When shopping for a tablet I had to remind myself of what my criteria were for this purchase and not get swept away with the latest thing.
Android and ipads are completely different animals from these.
I was tempted by them for a moment, but reminded myself what I wanted a tablet for. I wanted what is essentially a giant phone, that runs casual games and calendars really well. It will synch with my phone, and allow me to run my life more efficiently and pretend I have a memory that lasts longer than 5 minutes.
That’s what I got with my android tab.
These things…You’re looking at a scaled down laptop without a keyboard. Battery life is a true problem. It’s bad.
CPU power to run actual applications meant for a desktop or high powered laptop…Not going to realistically happen. It will run them, but it’s going to be slow, and you’ll wish you had something with more power, or you’ll be searching for scaled down versions of apps that won’t frustrate the crap out of you.
You’ll want to add a keyboard to get full access and ease of inputting to those apps and maybe even a small mouse, and then it will strike you how you actually just wanted to buy a notebook or a full sized laptop in the first place.
You can see that this is where technology is leading us, but it just isn’t ready yet.
I bought one a few weeks ago. I work on a computer all day and when I get home I mostly just surf the web. When I am away from the house, I really don’t want to carry a laptop because I mostly don’t use it. With this tablet, I can run all the VPN programs I need (Win 8) but enjoy the simplicity of the apps (RT) when I’m just lounging around with my tablet. Hope this helps. The battery life is nice and I enjoy Sketchbook Pro with the Copic pens.
1.This is a full version of Windows, not Windows 8 RT… which is more similar to their cell phone OS in reality.
So good. You can install regular windows programs.
It’s Samsung. They make their own stuff, usually from stem to stern… and their good. Almost no one can say this in the market. The SPen stylus is very good.
The Bad:
The price is too high. Atom Win8 tablets can be found from good retailers for less.
It’s big, and relatively heavy. Tablets suffer greatly from marginal weight increases since they spend time in one hand.
It’s underpowered for anything but the bare minimum. Maybe a decent resolution movie. The atom processors, unlike other intel processors have not increased their raw horsepower over the years. They sip power better, and multitask better, but their ability to play games, run anything adobe, etc has in fact decreased marginally.
So.
Get this product if:
You want a large tablet that will lay on a table or on your lap. Maybe two hands.
Brand, and here it means something, does matter to you and is worth 50-100 bucks.
You accept that games up to the “mobile” level are acceptable, and otherwise want something for email, browsing, etc…
The included stylus is VERY good. Makes me wish it was an i3/i5 so I could use it for photo editing/graphic design.
So with all the comments on the spen being such a part of the positive experience is it actually included or not?
In the description it says no, but at the bottom listing what’s in the box it says yes.
Hello Mods, anybody there to help with this?
Seems a little pricey for a refurb. I’ve got one of the Series 7 Slates with a Core i5 and love it - it makes a perfect laptop replacement. Just not sure how well this one will work with the underpowered CPU and only half the RAM.
I travel for work quite a bit, and would love to carry (not have to pull out for security at the airports)something smaller than my laptop. I do ppt presentations and need to be able to connect to data projectors. Any way to do that with this device? I saw mini hdmi and usb ports. Thanks!
Gizmodo and ExtremeTech both don’t like it, main reason is that Clovertrail Atom isn’t powerful enough to give you a smooth Win8 experience in desktop mode. Multitask is not recommended either.
I put Windows 8 on an ExoPC slate (about this size) with an N450 Atom (passmark 275)- I was expecting the world to end. The original OS was windows 7 with an ExoPC proprietary touch overlay, I paid $200 for it as a refurb- I had nothing to lose. I was amazed that it even worked, let alone it fluid and not jerky at all with the windows 8 metrosexual tiles. Unless there is a bunch of crapware on today’s tablet- it should run just fine on Windows 8, because the Z2760 has a passmark of 679. This is not a gaming machine by any means. This is something that basically you can hang out and surf on, answer emails, a little multimedia…and if needed hook up a keyboard and do real productivity apps like office. It means you can install a printer driver and print to whatever printer you want. This is basically where windows 8 shines.
That isn’t true. You can probably play most games in the Windows Store… They are made for tablets and that’s what this is… It’s a tablet, not a laptop.
My son bought a Slate last summer to use as a drawing tablet in school (SCAD). He doesn’t do as well with pen tablets on a computer - the disconnect between the surface and the monitor. He likes this because he’s working right on his drawing.
I’m getting myself one so I can have something smaller than a laptop but with full MS Office and VPN capabilities.
I bought one of these from Rakuten.com a while back. It was brand new, with the dock, for $450. I love it.
This is not a Surface Pro i5 processor. . . don’t expect it act like one. It’s also not $1000.
I wanted something I could connect to my home media server/NAS and easily print from. I have yet to find a Window’s 8 app that it can’t handle. It has a nice bright screen, but the speakers could be a bit louder.
This is a great little tablet and well worth $400. The dock is a nice upgrade, but I don’t use it that much. The Atom processor is fine and I streem HD video with no problems. Don’t believe all the haters, but also don’t expect this to act like an ultrabook.
It may be crazy but I am in the same exact situation. Just picked up the Note. If the price was significantly better than new, I would have to take the plunge, but I think I will wait a bit.
Both of those tablets are great and can be used for entirely different reasons. Windows tablets will give you more productivity benefits and traditional programs- printer support etc, the Note gives you better multimedia, way better apps (compared to the windows touch apps), better note taking (if you use it for that. Bottom line is you need both just because. My wife can go out and buy a $400 purse that can’t do anything more than what a $20 purse can do - but apparently she has reasoning as to why she has a whole gambit of purses. I am giving you justifiable cause to go ahead with your whim. Don’t even get me stared on the Imelda Marcos shoe collection she has.
CNET says it weighs 1679.9 lbs Is this a mainframe?
More serious.
(1) I have a USB writing tablet and I would like to “write” into MS Word docs but I can’t master the hand/eye from table top to screen. This should solve that, am I right? Can I write on the screen and have Word convert to text? Is anybody doing that?
(2) A while back when Staples had these for $350 then $300 the next day it was said something about Staples got a batch with some bad connector. So they were clearing the stock. What are the odds these are the returns that were refirbed?
If you are going to go with handwriting, I think the Galaxy Note would have worked better…but here is some info about this tablet and handwriting recognition:
@ThunderThighs, gotta love folks behind the Woot counter eating their own lunch.
Wish we needed another tablet - finally a respectable full (not RT) Windows tablet for a reasonable price… the favorable feedback for drawing on this has me pondering tho since it might be good for prototype sketching.
