Samsung 11.6" 64GB Slate Tablet

More info from the Product Page
Some good Reviews from NewEgg

**Item: **Samsung 11.6" 64GB Slate Tablet
Price: $399.99
Shipping Options: $5 Standard
Condition: Factory Reconditioned

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C|Net likes it.

I bought one of these new a couple weeks back for the same price at staples. I absolutely love it.

I honestly don’t quite know what to make of this. It’s huge for a tablet, and runs Win8 instead of RT or PRO (isn’t PRO pretty much 8?). Atom processor… I, uh, somebody want to chime in on what exactly this is good for. I want, but I certainly don’t need.

The Intel Atom CPU has come a long way. This is tempting…

Staples.com says “That’s good stuff”

Buy enough of them you could make a really nice stepping stone walkway in your garden.

Additional pictures and reviews (4 out of 5 stars) over at officedepot.com

Add the optional dock and you have a replacement for a laptop (underpowered, but runs everything up to Photoshop including legacy programs from W7) AND a tablet. I imagine the USB ports and microSD card slot will come in handy due to the 64GB Hard Drive.

I put a low bid on one of these at the cowboom auctions and won it. It came with the dock (mine is all white). I have only had it a couple days, so I am still getting familiar. The stylus is similar to the Galaxy Note and the ports are nice to have. The battery life is better than a laptop, but less than a good tablet (without the dock). I really have not had enough time with it to give a better overall impression. I do not think I want to give up my Android (Nexus 10) to use this as a tablet, but I probably no longer need a powerful laptop.

it’s basically an overpriced (if bought new) crippled laptop, Atom processor is what they put in netbooks and netbooks are only good for checking email, surfing web and maybe light word processing.

You can’t play games on it unless you run BlueStack emulation software for Android (will run on AMD processors, not sure about intel) but even that I doubt that you can because Atom is known for horrendous graphics.

I dunno…I don’t like refurbs on a tablet unless they are waaay cheaper, because you can’t get a Sq Trade 3 year accidental warranty…and anythin I’m going to move around off the desk that much is gonna get dropped, so I want my i d i o t insurance (when I just wrote the word wootmonkeys changed it to “curly”…I was only insulting myself!). I admit it. And you can get this at the Mothership for 581 WITH the docking keyboard or 514 without…that’s not quite enough of a savings for me. YMMV

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-ATIV-Smart-500T-Tablet/dp/B009LL9U50#productPromotions

I got one a month or so ago from cowboom…anyways…it’s awesome. The size/weight is great, the build quality very solid, and it runs FULL windows 8. Also with the atom processor the battery goes the distance. Basically it’s a near perfect device IMO. So good, in fact, I sold my Lenovo yoga 13.

I actually love mine. Excellent battery life with the performance I need from it (it’s, by no means, a workhorse). It plays HD video great and, yes, the Atom processor has come a long way. I have the keyboard dock with mine, as I need it as a supplemental laptop, at times. For this price, however, I would consider the full package with dock included for $581.37 @ Amazon (free shipping). They have a deal that gets you a $100 rebate via Amazon gift card by mail so that gets you the dock for not much extra and you get it all new. Yes, it puts you out of pocket a bit more, but you get the dock and you can buy a slew of items over time with the gift card (like a screen protector, case and 64GB microSD card for the tablet, for starters).

Staples recently had a deal for $399 brand new, as previously mentioned here. I wish the white one was available originally, but this color is pretty unique in person.

I bought mine from NewEgg for $649 and it has been worth every penny. Make sure to install all Samsung and Windows updates on it as soon as you get it for its best performance. My 2 cents…

You really need to field test this on THIS tablet or any new machine with a SSD before throwing mud on it. It isn’t a gaming rig, but it certainly does more than you give it credit for.

I got one of these after I had gift cards thrown at me during the holidays (for $500) and I feel that it’s absolutely worth it, even at that price.

I bought the Microsoft Surface pen to use with this (Wacom makes basically all of the pens in the new pen enabled tablets, so they’re mostly cross-compatible), and it works brilliantly as a note-taking device. Again, Wacom is behind the pen technology, and the tablet is largely up to snuff with regard to pen support - it’s a bit iffy on the edges, but overall very good, with the kind of pressure-sensitivity that I’ve come to expect in a Wacom pen device. I draw on this with SAI and the experience is up there with the Intuos3 I use on my workstation at home, and it is an excellent device for writing notes in class, working flawlessly with Windows Journal and OneNote.

Otherwise, you get a few frames dropped with 1080p playback at times, but all 720p videos that I throw at it playback fine, and it works just about as well as you’d expect from a 2013 Atom device. For $400 I think this is an absolute bargain - My $300 netbook running an AMD E-450 APU (Hecate), which this tablet replaced, is basically the same in terms of overall performance. The main selling point of this is the pen and touch support and the thin form factor (It’s thin and quite light in comparison to netbooks and a bit lighter than most ‘ultrabooks’). I’ve had it freeze up once during use, but a quick reset fixed that and otherwise I’ve not had many problems with anything over the past 6 months of every day use, so I’m willing to dismiss that as a fluke. Also be warned that Bluestacks does not perform very well, but I really don’t care for Android tablet apps anyway so it wasn’t really a big deal. Fruit Ninja piddled along at maybe half the performance I’d get out of a proper android device, for example.

Of course, if you’re not one to care about form factor and pen support, then by all means grab a cheap netbook instead and save some money. However, in my personal experience as a student who takes a lot of written notes, does digital art, and does not demand much out of his mobile devices (I save stuff like intensive gaming and CAD for my desktop workstation, for exmaple), this thing has been an absolute joy to use.

A few examples of what I’ve done on this device:

Math Notes: Dropbox - Error
A sketch: http://i.imgur.com/9NhmXlX.png
A quick painting: Dropbox - Error

Novice/hobby digital artists take note:

At this price, it is one of the cheapest ways to get Wacom draw-on-screen technology.
http://www.wacom.com/en/products/stylus/bamboo-stylus-feel

The accuracy plus the pressure sensing capability makes it more capable as an graphic canvas than an iPad or any other tablet with only a capacitive finger touch screen. Plus the Atom CPU means it can run the full spectrum of Windows graphics software. Not terribly fast, but they’ll run.

I couldn’t justify a real Wacom Cintiq, but this is (for me) 80% as good as the real thing, at less than half the price.

Only complaint so far: palm rejection isn’t as good as a real Cintiq so I can’t rest my hand on the panel.

I’m happy with the performance for the price, and I’m having tons of fun with Autodesk SketchBook Express on this thing.

Echoing another post: Definitely make sure you have all the firmware updates installed, as they dramatically improve overall performance. People who complain about intolerably slow performance probably haven’t installed all the updates!

As I stated in my post, the Microsoft Surface pen works with this tablet, and it’s much cheaper than the Bamboo Feel ($30 versus $80 new). It of course has lower build quality, but it’s an option with the same features (side button and eraser) if you’re tight on cash.

Also, with regard to palm rejection, I made a few desktop shortcuts that turn on/off touch entirely, and bound them to my taskbar for a somewhat hacked together on-the-fly pen-only mode. The way that Samsung wants you to do it involves logging in and out, to which I went “Balls to that!” and dug around until I found this much better alternative. Ideally I’d like to remap the rotation lock button to a touch-lock button, but haven’t yet found a way.

I had my eye on this tablet for a couple months. First, I want to clear up a misperception: this tablet runs the full version of Windows 8, so you don’t have to worry about any of the problems that come with the Surface RT or its brethren. You will be able to run standard Windows applications. Second, the main selling point of this tablet is the pen - if you have no need for the note-taking or drawing features, you probably will be able to find another Windows 8 tablet for a cheaper price (although, at the moment, this price is fairly rock bottom. You might be able to find the VivoTab for $50 less).

The main thing, though, is that you need to head to your local Staples and check out the form factor before you actually make a purchase. 11.6" is not bad for a netbook - in fact, I’m typing this post on a netbook that size - but it’s huge for a tablet. You definitely can’t hold the ATIV comfortably in one hand. For me, this was a deal breaker. I just couldn’t see it being useful as a tablet at this size. Partially, this is because I was planning on using it to read and annotate academic articles - for many of you, the 11.6" size might actually be an advantage, especially if you are planning on using it to draw.

So just be aware: 11.6" is an enormous size. You need to experience it before making a final decision.