The Clover Trail (Atom Z2760) Review: Acer's W510 Tested
by Anand Lal Shimpi on December 20, 2012 10:34 AM ESTFinal Words
This is a tricky conclusion to write, because as always there’s a lot of concluding that has to be done. On the one hand, we have Intel’s Clover Trail platform. On the other we have Acer’s Iconia W510 tablet itself. And on a magical third hand we have to conclude on behalf of Microsoft’s Windows 8.
I’ll start with the Intel hand.
Clover Trail is good. I only have NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 to compare it to at this point, and there Intel wins hands down. Performance is clearly better, tasks complete quicker, the modern UI is even more responsive. Power efficiency, once again, seems like a non-issue. The W510 in particular uses a smaller battery than most, but its battery life per watt-hour is very similar to Surface RT. Samsung’s ATIV Smart PC actually seems to be a better showcase of what Clover Trail can do from a power efficiency standpoint. If we haven’t squashed the notion of Intel being unable to build low power SoCs by now, Clover Trail should help drive the nail into that coffin. The debate is no longer about whether or not Intel can build something competitive with ARM on the power front, but whether Intel can execute quickly enough to defend its marketshare.
Backwards compatibility is a hit or miss advantage for Clover Trail. If you use it for the flexibility of being able to run nearly every Windows application available, then you’ll be pleased. Small apps that I’ve relied on for years just run without issue on Clover Trail. I don’t need to find modern replacements, my library of tools just work. I suspect this advantage will appeal in enterprise markets where custom applications are often on very long development cycles.
However if you’re expecting to be able to enjoy a similar experience to what you currently have on your Ultrabook, you’ll be sorely disappointed. Atom isn’t Core, the performance delta is dramatic. The Windows 8 desktop experience on Clover Trail is like using a notebook from several years ago. Performance is at least consistent thanks to the lack of any mechanical storage, but running intense workloads on the platform is hardly quick. Being quicker than most of the ARM platforms on the market today isn’t enough, Intel has to deliver a good experience across all applications. The experience is further hampered by sub-par UI performance in desktop mode. It actually feels like Tegra 3/Surface RT are faster when it comes to desktop UI performance. This highlights a disturbing trend within Intel’s ultra mobile products. The company continues to under-spec its ultra mobile GPUs. If Intel is really serious about both the tablet and smartphone markets it needs to build the best SoCs in the world, and that means delivering the best CPU and GPU performance.
I was impressed by the unique combination of closed box tablet OS and flexible/customizable desktop OS that Windows RT delivered. Windows 8 on Clover Trail takes that feeling to a completely new level. Being able to install and run nearly any weird, old application in one breath and then switch over to a fairly well optimized tablet experience in the next is pretty awesome. Where the experience falls short is really the performance of desktop mode and most of the applications I’d like to run unfortunately. Scrolling isn’t smooth, response time is pretty bad if you’re running anything demanding. You have to keep in mind that, at best, we’re talking about mainstream notebook CPU performance from around 2005. Until Intel revs Atom (which should happen next year, thankfully enough), the backwards compatibility story won’t be as awesome as it could be.
On the Acer side of things, the dock experience (particularly the troubles I had with the clickpad) also contributes to the W510 not being the perfect tablet+notebook in one. As a standalone tablet I prefer the W510, it’s got a great form factor and I love its light weight. As a docked system however, Samsung’s ATIV Smart PC seems to be the better choice.
The W510 itself is well executed, but overall the experience seemed a bit less polished than with Microsoft’s Surface RT. This is where things get really complicated. I want the SoC from the W510 but in the overall device experience that Microsoft’s Surface delivered. I even think Acer might have a form factor advantage in the W510 since it’s just so light. It’s a shame that the only x86 Surface device will be the bigger Pro model.
Ultimately my conclusion about the W510 in particular is a lot like what I felt about Surface RT. You know it’s going to be made obsolete in less than a year’s time, so you have to be ok with that fact if you’re going to pull the trigger today. Even then, the experience isn’t perfect. Microsoft still needs some updating on the Windows side to address bugs and quirks with the OS. Performance isn’t as big of a problem on the W510 as it was on Surface RT, but I’d still like to see more on that front as well.
Much of the same goes for Windows 8. Although its execution hasn’t been perfect, I really do like the OS and I see a lot of potential in these converged notebook/tablet devices. Especially for users who travel a lot, being able to have the best of both worlds in an extremely portable device is a wonderful dream. I think Microsoft has the right vision, but what we need to see are more revs to the OS to fully realize it. The real question is whether or not Microsoft will be able to deliver significant updates to Windows 8 as quickly as the market needs it.
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rburnham - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
One thing about Windows 8 that continues to bug me is the way that settings are split into two areas. Some settings can be handled from the Start screen, while others take you to the desktop Control Panel. If Microsoft is so keen on this new UI, why not take the entire Control Panel and make it a Modern UI component? I get that they are trying to appeal to touchscreen and desktop users, but merging the settings into one area would help alleviate the schizophrenic feel of the OS a little bit.This is a great review, especially since I have this exact Acer tablet on the way from Newegg. My hope is that I will spend most of my time in the Modern UI, and occasionally fire up desktop software. I am hoping it will be fast to handle some older games, like Icewind Dale, and some non-CPU intense software, like the Zinio desktop app (where I can access publications that the mobile version cannot access). It's going to be an interesting experiment.
My other concern with this tablet is that it is so new, there is a very limited selection of accessories. Specifically, I am having trouble finding some sort of "gel skin" case for this tablet. There are some generic fold out tablet cases, but those are bulky.
By the way, I had hoped to get an AMD Windows 8 tablet, but where are they? I love AMD, but I have to buy based on my needs and what's available, and right now Intel has the only real x86 solution for Windows 8 tablets.
name99 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
"The power adapter itself isn’t anything remarkable, however Acer did use a nifty removable plug that easily twists on/off. The W510 only ships with the plug for whatever region you purchased it in so I’m not sure how useful this feature is, but it’s nice to see design innovation from Acer here."Just for the record, this is not new. Apple's power supplies for MacBooks have done this for, I don't know, 8 years or so. The power supply has a core that is common, and a regional plug that can be slipped on or off. See here:
http://eshop.macsales.com/images/Items/APLMA538LLB...
iPad power adapters are the same. iPhone/iPod are not, I expect because they are so small that they are basically the size of the dongle that would plugin to the socket, so modularizing them this way would basically double their size.
I've no idea if this is original to Apple or not, but it's certainly not original to Acer.
secretmanofagent - Friday, December 21, 2012 - link
I don't think you understand the mechanism. Apple uses a friction fit with a straight downward motion. The connector that Acer uses rotates on, which you can see in the picture the directions to operate. All of the other adapters I've seen (including miscellaneous ones over the years) have been similar to Apple's, usually with a mechanical clip. Acer's method is innovative, but I'm not sure what advantages are offered by it.lorribot - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
It's things like that 11GB recovery partition that show how far MS have to go in the light weight sector. The 13 GB for Windows, which will bloat massively with patches and installs is another example of them playing the wrong game.My windows & folder is a typical 21GB add to that a 11 GB recovery partition and that leaves nothing for user docs or programs on a 32GB model.
It would make more sense to stick the recovery partition on a 16GB USB stick or SD Card and use that to recover the system should the need arise and give back some of the expensive internal storage space to the user.
Windows 8, good first attempt but wait for Windows 9 when they fix all the things they didn't have time for and realise two into one doesn't go.
name99 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Yeah, I was amazed by that 11GB figure.As a point of comparison, the OSX recovery partition is 650MB in size.
Now it it possible that the Win8 recovery partition does more (as opposed to "has more to do [because there are more things that can go wrong]"; I'd be interested in an informed comparison of the two, and a dissection of just what is taking up all that space.
Is it sheer incompetence (for example including 64 bit binaries on a 32bit system)?
Is it including every human language on earth?
Is it because no-one bothered to make an effort to include only the bare minimum OS+support frameworks (as opposed to including the AV subsystem, and .NET, and fifteen ways to talk to a database, and support for MS Office, etc etc etc)?
kyuu - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
They do need to do something about the humungous recovery partition, but... you can put the recovery partition on a thumb drive or other removable media and free up that 11GB, if I'm not mistaken.secretmanofagent - Friday, December 21, 2012 - link
It's an incorrect comparison, as the restore for OS X requires an Internet connection."In order to reinstall OS X Lion or OS X Mountain Lion, you will need to be connected to an Ethernet or Wi-Fi network."
"The OS X download is about 4 GB large;"
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718
name99 - Friday, December 21, 2012 - link
Yes and no for the Apple restore.The recovery partition has tools that can do a bunch of things, for example run a fsck on the boot drive. If your problem is the sort of thing that can be fixed by fsck, ie some localized damage to the file system, then you will not need the internet connection.
You will need it (sortof) if you want to reinstall the OS.
If MS have the entire OS in their recovery partition, the size makes more sense, but seems more than a little foolish --- wasting so much fast expensive flash when you could ship a cheap USB stick.
In the case of Apple, it is fairly trivial when you first download/install Lion or Mountain Lion to burn a copy to a USB stick, and to use that copy if you don't have an internet connection (or have a slow connection, or pay per MB downloaded, or whatever).
I do think it's less than ideal that they don't include a USB stick of the OS with new machines (they did with the first few iterations of MacBook Air), but it's possible that their numbers tell them that pretty much no-one ever needs to reinstall the OS --- the tools of the recovery partition are acceptable for pretty much all problems. Certainly in my experience that's been true, for both my and friend's machines. I have no comparable experience with Windows.
MonkeyPaw - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
Microcenter has the 32GB model on sale for $399, so I took a chance. Your review pretty much matches my conclusions as well. It's generally a nice device, CPU performance is good, etc. The major disappointment for me was terrible game performance. I had lag and choppiness playing Solitaire! In late 2012?! I want to like Windows 8, but to have a card game take up almost 100MB of precious eMMC capacity is just sad. Until storage default size balloons significantly, it's hard to get on board with MS right now.Another thing MS needs to work on is the keyboard auto-correct, or the lack of it. The onscreen keyboard offers no assistance, and text selection is a nightmare. In IE, I could never select text, as double tapping just kept zooming in and out. It was quite frustrating.
I found the camera and its respective app to be horrible. Not just bad, unuseable bad.
I really really wanted to like the W510, but I ended up exchanging it for a Transformer Infinity. I am much happier with it.
kyuu - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link
As far as the text selection thing goes, if it's anything like Windows Phone, you don't double-tap to select things (as you noticed, that zooms). You long-press instead. It's a little odd if you're in the habit of double-tapping from iOS/Android, but it works just fine for me on my Windows Phone.