ASUS VivoTab RT Review
by Vivek Gowri on October 23, 2012 3:01 PM EST- Posted in
- Asus
- Mobile
- Tablets
- Windows RT
- Vivo Tab
In this day and age of “pixel density over all”, most of the RT tablets being launched with WXGA panels, and none of them seem to be worse off for it. In the case of the VivoTab RT, it’s a 10.1” Super IPS+ panel with a resolution of 1366x768. This is a similar panel to the one found in the Transformer Prime, except with a different aspect ratio and resolution (the Prime was 1280x800). As expected, the panel quality is excellent - very bright, great viewing angles, and very good colour reproduction. Combined with the vibrancy of the Modern UI, it just looks fantastic.
Performance-wise, this is pretty good. I’d like to caution that we don’t have a way to do our standard colour gamut and colour accuracy tests on Windows RT yet, so for right now we’re limited to brightness and contrast. Max brightness is 554 nits, which if you hadn’t realized, is really, really bright. Unfortunately, if you leave adaptive brightness enabled (the setting is buried in power profiles) it’ll max out indoors at just over 200 nits, which means you end up keeping the VivoTab RT at maximum brightness for the most part with that on. The contrast ratio is just under 1000:1, so in line with the rest of the top end devices on the market (the contrast ratio at 200 nits is 932:1, so very close to the numbers at max brightness). These numbers aren’t off the charts ridiculous like we saw with the Transformer Prime, but point to a very high quality display that still performs well in outdoor settings.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
68 Comments
View All Comments
lmcd - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
Naw, Windows 8 still isn't interesting to me. Even oddball projects like Plasma Active are more interesting.augiem - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
Except I HAVE actually used Windows 8, I do not agree, and its still inappropriate.rahvin - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
I agree it's inappropriate. Calling your readers ignorant is not a way to build trust and I have to say honestly that comment damaged Anandtech's reputation.I'm using Win8 on my home rig and there are things I like about it (some nice performance enhancements) but metro is NOT one of them. Combining touch interface into the desktop was a natural evolution, but what MS did by trying to make one interface work for phones and desktops is going to be a big mistake IMO. Windows 8 is going to be much more hated than the Office Ribbon ever was. The hot corners, full windows start panel and re-emergence of the active desktop it provides are all going to be disastrous IMO.
Regardless of how you feel about Windows8 calling people Ignorant for disliking the UI isn't professional and I normally come to this site for professional well thought out reviews EVEN if I don't agree with the conclusions.
Alexvrb - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
If you treat Modern UI like a fancy start menu, everything is fine. If you obsess about Modern UI and spend long hours glaring at it and muttering curses, then I can see where you might have a problem.Anyway if you're really hardcore into murdering the new start menu, there are options for that too. But you were obviously ignorant of this. Ooops! Was that inappropriate? Want some Pamprin? Ah damn there I go again being inappropriate. Probably not politically correct either.
VivekGowri - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
It's the Metro/Modern user interface, being discussed in the context of using it with a mouse. I don't understand how it doesn't apply, considering this particular tablet is shipped with a keyboard/touchpad attachment.shomizu9 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
I happen to agree with your opinion in this article Vivek, but augiem has a point - using the "ignorant" comment in your article is pretty unprofessional (i.e. harsh) for someone writing an article/review :-( What about addressing it in a different, less harsh way?VivekGowri - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
Yeah, I agree that it sounded a bit harsh in my head too but I was more focused on getting the article out in time rather than worry about that one word. Does "uninformed" sound better?EnzoFX - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
What about the fact that it fills the screen? What if you don't want to lose visibility of windows you have open? That's gotta count for something, no?I myself use other launchers, so I shouldn't be affected =P.
MadMan007 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
Ignorant *does* mean uninformed, the word 'ignorant' has just gotten twisted by popular culture to be equivalent to 'stupid', which it is not.augiem - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
How about, has a different opinion from. Honestly, the level of superiority on these tech boards is unbelievable.