ASUS VivoTab RT Review
by Vivek Gowri on October 23, 2012 3:01 PM EST- Posted in
- Asus
- Mobile
- Tablets
- Windows RT
- Vivo Tab
Tegra 3 is a pretty known quantity at this point, we’ve seen quite a few tablets and smartphones based on this chip and it’s been quite solid in all of them. Nvidia has done a good job executing with their mobile SoCs, and Microsoft choice of T30 to be the heart of their launch platform is a pretty significant hardware win for Nvidia.
So with that said, how does the Tegra 3-Windows RT combination hold up versus the who’s who of the tablet world today? Well, that’s a bit complicated. As far as Windows RT benchmarks, we’ve got relatively few, so we’ll stick to some of our cross-platform JavaScript benchmarks, all of which happen to be browser-based.
This is important to note, because in Windows 8 and Windows RT, there are of course two browsers. Both run the same IE10 engine, so performance is actually essentially the same - I had some margin of error level differences (~2%) that aren’t really worth reporting in the graphs. Compared to the third generation iPad, performance is a bit low due to to IE10’s JavaScript performance, and the A6X-based fourth generation iPad should only extend that lead (significantly) based on the performance of the A6-based iPhone 5. But trying to make cross-platform performance comparisons are kind of a waste here.
Tegra 3 is fast enough to run Windows RT, but until we get some other comparison points and better ways to benchmark it, there’s not too much else to say here. Tegra 3 is adequate, but anything less and I could see parts of the UI (particularly in the desktop) becoming a drag. But given how well RT runs on quad-core Cortex A9, I’m just eager to see shipping devices with faster SoCs - Krait and Clover Trail in the coming weeks, A15 in the not-too distant future.
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N4g4rok - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
He even mentioned that RT is getting it's own review in a little while.On top of that, with an ipad, the hardware and OS are rolled into one and are usually new, so you see an analysis of both new products. This is an Asus product running windows software, and like most laptops that get reviewed where no time is spent on windows 7, tablets will probably be treated the same. There's no point in going that in depth on every aspect of the tablet when we're going to see it and hear about it in other reviews.
kyuu - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
Windows RT will be getting its own review, and the Surface got a fairly in-depth review by Anand himself.Plus, there's no new SoC going on here like in the iPhone 5 review, which Anand was obviously keenly interested in.
Lonyo - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
Is there any indication of the settings you used in your battery life testing?Presumably you went for a standardised brightness across all products? There's nothing in the graphs to indicate how testing was performed, and it would be useful to know, although given ATs history, I assume it was done in a fairly comparable way.
VivekGowri - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
200nits, same as always :)Braumin - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
This makes me seriously excited for RT. I think the app issue is going to go away very quickly.I'd like to see a couple more reviews (especially Surface!) before I can pick what I get. I was leaning pretty heavily towards Surface, but this for the same price has a great battery/keyboard dock.
sulu1977 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
Where's the usb3 port? How can you exchange files with another laptop? Is the battery removable?antef - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
I misunderstand how you can call it a decent PC replacement/ultraportable in the conclusion when you can't install any desktop applications on it at all. That means you get Office and the very poor selection of the Windows Store. That doesn't come anywhere CLOSE to a PC replacement! Are you sure you didn't accidentally copy and paste that line from a Windows 8 (not RT) review?kyuu - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
He didn't say it was a PC replacement. He said it was the first tablet that he can accomplish his workflow on, as opposed to Android/Apple tablets that aren't up to the task. He's impressed with how capable it is as a PC replacement, which isn't the same as saying it is a PC replacement (though I'd argue it could be for a large percentage of users whose only tasks are Office, web, videos, and some casual gaming).DMagic - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
Maybe I missed it, but does the dock disable the touchscreen and the home button, or just the button?I'm interested to know what it's like to use the touchscreen as a supplementary input device. This seems like an ideal way to use Win8 RT (fingerprints, I know, but they are easy to clean off and I don't think they are that big of a deal anyway), with its combination of such disparate interface types.
kyuu - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
Dock only disables the home button. Disabling the touchscreen would just be foolish.