ASUS VivoTab RT Review
by Vivek Gowri on October 23, 2012 3:01 PM EST- Posted in
- Asus
- Mobile
- Tablets
- Windows RT
- Vivo Tab
Viewed within a vacuum, the VivoTab RT is a strong first effort from ASUS as part of the new Windows tablet push. It’s a conservative and mature design that has proven itself in the marketplace. It’s a thin tablet with a clean, modern aesthetic that doesn’t push the boundary much. A high quality IPS display, solid performance, decent camera, a well-designed laptop dock, good battery life that becomes awesome when you include the dock - really, there isn’t too much wrong here. It’s a well-rounded, high quality product.
Unfortunately, we can’t evaluate products within a vacuum. The existence of Surface clearly puts all third-party manufacturers on their heels. Having had the opportunity to play (however briefly) with Surface at the launch event in June, it’s simply the one of the most impressive hardware specimens I’ve seen from a design standpoint. Sure, part of the buzz around Surface is the hype machine at work, but it’s not every day that the world’s largest software company decides to jump headfirst into making PC hardware, especially not hardware that looks and feels as impressive as Surface does. It’s on the same experience-first mentality and degree of attention to detail that we typically find in Apple products, except with a completely different design ethos. Apple has gotten so good at executing their designs that consumers and media are collectively jaded about what to expect from them (the 7.6mm thickness of the iPhone 5 barely got a second glance from anyone other than 3GS owners), but Surface is stunning because it’s still fresh. It’s not necessarily as well rounded as the VivoTab RT, though we’ll have to wait for the reviews to really get a good read on Microsoft’s first tablet. Just from what we know thus far though, it’s definitely heavier, thicker, and I’d much rather have the ASUS laptop dock than either the Touch Cover or the Type Cover. The additional battery in the dock is really a killer feature here that I hope doesn’t get lost in the Windows RT hype - having a 2 pound touchscreen Windows notebook with 14 hours of battery life is one of the best things about the switch to ARM. But the VivoTab RT won’t turn heads the same way that Surface will.
Microsoft obviously has a built-in pricing advantage with OS licensing, and can afford to make less on the hardware to push the platform, similar to a console launch. We saw Microsoft play this tactic very successfully with the 360, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see them do something similar and cut into their margins to win on pricing, even if they don't sell at a loss. This puts third party hardware manufacturers at a distinct disadvantage out of the gate with licensing fees for both Windows as well as Office, but ASUS rapidly shifted their pricing targets to beat or at least match (depending on how much you value the laptop dock relative to the Touch Cover) pricing of the equivalent Surface RT, and it seems likely that we’ll see other device companies do the same.
But overall, what I take away from this is how successful Microsoft has been in bridging the gap and getting mobile devices to come as close to true convergence with the personal computer as we have seen thus far. It’s pretty impressive to see how capable the VivoTab RT is as a PC replacement, certainly more so than any previous tablet platform. It’s certainly a great tablet, but it also doubles as a fantastic $600 ultraportable, merging the best parts of the tablet world with the best parts of the PC world. For now at least, that’s as good as it gets.
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AahzNotOz - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
One thing I haven't seen discussed about RT is will it play the Windows extracted Digital Copy movies you sometimes get with Blu-Ray? I know Win 8 Pro slates should be able to play them fine, but how about Win RT?KineticHummus - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
Hopefully this thing can play back high profile H264 like what most people use for MKV's! I'd love to be able to take some 720p anime on the bus with me. None of the 10 inch android tablets are too interesting to me, and the nexus 7 is too small. The iPad is out of the question, it cant play my files.Urizane - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
High profile H.264 in an MP4 container on an iPad...sure. I'm guessing you're just not thrilled about burning in subtitles. As far as Windows RT goes...I'm guessing MKV support is going to have to come by way of a "Modern UI" (Metro) app playing MKVs back in software (slow) rather than through the hardware accelerator. I only say that, because messing with the core components (e.g. adding a DirectShow filter) is probably not allowed out of the box, and any .AX file would have to be compiled for Windows on an ARM CPU anyway. In such a case, you're still better off with H.264 in an MP4 container, because that's guaranteed to work. The same tricks used on Windows 7 for hardware playback of MKV streams should still work in Windows 8 Pro. You might need to lean in that direction if you have a complete aversion to demuxing your MKVs and muxing them into MP4s.frozentundra123456 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
Sorry, but I guess I am not that familiar with Win RT. What can you really do on Win RT? I mean if it doesnt run x86 apps, does it run android apps, or just apps from the microsoft store?It seems like kind of in limbo to me. TBH, I really hate Android. Hundred, thousands, whatever of apps, but I have yet to find any that are useful and work well. The few useful apps that I have tried tend to have some fatal flaw such as being frustratingly slow, locking up. crashing, etc.
So if you cant run x86 apps, how is this an improvement?
Roland00Address - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
When Windows RT launches there is going to be about 3000 apps in the Microsoft store.This will change with time, remember if an app is developed for the Microsoft store it will work on windows rt or windows 8 regardless of the processor in use.
Windows 7 phones launched with about 2,000 apps, it had 20,000 apps 6 months later, 40,000 apps 12 months later, and now has over a 100,000 apps.
You are going to see a similar or faster app development for windows 8 for the fact more people are going to use windows 8 then you are going to see people using windows 7 phone.
horibatech - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
I dont know if it just because I have heard you talk on the podcast, but I love the 'tone' if your review. All the Anandech respectability with some Vivek flair. It's up to you, Anand, and the comments section, but I for one appreciate your candor and actually putting you opinion on the line. Keep up the good work and stay on the podcast!Death666Angel - Friday, October 26, 2012 - link
I think I'll wait until 2013 with new ARM and Intel architectures. Just feels like it is "too early" for IVB/CortexA9 Win8/RT. Haswell and A15 should do much to help with performance/battery life.BlueInAtlanta - Monday, December 31, 2012 - link
This device is the opposite of sleek. There's just too much machine around the edges and looks outdated. Still, I use it to sketch design ideas for my graphic design firm here in San Francisco. The tablet's nice display and its compatibility with AT&T's 4G LTE make it a very competitive model despite the looks.