Samsung ATIV Tab Review: Qualcomm's First Windows RT Tablet
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 3, 2013 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Samsung
- Qualcomm
- Mobile
- Windows RT
Respectable WiFi Performance
The ATIV Tab uses Qualcomm's own dual-band 802.11n WiFi solution (WCN3660?). The resulting peak performance with 40MHz channels enabled on a 5GHz network is on par with the latest from Apple and in the range of what we got on the Nexus 10 as well.
At 81.6Mbps peak, moving files to the ATIV Tab is measurably quicker than on Surface RT or Acer's W510. This is the first Windows RT/8 tablet I've used with competitive WiFi performance.
Camera
The 5MP rear camera shoots images at 2592 x 1944 while the front facing camera shoots at 1280 x 960. In good light, rear camera performance isn't bad for a tablet:
The rear camera is aided by an LED flash which unfortunately can't be manually controlled. Once ambient light drops below a certain level, the flash always fires. Unfortunately the outcome isn't pretty:
This scene is comfortably lit, but not bright enough to avoid triggering the flash
The rear camera shoots 720p video encoded using AVC main profile (L3.1) at an average bitrate of around 8.6Mbps. Video quality is decent given sufficient lighting but the camera doesn't seem to continually (or at least frequently) adjust exposure, which can result in over/underexposed subjects if your lighting changes dramatically in a scene.
I haven't been particularly impressed by any of the Windows RT/8 camera implementations. Samsung's ATIV Tab isn't horrible but it's not particularly great either.
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MonkeyPaw - Friday, January 4, 2013 - link
I would love to see some cross-platform comparison. If my Tegra3 Android device produces that different of a result, I'd be interested to see just how different everything else might be.Relic74 - Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - link
I just recently purchased a Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet 2 and I have to say I'm really enjoying it. So much so that I'm selling my iPad. I tried to like the Apple, everyone has one, everyone seems to not be able to live without one, except me. Sure it's pretty, great hardware but the OS is so crippled and simplified it drives me crazy. The lack of media codecs, Flash, Java and something as simple as a file-manager doesn't help either, not to mention that the interface is boring and old. However for a while that was really the only viable tablet OS available, sure Android had the aforementioned but the UI is clunky, at times unstable and twitchy to say the least.Windows 8 though, finally a OS that is not only fast but is also capable of getting real work done. Even now in it's beginnings the OS wipes the floor with iOS. I'm not a Apple hater as I really like OSX, I own a Macbook Air and love it but iOS just drove me crazy.
The Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet is one hell of a kit, it came down to that and the Asus 810c, I chose the Lenovo in the end because of the size plus I totally dug the look and feel. The little guy does everything I always wanted in a tablet; great battery, fast UI, nonrestrictive in what can and cannot be installed, a file-manager and a Mini SD slot. No Mini-SD card, who does that, Apple. I also don't want to have to plug my tablet into another computer and have to use a music player to transfer files across. Yes I know you can do it wireless. Skydrive is awesome, runs circles around iCloud not to mention I can sync certain folders because I have a file-manager, sorry as you can tell I have a real problem with sandboxing. I like it when my apps talk to each other, I like it when I'm in the photo manager and I can access the local drive or the many cloud services.
Even though my Lenovo is running on a Atom CPU you would never know it as it's very, very peppy. The lack of apps is a little disconcerting at the moment but hopefully by the end of this year MS will be a little caught up, but hey at least there is Evernote and the Facebook app is pretty good. I'm very happy with MS, first time in a long time. I'm just so glad to finally have a tablet OS that is worth a damn, sure iOS has the apps but that damn system hasn't really changed in the last 2 years, their just playing catch up with Android now.
On a side note stay away from RT for the time being, it really doesn't make sense right now as there isn't much that runs on it. The new HP 900 or Lenovo Tablet 2 are the way to go, even the Asus VivoTab 810c or Smart are superb machines.
Windows 8 on a tablet just makes sense and I highly recommend anyone looking to buy a tablet in the near future to really give it chance, I promise you will not be disappointed.