ASUS VivoTab RT Review
by Vivek Gowri on October 23, 2012 3:01 PM EST- Posted in
- Asus
- Mobile
- Tablets
- Windows RT
- Vivo Tab
The cameras are also pretty highly specced, with a 2MP front facing camera ready for 1080p video conferencing in addition to a backside-illuminated 8MP CMOS with a 5 element f/2.2 lens that features a hybrid IR filter. It’s pretty impressive from a technical standpoint, especially compared to Surface’s comparatively spartan 720p cameras front and back. Of course, I still believe that tablets don’t really need rear-facing cameras, but the IQ of the front facing camera is pretty great - I’m glad that manufacturers no longer are content to ship crappy VGA front facing cameras that all but ruin the point of having one. Combined with the upcoming Skype application, the VivoTab should be an excellent device for video chatting.
Weirdly though, the VivoTab RT ships with two camera applications installed. One is the standard Windows RT camera app, which is pretty spartan. The other is called ASUS Camera and adds a bunch of options, like applying filters, changing image settings like flash, white balance, focus modes, ISO, and the like. It also adds a panorama mode. Images coming out of the two applications appear to be the same, so all things considered I’d rather use ASUS Camera. The application design isn’t as clean as the included Windows one, but the additional functionality makes up for it.
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N4g4rok - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
He even mentioned that RT is getting it's own review in a little while.On top of that, with an ipad, the hardware and OS are rolled into one and are usually new, so you see an analysis of both new products. This is an Asus product running windows software, and like most laptops that get reviewed where no time is spent on windows 7, tablets will probably be treated the same. There's no point in going that in depth on every aspect of the tablet when we're going to see it and hear about it in other reviews.
kyuu - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
Windows RT will be getting its own review, and the Surface got a fairly in-depth review by Anand himself.Plus, there's no new SoC going on here like in the iPhone 5 review, which Anand was obviously keenly interested in.
Lonyo - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
Is there any indication of the settings you used in your battery life testing?Presumably you went for a standardised brightness across all products? There's nothing in the graphs to indicate how testing was performed, and it would be useful to know, although given ATs history, I assume it was done in a fairly comparable way.
VivekGowri - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
200nits, same as always :)Braumin - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
This makes me seriously excited for RT. I think the app issue is going to go away very quickly.I'd like to see a couple more reviews (especially Surface!) before I can pick what I get. I was leaning pretty heavily towards Surface, but this for the same price has a great battery/keyboard dock.
sulu1977 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
Where's the usb3 port? How can you exchange files with another laptop? Is the battery removable?antef - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
I misunderstand how you can call it a decent PC replacement/ultraportable in the conclusion when you can't install any desktop applications on it at all. That means you get Office and the very poor selection of the Windows Store. That doesn't come anywhere CLOSE to a PC replacement! Are you sure you didn't accidentally copy and paste that line from a Windows 8 (not RT) review?kyuu - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
He didn't say it was a PC replacement. He said it was the first tablet that he can accomplish his workflow on, as opposed to Android/Apple tablets that aren't up to the task. He's impressed with how capable it is as a PC replacement, which isn't the same as saying it is a PC replacement (though I'd argue it could be for a large percentage of users whose only tasks are Office, web, videos, and some casual gaming).DMagic - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
Maybe I missed it, but does the dock disable the touchscreen and the home button, or just the button?I'm interested to know what it's like to use the touchscreen as a supplementary input device. This seems like an ideal way to use Win8 RT (fingerprints, I know, but they are easy to clean off and I don't think they are that big of a deal anyway), with its combination of such disparate interface types.
kyuu - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
Dock only disables the home button. Disabling the touchscreen would just be foolish.