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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frostyfiredude - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
Surface RT has a 10% larger display, but a 30% larger battery. Processor power usage should remain constant even with the larger display, so the power usage won't actually go up 10%, but somewhere lower like 7 or 8%.Considering those two, wouldn't it make sense that Surface RT actually gets greater battery life than an un-docked VivoTab RT? Supposedly Surface engineers are hitting 12 hours of usage with it, which seems about right to me at 18-33% greater life than the Vivo RT here.
ssiu - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
"but even compared to Clover Trail, Tegra 3 is not that fast""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. "
I already think "Atom == slow" (poor experience with early netbook). If Windows RT tablets are slower than Windows 8 Atom tablets than I don't know why anyone would choose the former. Even if Krait or A15 is a bit faster than Clover Trail, personally I'd still choose x86 compatibility.
Urizane - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
Early netbook slowness depends on more than just the CPU. A large majority of early netbooks had very little RAM as well as slow hard drives. These days, there's a lot more RAM as well as solid state storage. I remember old Atom 330 machines that you could upgrade from 1 GB of RAM to 2 GB that made a pretty sizeable difference in day-to-day use. Upgrading to an SSD makes application load times even better. The CPU wasn't fast, but it also wasn't the only reason people hated early netbooks.Impulses - Friday, October 26, 2012 - link
More RAM and a SSD worked wonders even for first gen Atom netbooks (single core)... For a tablet workflow it's not really any worse than current ARM SoC, now if you're trying to use it as a laptop replacement that's another story. I think that term is gonna get thrown around too easily with these hybrid Win RT devices...Even looking past the dire lack of apps (beyond Office), raw performance isn't where it needs to be to make such a concept reality, performance's obviously not gonna be there until A15/S4 Pro/next gen Atom. Laptop alternative might be the more accurate term, tho it's all obviously very dependent on your particular needs.
powerarmour - Thursday, October 25, 2012 - link
You need to bear in mind the graphics capabilities of Tegra 3 vs Clover Trail, Clover Trail is looking like it's going to be a mess on those regards, with Intel yet again failing to deliver a PowerVR driver of any decent quality.What good is a slightly better CPU, when the only thing 3D it can run is the Metro desktop?
Relic74 - Tuesday, January 1, 2013 - link
I just bought the Asus 810c Vivo, though I to have had bad experience with a Atom CPU netbook from Nokia I am quite impressed as to how snappy the OS is. I'm a programmer so the only desktop apps I really use are Netbeans, Java SDK, FileZilla, Bittorent, OpenOffice, Gimp, Inkscape, Thunderbird, Firefox, XAMPP and Google Earth. All run extremely well but I can't express to you guys enough how fast Windows 8 fly's on this system and that battery, wow, 17.5 hours. I literary charge it ounce every 4 days. As a road machine it's bar none one of the best laptops I have ever owned. I'm digging the Vivo a lot and I'm starting to appreciate Microsoft tablet vision.I see how a lot of you get caught up in benchmarks but when you travel as much as I do it's all about longevity, my other laptop is a Lenovo X220T and even with a batter slice I still barely get about 7 hours.
Flunk - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
This review is great and it's good to see ARM powered Windows in a real device... But I (and I'm sure other readers) would love to see a review of the newly announced Asus Zenbook U500VZ. It sounds like a really interesting device, and touch sounds a little strange on a 15" device.Just hoping you guys do a review, you guys are one of the most reputable sources for reviews.
dananski - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
30% CPU usage from typing in Word 2013 doesn't surprise me - I've had 2013 on my new i7 desktop for a while and I sometimes get lags while typing in Word or clicking around in Excel. Don't try to move the windows around the screen - some very dodgy performance issues there; I used the feedback button to highlight a few.I wonder if these performance issues will make it into the release version. Back when I got Office 2007 there were a few times when performance went terrible in Excel, which they fixed in SP1. Here's hoping that's not going to be the case again...
cmdrdredd - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
Might compete well with a Transformer Infinity in benchmarks but it needs apps.B3an - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
Nice review. And i agree with everything said in it. This looks like a good device and i'd easily choose it over an iPad or Android tablet, but i'll likely go with a Win 8/x86 tablet.