Samsung ATIV Smart PC: Revisiting Clover Trail Convertibles
by Vivek Gowri on March 18, 2013 12:00 AM ESTSamsung ATIV Smart PC: Battery Life
The battery life this platform offers is fantastic. The 31Wh battery gives over 10 hours of runtime in our internet browsing test, which is in the same ballpark as the Tegra 3 Windows RT tablets, but also better than the iPad from a power efficiency standpoint. It’s worth noting that the iPad has a much higher resolution display that results in a significantly higher power draw, but offers almost the same 10 hour battery life with a much larger 42.5 Wh battery.
I do wish that the notebook dock contained a second battery, though. The ASUS VivoTab with the dock has 55Wh of combined battery capacity (30Wh in the tablet, 25Wh in the dock) and is rated to have 19 hours of total battery life. If you get even 75% of that in real world use, you’re still looking at a Windows 8 system with nearly 15 hours of battery runtime, which is incredibly valuable. The lack of a secondary dock has a bigger impact in the Ivy Bridge-based ATIV Smart PC Pro than it does here, because the Pro has relatively mediocre battery life (I’ll get to that in the 700T review) and could really use another couple of dozen watt-hours. Even without the second battery, the 500T still has excellent battery life, but it’s a bit of a missed opportunity to be sure.
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paulbram - Tuesday, March 19, 2013 - link
You REALLY need to check out the HP Envy X2. I just picked up this thing from Staples for $525. It includes the keyboard dock with a second battery in it. In my opinion, it is the best of the convertibles AND it is the cheapest!!!The build quality in particular is really quite amazing. It feels like a MacBook air with a detachable screen.
hughtwg - Tuesday, March 19, 2013 - link
I agree. While I much prefer using a stylus than getting greasy fingerprints all over my screen the poor stylus support in Windows 8 make using a stylus less than ideal. Other than my touchpad not registering multi-touch gestures when waking from sleep the X2 has been great. Hopefully HP will fix the touch pad soon.nerd1 - Wednesday, March 20, 2013 - link
Actually HP initially claimed their tablet supports active digitizer (maybe atmel) but so far no one confirmed than. That's was a major dealbreaker for me.new-paradigm - Tuesday, March 19, 2013 - link
The Asus Vivotab also has a wacom digitiser built in. Not sure why anyone would choose the plasticky build of the Samsung to be honest.new-paradigm - Tuesday, March 19, 2013 - link
http://www.asus.com/vivo/en/vivoTab.htmnew-paradigm - Tuesday, March 19, 2013 - link
Also, I think you may be getting your vivotabs confused. The vivotab has a wacom digitiser and the second battery in the keyboard dock, the vivotab smart has neither.Would also have liked a comment on the usability of the tablet whilst docked, as I found from looking at them in the shops that the heavy weight of the tablet causes them to fall over backwards when prodding at the screen whilst it is being used docked on a desk or table.
paulbram - Tuesday, March 19, 2013 - link
Not sure about the others, but I can say that I use my HP Envy X2 on my lap all the time and it doesn't seem to be too top heavy. They actually prevent the screen from going back too far, likely to prevent this problem.nordicpc - Tuesday, March 19, 2013 - link
I love my Ativ. I got one as soon as I could, Staples had them without the keyboard dock back when Win 8 launched. It's been a very solid tablet with way more functionality and performance than I could have ever hoped for. I used a Transformer 2 before, and this is no question better. The only thing that this review missed was the occasional lockups that the OS experiences while in sleep. You have to do a hard shutdown sometimes when the system has been offline for a while. I don't know if he didn't experience it, or if he was asked by Samsung to not note it because they have a fix coming soon, but it seems to be an issue with both my Ativ and my employee's Asus Smart. Seriously though, the Ativ Smart has totally replaced my AMD-based Asus Eee-PC, and I'm incredibly happy with it. Faster than an AMD Athlon X2 with all-day battery life and a very good (although low-res) screen.rburnham - Thursday, March 21, 2013 - link
This is the tablet I went with. I had a similar Acer tablet initially, but that unit had a problem where it would go into sleep mode and not come out of it without a reset. I returned it and got the Samsung unit and I have been pleased with it. It's a little too big for one-handed use, but other than that it does what I want. The Atom processor really makes a case for Windows RT not being needed at all. Space be a little tight, but with a micro SD card, I can hold all the data I need on the go. Definitely an option worth considering.