start with 64GB drives, they just offer 32GB for lower entry price point and it's only the RT tablets that are suppose to start with 32GB.
This is mainly due to the pricing structure used by most tablet makers, most charge for capacity even though the actual capacity doesn't cost the price difference. Like the $249 Nexus 7 doesn't cost $50 more than the $199 Nexus 7 to add that extra capacity, but this is how they improve their profit margins when offering higher specs and can afford to lower profit margins for the lower spec versions.
All Windows tablets though should offer Micro/SD, though for now you can't install apps anywhere but the main drive but you can put just about everything else on the memory card for extra capacity.
While higher end tablets should offer drives up to 128GB and some will offer hard drives in the docks, like the Asus Vivo Book has a 500GB HDD in the keyboard dock.
So this is what it's like to depend on far flung "OEMs" to build a product that will attract an audience.
MS is depending on OEMs who use weak drivers resulting in poor user experience and that build substandard hardware.
Just like with Android, Samsung will be the only OEM to step up to the plate and dedicate the resources to compete in the big leagues. It won't be Acer and it won't be the commoditizers at HP or DELL (parts bin assemblers).
Weak drivers are a issue, but Intel will be moving back to a GMA based on their own technology instead of Imagination's with the 22nm ATOM updates.
There may still be some driver issues but support for their own hardware is much better and we'll see a return of full 64bit and Linux support.
The actual GMA is suppose to be based on the Ivy Bridge HD4000, just scaled down from 16 execution units to 4, and that should mean better developed drivers from the start as well.
It'll just be either late Q3 or around Q4 2013 until we see products based on the update start to come out.
Great- warm and toasty over my i7-3770. In the drawer, there is an iPad3 and a Kindle Fire. They are nice to play with for a short while, but I am now back to my 24" IPS and keyboards.
And here's the alternate scenario: I'm on my iPad1 At my parents' house, and after the second day of regular use I'm still at 42% battery life, and I'm doing the same thing as you, commenting on a forum.
Is it slow as heck? Yes. Is it useful for a whole lot besides for web surfing, videos, and short writing like this? No, not really. Is web surfing, videos, and short writing like this a significant portion of my daily web life? Yes. Do I appreciate the fact that I can get two and a half days of usable battery life in a package about half the weight of an ultrabook? Absolutely. Have regretted I buying and using this for the past two and a half years? Aside from abysmal resale value, not at all.
My Mac Pro doesn't get much use besides for Netflix watching on my TV, so for my usage scenario, I'm cool with a tablet. I'll throw in shipping cost if you want to send me your iPad3 though, I'll give it a good home.
Hey! Good article. Just wanted to say that the charger connector is pretty much similar (the same?) my Travelmate 8172 has (just in white whereas mine is in black). On that charger, I can use it to set the orientation of the charger, it helps in crowded sockets. And guess it might save Acer a few cents of cost. Anyway, I like it a lot. :D
I noticed serious differences in user experience between Win8 tablets bought at MS retail store and elsewhere. Anand went for the worst possible scenario and got tablet stuffed with crapware instead of buying a tablet at MS store, online or retail, WITHOUT any crapware. Guys, PLEASE bear this in mind when reading this review. THIS REVIEW IS NOT, I EMPHASIZE THIS AGAIN - _NOT_ REFLECTING REAL END USER EXPERIENCE AS ENVISIONED BY MICROSOFT. In other words, standard stores AT buys its review hardware from and MS stores are DIFFERENT things.
Please, KEEP this in mind when reading this review. It is VERY likely that you will see quite a difference between experiences using two same tablets bought in different stores, MS and non-MS one. I've seen it by own eyes when for example comparing how responsive the OS is, and how stylus works on ATIV Smart PC bought on Amazon versus the one bought in MS online store.
In the end, if you buy hardware not in MS store and see some issues - quite likely it is now YOUR issue, not Microsoft's. MS is offering people retail and online stores to buy clean reliable crapware-free Windows hardware. If you buy elsewhere - you must be dumb. End of story.
Anand, please consider what I said above. I am serious, no trolling or anything here. You are one of the best tech reviewers on the net. You should strive for better, so please think again where are you buying your review units in the future. PLEASE. Thank you.
I don't believe I am even dignifying your comment by commenting on my own. Firstly, I didn't find an online MS store that would sell me a W510 in Germany. Amazon.de has that. Secondly, you say it is all worse, yet you only talk about crapware, which Anand mentions in a few paragraphs but has no bearing on his conclusion or any of the real numbers (performance, battery life...). So your post screams either "bought" or "troll" to me.
Ive just had confirmed that the first batch of Acer W510 optional Keyboard docks have a faulty touchpad which is fixable by any Acer service centre. All new batches from Acer have this now fixed. Also, if you have one of the original first production W510, make sure you update the BIOS which is available on the Acer website.
And yet again Intel fail to deliver a quality GPU driver for PowerVR series hardware, how many times will customers be forced to put up with this mess?
The reason why a Tegra 3 is more responsive is that at least Nvidia know how to write a driver that isn't a buggy mess, even the fact that Clover Trail is x86 means little at this level of dire performance, what the hell are you going to run on it that you can't already do on a WinRT platform?
Dear Anand I know it has been already already debated, but measurement units are quite inconsistent in Anandtech's articles. Sometimes they report both Celsius and Fahrenheit for temperatures, as well as inches and millimeters for length measurements, in this case we see imperial units for dimensions and weight comparision, dock and tablet weight in grams, millimeters for keyboard keys. Of course it's perfectly fine to express display size, or storage unit size in inches as it is the de-facto standard.
Is it possible to have International system of units on all articles? Not only for the international visitors I'm sure Anandtech has, but also because this is technology website, which I think it could be considered as science. And scientists use metrical units, including NASA ones. You remember what happened to the Mars Climate Orbiter, right?
Apart this, keep up the good work guys! And Merry Christmas to all!
Yes, though AMD is releasing the Z-60 Hondo as a stop gap for now. Being a slight update to the previous Z-01 Desna, which itself was just a more power optimized version of the C-50 Ontario.
2013 though will see AMD's 28nm updates, with the newer Jaguar CPU cores.
Specifically, for tablets, the upcoming 2W max TDP SoC AMD Tamesh will be their first serious entry into the tablet market and we'll see then how they compare.
For now, the Hondo is at least a option for those who don't mind limited run time but want 3x better graphics than Clover Trail, which also puts it above Tegra 3 graphical performance, and full 64bit and better Linux support.
At 1GHz though, don't expect better CPU performance...
i think all these windows 8 tablet/notebook thingies will be a huge fail. carrying something with all these parts isnt more convenient that just using different devices or using chromeos and doing things in the cloud. atom is a seriously damaged brand name because of low performance and this new stuff doesnt change that. finally the prices for stuff like this are ridiculous. were used to paying $350 for laptops, we arent going to pay $600 for stuff a tenth as good
First, there aren't that many parts and overall it is more convenient to carry one device than multiple... especially, if your actual usage favors tablet usage most of the time.
Second, people have being paying such prices for iPads for years, a lot more when you consider the cost of peripherals, and ARM has only recently gotten around the performance range of a ATOM!
Tablets are typically higher priced than laptops, though Ultrabooks puts a premium that lessens the difference a bit.
People though have and will pay for the convenience of mobility, which laptops can only be considered to be portable but not truly mobile. While tablets can provide mobile usage, along with hybrids and other solutions retaining most, if not all, of the benefits of laptops as well.
It's just that there's always compromise when going smaller and lighter, and no solution is perfect for everyone! Along with it yet being determined what size the actual market will be, as these are first gen Windows based devices and many are just waiting for the pro and second gen products.
So it's comparing apples to oranges with tablets and laptops, different solution for people with different needs!
Btw, even Chromebooks require a certain level of performance. Cloud doesn't run everything and you can't always have a high speed connection, which is one of the reasons why Chrome OS has a native client and support for hardware acceleration!
The Cloud isn't that reliable yet either and not everything can be replaced by Cloud apps yet. Though such services are getting better and help alleviate the limitations of these mobile devices.
I don't really understand all the negativity towards Win RT and the Surface RT in particular. We have an iPad3, a nexus 7, and now a surface RT in our house. Hands down I like my Surface RT the best. It is by far the best of all in terms of productivity. I like the OS a lot. Its stable, responsive, and a pleasure to use. I like the touch cover a lot. I can type well enough on it to be useful without being a hassle to lug around. I have never experienced lag with it yet. Could MS improve the Surface? Of course. A higher DPI screen would be nice. A faster CPU is always nice. A lower price would be nice. Still despite all of this I still find this the most useful tablet I have used. As far as the paucity of apps goes, I think having half a million apps in your app store means a LOT of redundancy. MS is missing some key apps for me unfortunately which means I can't go to Win8 phone yet but as long as they keep adding quality apps I think this is the platform for me going forward.
What a marvelous tablet. I use this device for all of my graphic design endeavors. Sending my sketches to clients is so fast with AT&T's 4G LTE (available here in San Francisco)!
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jeffkro - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Didn't we see this atom chip get bested by the arm a15 in the new chromebook? Why would any manufacturer pay more for a lower performing atom chip? Until the latest and greatest atom chip comes out towards the end of 2013 its pretty clear the high end in inexpensive low power chips is going to be held by the a15 architecture.jeffkro - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
I think phone and tablet devices based on the tegra 4 are going to be the gold standard for 2013.hrrmph - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
How about:- Tegra 4 on the phone; and
- Haswell on tablets?
mrdude - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Haswell's 10W ULV chips will be priced as much as competitors' tablets. And I don't mean just the SoCs, I mean the entire tablet.I'm sure Haswell will be great, but unless you're willing to fork over >$900 for a tablet, and very few are, it's not going to fly with the public at large. What Intel needs is Bay Trail, not Haswell. By the looks of it, the A15 will be the king throughout most of 2013
semiconshawn - Friday, December 21, 2012 - link
I will willingly pay a grand or more for a tablet that rans full win8 at intel core speeds that has 256gb,8-9hrs of batt, high qual/dpi screen, and is thinner/lighter the the surface pro. I think by fall of '13 my device will be ready. Probably several to choose from. There may be an SP by then as well. Current crop looks undercooked to me.HisDivineOrder - Saturday, December 22, 2012 - link
Yes, but mrdude said explicitly, "it's not going to fly with the public at large."You might be willing to put down $1k late next year for the tablet PC of your dreams, but by then we'll likely be in a world of $100 7" tablets by Google.
$100 vs $1k? Even RT devices will probably be $300-700. Meanwhile, Windows RT offers no benefit over Android besides a useless desktop and sync'ing at the cost of sheer multitude of apps available.
I think I agree with mrdude. Not many people will fork over $1k for a tablet that is like their laptop if they can keep using their current laptop PLUS buy a new $100 tablet every year for 10 years for the same cost of that Surface Pro.
nofumble62 - Friday, December 21, 2012 - link
Tegra4 has a bunch of new graphic cores. Since it uses same 28nm process, I wonder how fast it sucks down the battery.Lonyo - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Last I checked, ARM doesn't have any backwards compatibility with almost the entire library of x86 Windows applications.mayankleoboy1 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Which means nothing, as these mobile chips are too underpowered to actually run the desktop x86 applications. It will run, just so slow you will throw the device in frustration.amdwilliam1985 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
It means a lot to have x86 compatible.Not everyone wants or needs to run photoshop or autocad.
But Knowing that your tablet/pc can run stuff like notepad++, chrome, java and flash is A LOT to everyday regular consumer.
My girlfriend uses both ipad and my EeePC from 2 years. Both products has its usage. But with this, she can get rid of those.
BSMonitor - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
ExactlyNot everyone runs only prepackaged software from Best Buy.
I can write programs in Visual Studio very easily on the PC. With no recompiles, emulators, etc, I can also run that program on the x86 tablets.
Guspaz - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
That has nothing to do with x86 compatibility and everything to do with Win32 compatibility, and that's all on Microsoft.If Microsoft had not prevented third-party apps from using Win32 on RT devices, you'd be able to recompile most apps with no code changes for ARM.
Alexvrb - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Well that would be nice for us tech heads, but opening up WinRT like Win8 brings all of the negatives too. For most of your average users, WinRT is better. You can't take it online, click some ads, and get a nice trojan or two. It's really a good tablet platform overall.So now we've got the option of some affordable Atom-based Win8 tablets. So you can pick whatever suits your needs more, WinRT (and its restrictive walls and safety) or Win8 (and all the traditional Windows advantages and disadvantages).
Chamie - Tuesday, March 5, 2013 - link
> You can't take it onlineYou can stop here, lol. (No browsers, only IE) Kidding.
But, actually, you can't get it as easy on x86 Windows too — UAC and other stuff should prevent it. The only thing preventing you from getting the same on RT will be it's lack of popularity for users and, thus, for malware makers. Even WiFi routers suffer from infections (see Psyb0t, Chuck Norris etc.) despite running Linux on MIPS, why would Windows on ARM be any safer?
Guspaz - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Every single app you mentioned there runs on ARM (either the full version or a mobile tablet-oriented version) except for notepad++, and the only reason it won't run on ARM is because Microsoft forbids the use of Win32 on RT.x86 compatibility isn't all its cracked up to be. Most of the software you use on an x86 Linux distribution works just fine on an ARM Linux distribution, including stuff people tend to use on a day to day basis like Chrome or Firefox.
I think you could make a better case for Win32 compatibility, x86 compatibility doesn't mean much for most people.
SM123456 - Wednesday, February 13, 2013 - link
But this netbook costs $600. Ridiculous!Concillian - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Depends entirely on what you want to run.Consider, for example automotive applications that interface with your car. These are very lightweight and old tech. A laptop in the passenger seat with a TN screen is overly bulky and the crappy screen is a liability. A tablet is a huge improvement in ergonomics.
Applications like that are NEVER getting ported to android or iOS, so x86 compatibility is the only answer. I suspect that there are a number of similar industrial applications. At my work, we have some very lightweight applications at work running homemade VB or .Net applicatoins from 1.6GHz P4 machines. With x86, we could run them, but nothing else will. Some of these were developed to run on a 486 and we still use the basic program to run the equipment.
x86 compatibility is meaningful to people who do actual work with these kinds of devices. Those who treat them like toys? Probably not so much.
Slaimus - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
There are many such apps for iOS and Android. They interface with a bluetooth OBD transmitter and you can wirelessly view real time information. See: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org....Concillian - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
I know of and have used Torque. It's a toy.It cannot do the same thing that factory diagnostic tools and open source reverse engineered equivalent tools can do (like re-programming the ECU or TCU for your desires). Those tools are specialized by vehicle brand and are (x86) Windows exclusive.
Industrial applications for these kinds of things move at a GLACIAL pace. Less than a decade ago I was regularly using a program that used a *terminal program* to communicate through a serial cable to program the device... It was straight out of the 80s... iOS and Android apps for the stuff that people make money with are not going to spring up overnight.
x86 compatibility is a must for these kinds of applications. They also happen to be applications that are VERY light on hardware, so these kinds of tablets are a good option.
lmcd - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
I'm sorry, but you attribute "actually doing work" to "requiring junky legacy apps?" Not every workplace is burdened with those. And most that are depend on the mouse+keyboard interface anyway, so the whole "Win 32' compatibility is irrelevant.Besides, why did you write homemade VB apps anyway? VB is VB... and .Net shouldn't be that hard to port to a new version (which, obviously, would run on RT).
strangis - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
"Which means nothing, as these mobile chips are too underpowered to actually run the desktop x86 applications"My ATIV 500 painting an 11x17 300dpi multilayer image in Sketchbook Pro with the active digitizer smoothly disagrees with your assumption.
Just saying.
Wolfpup - Thursday, January 3, 2013 - link
Of COURSE they run desktop programs. They run Firefox, OpenOffice (and older versions of MS Office you might already own), media tools, IM clients, all SORTS of things that aren't available or even possible on other platforms.No, it won't reasonably run Skyrim, but there's a ton that it will run.
Personally I think this is pretty awesome...you get a good for the form factor CPU that oh yeah, happens to actually be compatible with what you have, and the price is the same as ARM stuff.
What's bad is the GPU...seems like they have almost a 2009 smartphone GPU in there rather than something more appropriate for 2013...and then there's the issue that metro is locked down, not a real PC...but then that's why you want an x86 tablet to begin with...at least you get the real desktop and in that mode it's a real PC.
jeffkro - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Basically for tablets and phones I prefer the android "library" so intel/windows really isn't for me anyways.SM123456 - Wednesday, February 13, 2013 - link
Yes, but Microsoft has to use a x86 CPU if they are to be able run Windows apps.Basically this device and all other Windows 8 tablets under $600 are grossly overpriced netbooks with touch added and a keyboard taken away.
The $199 Acer C7 Chromebook with its 1.1 GHz dual core Celeron processor is at least twice as fast as this thing.
Dribble - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
So we have windows RT that is optimised both around the ARM cpu's and tablets. There is no old software - everything that you can get for it should both run fine on tegra 3 and work well with a small touch screen. This means stuff should just work well - this is what apple do so well, and MS are trying to emulate.On the other hand there is full windows. Now the reason to get this not RT is backwards compatibility. Most *old* windows apps require higher performance cpu's (e.g core i3) a big screen, a mouse and a keyboard. They don't use touch at all.
Taking that into account an atom tablet has a screen that's too small, a cpu that's too slow and a bad mouse/keyboard experience - sure you could plug both in but then it's not really a tablet any longer is it? Also all that backward compatibility support uses effectively a different ui - it's not a clean and polished single interface. Stuff won't just work well - the experience won't be as good.
Hence if you want full windows you'd be much better off with a laptop/ultra book - they are still touch screen so you get any touch benefits but they have much faster cpu's, better keyboard, etc.
Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Not sure where you got that idea from. 99% of windows applications dont hardly use any cpu at all. Check task manager sometime. You will notice that most processes only consume a few seconds of cpu time per hour of system idle time. It is extremely rare for a windows application to peg even one cpu core to 100%.freedom4556 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
You that that's a percentage and it depends on what CPU you're looking at right? That's like saying, "Yeah, I never need more than 1% of my horsepower even doing 150mph uphill in a headwind." when you drive a Lamborghini. Try it again in a Honda and you'll not even be able to do it, nevermind 100% usage.Do you have an i7 or an Atom?
B3an - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
One thing that stood out to me in this article, is the bugs/reboots you encountered. You pretty much blamed them on Win 8, or made it sound that way. Which i thought was unprofessional, especially for you Anand. As theres a very good chance they're to do with a particular app, drivers on this device, or even it's hardware. Win 8 is a very solid stable OS, even more so than Win 7 on release.ltcommanderdata - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
True. But hasn't it always been the case that app and driver instability gets fairly or unfairly associated with Windows? At the same time, when things are working well, Microsoft is happy if you think of yourself as enjoying a "Windows" PC or tablet regardless of what particular software or hardware you are using in/on Windows. I guess we'll have to see how common problems are with other CloverTrail tablets. If they show up in CloverTrail tablets from other manufacturers, then even if the underlying OS is stable it still becomes Microsoft's problem if people are having trouble developing reliable apps/drivers/tablet using it.Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
The issue is these were first party apps developed by MS, and I've seen some evidence of the same on other non-W510 platforms (I just don't remember this being the case with Surface RT but I've been using these x86 platforms longer than I did Surface).I'm curious to read Vivek's take on the ATIV Smart PC to see if it mirrors my experience.
Take care,
Anand
londiste - Friday, December 21, 2012 - link
are the windows x86 drivers for powervr sgx now stable and feature complete? the first batch of reviews for atoms containing these, including the one in anand iirc, complained a lot about the stability of video drivers.the fact that these crashes are system-wide, would rule out specific applications, but not drivers.
windows 8 by itself, especially on x86 (but maybe even more so for the rt on arm) has been very stable.
MFK - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Can we get a detailed write up of how eMMC differs from SATA?I'd be very interested in reading Anandtechs analysis on the differences between them.
It just seems to be the very prevalent now with smartphones and Atom tablets both using it.
DanNeely - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
MMC is a memory card standard similar to the more common SD; eMMC is just an embedded version. Outside of the embedded world MMC is mostly used to increase the number of supported formats claimed by card readers.tempestglen - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6330/the-iphone-5-re...I am very curious about the Z2760 electricity consumption when running kraken.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Working on something even cooler, give me a few days... :)Take care,
Anand
tempestglen - Friday, December 21, 2012 - link
Great! Hope you use a test application which could utilities all of the CPU cores. Kraken is good but not perfect, could Kraken make 100% usage on dual core?DanNeely - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Could you add dimensions for the combined tablet + dock?mayankleoboy1 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Clover Trail is a failure. It is competitive with Tegra3. Great.But tegra3 itself is outdated now. Anyone notice that no new top-line smartphone has tegra3. All have Krait4. And will soon have Exynos5.
If all Intel has to show for its efforts is competition with tegra3/A9 , its in some deep shit.
The GPU is particulerly shitty. Either Intel need a node shift to 14nm, or a new arch or both.
jhoff80 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Maybe I'm being naive, but it sounds like Bay Trail will be exactly that new architecture for Atom that Intel needs.jeffkibuule - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Clover Trail is just a stop gap. It's using a 5 year old architecture with a GPU that even the iPad 2 from 2 years ago could outperform. I think it's purposefully designed to be cheap.I'd be far more interested to see what Bay Trail (next-generation Atom) and Haswell (next-generation Core) bring to the table, because at least it will look like Intel is trying.
coder543 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Nexus 10 starting price is $399, not $499.Please fix.
coder543 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Also, the reported SunSpider time on the Nexus 10 is only for Chrome. If you were to try any other common browser, like Dolphin, you'd see a SunSpider range in the ~800ms range. Chrome is just poorly optimized for JavaScript for whatever reason.jeffkibuule - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
I think the problem is that Chrome just isn't optimized at all compared to the stock Android browser on non-Google phones.Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Fixed, thank you!coder543 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
"Optimizing around 16:9 delivers a much better video viewing and multitasking experience, at the expense of pretty much ruining portrait mode aspirations and making for a slightly awkward in-hand feel."I'd also like to point out that this is an opinion and not a fact. I, for one, really enjoy using widescreen devices in portrait mode. Do you know just how much of a website is visible that way? A huge amount. It takes a little getting used to, but it is not by any means awkward.
Poopship - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
I really like the idea of being able to run any old windows program and then switch back and forth from a modern tablet interface. It just adds so much versatility.Too bad about the gpu though.
nswalls - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
what breed of dog is that in the video?ojingoh - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Looks like a red heeler, a type of Australian Cattle Dog.nswalls - Friday, December 21, 2012 - link
thanks!tayb - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Battery life, performance, price. Pick any two. It's pretty clear that despite the best efforts of Microsoft and Intel that this narrative hasn't changed in the slightest. At $499 this is more expensive than other entry level tablets, the battery life is inferior, and the relative performance is crap.This device cannot replace my notebook and for a toy device (iPad, Nexus, Tab) I would rather stick with my iPad. I look at this tablet and see the worst of both worlds. Performance is too low to replace my notebook and app selection and battery life are too low to replace my existing tablet. No man's land. What use case would I have to find myself in where this tablet was the solution? I can think of a few fields (medical, dental, outside sales, construction, etc) but most of these are small trades. I see no mass market appeal in this device.
DaveSimmons - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
If you get a chance could you test the Netflix performance, both on the screen and through the HDMI?fredbloggs73 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
I would also like to know how this tablet performs with an external monitor in a desktop environment. I get the feeling that the GPU will limit this function.unrulycow - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
The table on the first page should be changed to reflect the fact that the Nexus 10 starts at $399, not $499Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Fixed!kyuu - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Yeah, that's about what I was worried about with Haswell -- marginally better CPU performance than the Atom we know and hate, and an utter crap GPU. Thanks but no thanks, Intel. If they stuck Brazos in these devices they'd be way more appealing (assuming a similar power-profile).I'm very interested in getting one of these devices, but Haswell is a no-go, and I'm not sure about something like the Surface Pro. Its specs are great (asides from Intel's crap GPU, again, but at least the HD4000 is passable), but I'm thinking it's going to be too heavy/bulky, too warm, and too noisy (fans) to be something I'd take over a regular laptop.
Hopefully the 2nd gen devices come sooner rather than later, as these 1st gens just aren't cutting it.
kyuu - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Oh, and uh... I remember a review of the Lumia 920 being in the works, like, weeks ago. Did that get shelved or what's going on with that?name99 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Oh don't be an idiot.The numbers are basically that a high-end Atom is about 1.5x the CPU performance (on multithreaded tasks only? not clear from what Anand has given us here) of a high end ARM.
Meanwhile a high-end IB i7 is 5x the performance of a high-end ARM, and Haswell will improve on that.
Haswell is a high performance followup to IB, it's not a followup to Atom.
kyuu - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Sorry, I am an idiot: I meant Clover Trail, the SoC in this tablet, not Haswell. That was an utter brain fail on my part. ><Ytterbium - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Hi Anandtech,Can you review the Dell Latitude 10 & Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2?
I think each one has some unique features vs the ones you looked at so far.
jeffkibuule - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
I don't think the editors have enough time to review every single laptop/tablet released. Besides, is the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 even out yet?rburnham - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
One thing about Windows 8 that continues to bug me is the way that settings are split into two areas. Some settings can be handled from the Start screen, while others take you to the desktop Control Panel. If Microsoft is so keen on this new UI, why not take the entire Control Panel and make it a Modern UI component? I get that they are trying to appeal to touchscreen and desktop users, but merging the settings into one area would help alleviate the schizophrenic feel of the OS a little bit.This is a great review, especially since I have this exact Acer tablet on the way from Newegg. My hope is that I will spend most of my time in the Modern UI, and occasionally fire up desktop software. I am hoping it will be fast to handle some older games, like Icewind Dale, and some non-CPU intense software, like the Zinio desktop app (where I can access publications that the mobile version cannot access). It's going to be an interesting experiment.
My other concern with this tablet is that it is so new, there is a very limited selection of accessories. Specifically, I am having trouble finding some sort of "gel skin" case for this tablet. There are some generic fold out tablet cases, but those are bulky.
By the way, I had hoped to get an AMD Windows 8 tablet, but where are they? I love AMD, but I have to buy based on my needs and what's available, and right now Intel has the only real x86 solution for Windows 8 tablets.
name99 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
"The power adapter itself isn’t anything remarkable, however Acer did use a nifty removable plug that easily twists on/off. The W510 only ships with the plug for whatever region you purchased it in so I’m not sure how useful this feature is, but it’s nice to see design innovation from Acer here."Just for the record, this is not new. Apple's power supplies for MacBooks have done this for, I don't know, 8 years or so. The power supply has a core that is common, and a regional plug that can be slipped on or off. See here:
http://eshop.macsales.com/images/Items/APLMA538LLB...
iPad power adapters are the same. iPhone/iPod are not, I expect because they are so small that they are basically the size of the dongle that would plugin to the socket, so modularizing them this way would basically double their size.
I've no idea if this is original to Apple or not, but it's certainly not original to Acer.
secretmanofagent - Friday, December 21, 2012 - link
I don't think you understand the mechanism. Apple uses a friction fit with a straight downward motion. The connector that Acer uses rotates on, which you can see in the picture the directions to operate. All of the other adapters I've seen (including miscellaneous ones over the years) have been similar to Apple's, usually with a mechanical clip. Acer's method is innovative, but I'm not sure what advantages are offered by it.lorribot - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
It's things like that 11GB recovery partition that show how far MS have to go in the light weight sector. The 13 GB for Windows, which will bloat massively with patches and installs is another example of them playing the wrong game.My windows & folder is a typical 21GB add to that a 11 GB recovery partition and that leaves nothing for user docs or programs on a 32GB model.
It would make more sense to stick the recovery partition on a 16GB USB stick or SD Card and use that to recover the system should the need arise and give back some of the expensive internal storage space to the user.
Windows 8, good first attempt but wait for Windows 9 when they fix all the things they didn't have time for and realise two into one doesn't go.
name99 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Yeah, I was amazed by that 11GB figure.As a point of comparison, the OSX recovery partition is 650MB in size.
Now it it possible that the Win8 recovery partition does more (as opposed to "has more to do [because there are more things that can go wrong]"; I'd be interested in an informed comparison of the two, and a dissection of just what is taking up all that space.
Is it sheer incompetence (for example including 64 bit binaries on a 32bit system)?
Is it including every human language on earth?
Is it because no-one bothered to make an effort to include only the bare minimum OS+support frameworks (as opposed to including the AV subsystem, and .NET, and fifteen ways to talk to a database, and support for MS Office, etc etc etc)?
kyuu - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
They do need to do something about the humungous recovery partition, but... you can put the recovery partition on a thumb drive or other removable media and free up that 11GB, if I'm not mistaken.secretmanofagent - Friday, December 21, 2012 - link
It's an incorrect comparison, as the restore for OS X requires an Internet connection."In order to reinstall OS X Lion or OS X Mountain Lion, you will need to be connected to an Ethernet or Wi-Fi network."
"The OS X download is about 4 GB large;"
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718
name99 - Friday, December 21, 2012 - link
Yes and no for the Apple restore.The recovery partition has tools that can do a bunch of things, for example run a fsck on the boot drive. If your problem is the sort of thing that can be fixed by fsck, ie some localized damage to the file system, then you will not need the internet connection.
You will need it (sortof) if you want to reinstall the OS.
If MS have the entire OS in their recovery partition, the size makes more sense, but seems more than a little foolish --- wasting so much fast expensive flash when you could ship a cheap USB stick.
In the case of Apple, it is fairly trivial when you first download/install Lion or Mountain Lion to burn a copy to a USB stick, and to use that copy if you don't have an internet connection (or have a slow connection, or pay per MB downloaded, or whatever).
I do think it's less than ideal that they don't include a USB stick of the OS with new machines (they did with the first few iterations of MacBook Air), but it's possible that their numbers tell them that pretty much no-one ever needs to reinstall the OS --- the tools of the recovery partition are acceptable for pretty much all problems. Certainly in my experience that's been true, for both my and friend's machines. I have no comparable experience with Windows.
MonkeyPaw - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Microcenter has the 32GB model on sale for $399, so I took a chance. Your review pretty much matches my conclusions as well. It's generally a nice device, CPU performance is good, etc. The major disappointment for me was terrible game performance. I had lag and choppiness playing Solitaire! In late 2012?! I want to like Windows 8, but to have a card game take up almost 100MB of precious eMMC capacity is just sad. Until storage default size balloons significantly, it's hard to get on board with MS right now.Another thing MS needs to work on is the keyboard auto-correct, or the lack of it. The onscreen keyboard offers no assistance, and text selection is a nightmare. In IE, I could never select text, as double tapping just kept zooming in and out. It was quite frustrating.
I found the camera and its respective app to be horrible. Not just bad, unuseable bad.
I really really wanted to like the W510, but I ended up exchanging it for a Transformer Infinity. I am much happier with it.
kyuu - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
As far as the text selection thing goes, if it's anything like Windows Phone, you don't double-tap to select things (as you noticed, that zooms). You long-press instead. It's a little odd if you're in the habit of double-tapping from iOS/Android, but it works just fine for me on my Windows Phone.popej - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Could we get some comments how does it work as a tablet?Does Metro menu work efficient? Is on-screen keyboard usable? Has it sensors like accelerator, compass, GPS? Does it switch to portrait mode automatically? Any peculiarity with Metro in portrait mode? Is it usable outdoor? Is SD memory usable?
Thanks for review and benchmarks but I feel like I got more questions than answers ;)
mrdude - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
http://www.extremetech.com/mobile/141317-samsungs-...Supposedly the WiFi problems aren't restricted to the Acer W510 and Intel admitted there's an issue with the Samsung PC 500T.
Are these the same problems you're encountering? It sounds like some users have had similar issues as well.
That brand new Clover Trail SoC already looks dated :D Matches up nicely with the Tegra 3, but if I can buy a Google Nexus 7 for less than half the price of this Acer, and get better performance at that, it really shows just how out of touch both Intel and MS are in the mobile space where tablets are concerned.
bollux78 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Really, even if the performance is not very good, you can run anything, ANYTHING!Forget the tablets, I would not trade a x86 tablet in the present for an Ipad 15 coming from the future in a time traveler's bag with 30x more horsepower, unless you could run some virtual machine able to emulated a complete x86 machine. There is simply nothing to complain about this device.
kyuu - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
You do have a point, in that sure, the iPadWhatever has an impressive SoC, particularly the GPU. But... so what? What can you do with it? Play some "meh" mobile games?Still, I'd like to see an x86 Win8 tablet with something better than a rehashed Atom attached to a dismal GPU.
kyuu - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
I should add, I'd like to see that in a truly mobile tablet, not a big, battery-chugging monolith as the Surface Pro is likely to be (much as it may be appealing otherwise).dwade123 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Move aside ARM, Intel is coming through.DaveSimmons - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Just like the steamroller in Austin Powers: very . . . . verrrry . . . . slowwwwllllyyyyDonkey2008 - Tuesday, December 25, 2012 - link
LOL. Absolutely perfect analogy.lopri - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
If the 64 GB version leaves you with 30 GB.. then how much space is left usable for the 32 GB version??kyuu - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Negative 2 GB? o_0MonkeyPaw - Friday, December 21, 2012 - link
I sampled the 32GB version not long ago.There was no recovery partition (they give you 4 DVDs), but when it's all said and done, about half the space is consumed by the base install. Once you add a modest selection of media and a few MS apps (which can be rather large), you are looking at a few GB of free space remaining.skiboysteve - Friday, December 21, 2012 - link
Do people really need the installed paid for versions of office? The free online web apps are completely amazing. Way way better than google docs... They are just about full versions of office. Only thing I could think of is for airplane tripszeo - Monday, December 31, 2012 - link
Only the RT version has Office included by default, and it's the more basic Home and Student 2013 RT version, regular W8 depends on the system maker as to whether a copy of Office will be included or not... Like, I believe, Lenovo offers full Office with the Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet 2 for example.RT though is a bit stripped down from W8 and so is a bit smaller install than regular W8/Pro, even with Office included.
Regular W8 tablets though are suppose to start with 64GB drives, they just offer 32GB for lower entry price point and it's only the RT tablets that are suppose to start with 32GB.
This is mainly due to the pricing structure used by most tablet makers, most charge for capacity even though the actual capacity doesn't cost the price difference. Like the $249 Nexus 7 doesn't cost $50 more than the $199 Nexus 7 to add that extra capacity, but this is how they improve their profit margins when offering higher specs and can afford to lower profit margins for the lower spec versions.
All Windows tablets though should offer Micro/SD, though for now you can't install apps anywhere but the main drive but you can put just about everything else on the memory card for extra capacity.
While higher end tablets should offer drives up to 128GB and some will offer hard drives in the docks, like the Asus Vivo Book has a 500GB HDD in the keyboard dock.
CaptchaIsEvil - Friday, December 21, 2012 - link
So this is what it's like to depend on far flung "OEMs" to build a product that will attract an audience.MS is depending on OEMs who use weak drivers resulting in poor user experience and that build substandard hardware.
Just like with Android, Samsung will be the only OEM to step up to the plate and dedicate the resources to compete in the big leagues. It won't be Acer and it won't be the commoditizers at HP or DELL (parts bin assemblers).
MS better hope it happens soon.
zeo - Monday, December 31, 2012 - link
Weak drivers are a issue, but Intel will be moving back to a GMA based on their own technology instead of Imagination's with the 22nm ATOM updates.There may still be some driver issues but support for their own hardware is much better and we'll see a return of full 64bit and Linux support.
The actual GMA is suppose to be based on the Ivy Bridge HD4000, just scaled down from 16 execution units to 4, and that should mean better developed drivers from the start as well.
It'll just be either late Q3 or around Q4 2013 until we see products based on the update start to come out.
nofumble62 - Friday, December 21, 2012 - link
fast, run everything, and have lot of storage.Tablet is a fad, and will fade away.
kyuu - Friday, December 21, 2012 - link
How's the weather over there in Denial Land?nofumble62 - Friday, December 21, 2012 - link
Great- warm and toasty over my i7-3770.In the drawer, there is an iPad3 and a Kindle Fire. They are nice to play with for a short while, but I am now back to my 24" IPS and keyboards.
aliasfox - Sunday, December 23, 2012 - link
And here's the alternate scenario: I'm on my iPad1 At my parents' house, and after the second day of regular use I'm still at 42% battery life, and I'm doing the same thing as you, commenting on a forum.Is it slow as heck? Yes. Is it useful for a whole lot besides for web surfing, videos, and short writing like this? No, not really. Is web surfing, videos, and short writing like this a significant portion of my daily web life? Yes. Do I appreciate the fact that I can get two and a half days of usable battery life in a package about half the weight of an ultrabook? Absolutely. Have regretted I buying and using this for the past two and a half years? Aside from abysmal resale value, not at all.
My Mac Pro doesn't get much use besides for Netflix watching on my TV, so for my usage scenario, I'm cool with a tablet. I'll throw in shipping cost if you want to send me your iPad3 though, I'll give it a good home.
Death666Angel - Saturday, December 22, 2012 - link
Hey!Good article. Just wanted to say that the charger connector is pretty much similar (the same?) my Travelmate 8172 has (just in white whereas mine is in black). On that charger, I can use it to set the orientation of the charger, it helps in crowded sockets. And guess it might save Acer a few cents of cost. Anyway, I like it a lot. :D
Pirks - Saturday, December 22, 2012 - link
I noticed serious differences in user experience between Win8 tablets bought at MS retail store and elsewhere. Anand went for the worst possible scenario and got tablet stuffed with crapware instead of buying a tablet at MS store, online or retail, WITHOUT any crapware. Guys, PLEASE bear this in mind when reading this review. THIS REVIEW IS NOT, I EMPHASIZE THIS AGAIN - _NOT_ REFLECTING REAL END USER EXPERIENCE AS ENVISIONED BY MICROSOFT. In other words, standard stores AT buys its review hardware from and MS stores are DIFFERENT things.Please, KEEP this in mind when reading this review. It is VERY likely that you will see quite a difference between experiences using two same tablets bought in different stores, MS and non-MS one. I've seen it by own eyes when for example comparing how responsive the OS is, and how stylus works on ATIV Smart PC bought on Amazon versus the one bought in MS online store.
In the end, if you buy hardware not in MS store and see some issues - quite likely it is now YOUR issue, not Microsoft's. MS is offering people retail and online stores to buy clean reliable crapware-free Windows hardware. If you buy elsewhere - you must be dumb. End of story.
Anand, please consider what I said above. I am serious, no trolling or anything here. You are one of the best tech reviewers on the net. You should strive for better, so please think again where are you buying your review units in the future. PLEASE. Thank you.
Death666Angel - Saturday, December 22, 2012 - link
I don't believe I am even dignifying your comment by commenting on my own. Firstly, I didn't find an online MS store that would sell me a W510 in Germany. Amazon.de has that. Secondly, you say it is all worse, yet you only talk about crapware, which Anand mentions in a few paragraphs but has no bearing on his conclusion or any of the real numbers (performance, battery life...). So your post screams either "bought" or "troll" to me.Ned - Saturday, December 22, 2012 - link
Ive just had confirmed that the first batch of Acer W510 optional Keyboard docks have a faulty touchpad which is fixable by any Acer service centre.All new batches from Acer have this now fixed.
Also, if you have one of the original first production W510, make sure you update the BIOS which is available on the Acer website.
powerarmour - Sunday, December 23, 2012 - link
And yet again Intel fail to deliver a quality GPU driver for PowerVR series hardware, how many times will customers be forced to put up with this mess?The reason why a Tegra 3 is more responsive is that at least Nvidia know how to write a driver that isn't a buggy mess, even the fact that Clover Trail is x86 means little at this level of dire performance, what the hell are you going to run on it that you can't already do on a WinRT platform?
agentsmithitaly - Sunday, December 23, 2012 - link
Dear AnandI know it has been already already debated, but measurement units are quite inconsistent in Anandtech's articles.
Sometimes they report both Celsius and Fahrenheit for temperatures, as well as inches and millimeters for length measurements, in this case we see imperial units for dimensions and weight comparision, dock and tablet weight in grams, millimeters for keyboard keys. Of course it's perfectly fine to express display size, or storage unit size in inches as it is the de-facto standard.
Is it possible to have International system of units on all articles? Not only for the international visitors I'm sure Anandtech has, but also because this is technology website, which I think it could be considered as science. And scientists use metrical units, including NASA ones. You remember what happened to the Mars Climate Orbiter, right?
Apart this, keep up the good work guys! And Merry Christmas to all!
yannigr - Monday, December 24, 2012 - link
We NEED AMD solutions. Pity AMD is for far behind. A tablet with for balanced hardware would have been great.zeo - Monday, December 31, 2012 - link
Yes, though AMD is releasing the Z-60 Hondo as a stop gap for now. Being a slight update to the previous Z-01 Desna, which itself was just a more power optimized version of the C-50 Ontario.2013 though will see AMD's 28nm updates, with the newer Jaguar CPU cores.
Specifically, for tablets, the upcoming 2W max TDP SoC AMD Tamesh will be their first serious entry into the tablet market and we'll see then how they compare.
For now, the Hondo is at least a option for those who don't mind limited run time but want 3x better graphics than Clover Trail, which also puts it above Tegra 3 graphical performance, and full 64bit and better Linux support.
At 1GHz though, don't expect better CPU performance...
OBLAMA2009 - Monday, December 24, 2012 - link
i think all these windows 8 tablet/notebook thingies will be a huge fail. carrying something with all these parts isnt more convenient that just using different devices or using chromeos and doing things in the cloud. atom is a seriously damaged brand name because of low performance and this new stuff doesnt change that. finally the prices for stuff like this are ridiculous. were used to paying $350 for laptops, we arent going to pay $600 for stuff a tenth as goodzeo - Monday, December 31, 2012 - link
First, there aren't that many parts and overall it is more convenient to carry one device than multiple... especially, if your actual usage favors tablet usage most of the time.Second, people have being paying such prices for iPads for years, a lot more when you consider the cost of peripherals, and ARM has only recently gotten around the performance range of a ATOM!
Tablets are typically higher priced than laptops, though Ultrabooks puts a premium that lessens the difference a bit.
People though have and will pay for the convenience of mobility, which laptops can only be considered to be portable but not truly mobile. While tablets can provide mobile usage, along with hybrids and other solutions retaining most, if not all, of the benefits of laptops as well.
It's just that there's always compromise when going smaller and lighter, and no solution is perfect for everyone! Along with it yet being determined what size the actual market will be, as these are first gen Windows based devices and many are just waiting for the pro and second gen products.
So it's comparing apples to oranges with tablets and laptops, different solution for people with different needs!
Btw, even Chromebooks require a certain level of performance. Cloud doesn't run everything and you can't always have a high speed connection, which is one of the reasons why Chrome OS has a native client and support for hardware acceleration!
The Cloud isn't that reliable yet either and not everything can be replaced by Cloud apps yet. Though such services are getting better and help alleviate the limitations of these mobile devices.
mhaager2 - Monday, December 24, 2012 - link
I don't really understand all the negativity towards Win RT and the Surface RT in particular. We have an iPad3, a nexus 7, and now a surface RT in our house. Hands down I like my Surface RT the best. It is by far the best of all in terms of productivity. I like the OS a lot. Its stable, responsive, and a pleasure to use. I like the touch cover a lot. I can type well enough on it to be useful without being a hassle to lug around. I have never experienced lag with it yet.Could MS improve the Surface? Of course. A higher DPI screen would be nice. A faster CPU is always nice. A lower price would be nice. Still despite all of this I still find this the most useful tablet I have used. As far as the paucity of apps goes, I think having half a million apps in your app store means a LOT of redundancy. MS is missing some key apps for me unfortunately which means I can't go to Win8 phone yet but as long as they keep adding quality apps I think this is the platform for me going forward.
BlueInAtlanta - Sunday, December 30, 2012 - link
What a marvelous tablet. I use this device for all of my graphic design endeavors. Sending my sketches to clients is so fast with AT&T's 4G LTE (available here in San Francisco)!david4656 - Thursday, February 28, 2013 - link
I never used windows 8 tablet,only used android tablet.hassan123123 - Saturday, October 31, 2020 - link
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