Samsung ATIV Smart PC: Revisiting Clover Trail Convertibles
by Vivek Gowri on March 18, 2013 12:00 AM ESTSamsung ATIV Smart PC: Performance
Anand covered the CPU and GPU performance of the Atom Z2760 really thoroughly in his Clover Trail platform review with the Acer W510. At this point, Z2760 is pretty familiar to us—two Hyper-Threaded Saltwell cores at 1.8GHz, along with PowerVR’s SGX 545 GPU clocked at 533MHz. Saltwell is the 32nm shrink of Bonnell, which you probably better remember as the heart of the much beloved Atom N270 netbook processors. (I’m kidding about the much beloved part.) The new 22nm microarchitecture cannot come soon enough. Here's a rehash of Clover Trail performance, which is generally identical to the Acer W510.
For the first time, we’re seeing Intel lose its performance edge to Cortex-A15 based SoCs, but for now Clover Trail is still competitive from both compute and power efficiency standpoints. That’s more than can be said for SGX 545, even at such a high clock. Clover Trail+ changes that though, with the inclusion of two SGX 544 cores, and should offer graphics performance that is in the same range as Adreno 320, as well as being much more competitive with Apple’s recent SoCs. But CT+ hasn’t arrived yet, so for now we’re left with good old Clover Trail. I'm leaving Surface Pro's numbers in the following graphs, just so that you can see how much faster the ultra-low voltage IVB parts are when compared to Clover Trail. It's a pretty huge difference, even when looking at just the Core i5.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
59 Comments
View All Comments
Krysto - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
Why do Clover Trail devices need to be "revisited" every couple of months? Does Intel need Anandtech to do their PR for them?BrokenCrayons - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
Though the internal hardware and performance expectations aren't going to change until there are improvements made to the silicon, the hardware package in which it resides that includes the case, screen, interface options, and battery along with other odds and ends make devices themselves worth a look. Samsung, in this case, is different with respect to build quality that is something of a shortcoming.That aside, Clover Trail is pretty uninteresting as a platform outside of putting it in the perspective of battery life. Priced at over $700, I don't personally see the appeal of what is, in essence, a netbook that costs over double the price when compared to budget-friendly systems of only a few years ago. There's just not enough benefit to offset the cost increase over a bargin bin AMD C-60 or last-gen Atom netbook for which I can simply carry an additional battery. if I want endurance as I'd be the sort to leave the keyboard dock forever attached and rarely bother to touch the screen.
Pirks - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
Why are you lying about Clover Trail tablet prices being over $700 when in fact they start at $479?See this as a proof: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8... and this too: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
Are you a Google and/or Apple fanatic by any chance? Just curious ;)
BrokenCrayons - Tuesday, March 19, 2013 - link
From the first page of the article:"Clover Trail meant good battery life and x86 compatibility, the inclusion of Wacom active digitizers were exciting, and the 11.6” PLS/S-IPS displays seemed promising. The two are very comparable devices, though the ASUS is priced higher at $799, and doesn’t include the laptop dock anymore (it did at launch.) That gives the Samsung a pretty sizable price advantage, as $749 is only about $50 more than the 64GB Windows RT tablets when the keyboard accessory cost is included—more than worth it given the disparity in features and capability."
Death666Angel - Tuesday, March 19, 2013 - link
You realize that you are talking about all Clover Trail tablets, while Vivek just talks about 2 very specific, premium products? If you don't need a keyboard dock and an active digitizer, you can get Clover Trail tablets much cheaper. And in turn, if you need a keyboard dock and especially an active digitizer, comparing that price with old netbooks is useless, as they are useless for that specific need.BrokenCrayons - Tuesday, March 19, 2013 - link
The scope of my original post and response do not encompass, as you imply, "all Clover Trail tablets" outside of considerations of overall platform performance. The majority of the discourse concerns the Samsung tablet in specific and its various shortcomings relative to the MSRP under consideration of the benefits offered in exchange for the costs.With regards to my needs for a various features such as an active digitizer, I've already mentioned that previously. "I'd be the sort to leave the keyboard dock forever attached and rarely bother to touch the screen." In light of my own usage model and requirements, the price of the Samsung isn't justified or reasonable when one can acquire similar performance from low cost hardware available at office supply stores.
http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/592409/Acer-...
Understandably, your personal preferences and desires for a computing platform might be different. That's perfectly reasonable, but the mold which suits your needs may not be universally applied to others.
Death666Angel - Tuesday, March 19, 2013 - link
Then you should amend that sentence:"That aside, Clover Trail is pretty uninteresting as a platform outside of putting it in the perspective of battery life. Priced at over $700, I don't personally see the appeal of what is, in essence, a netbook that costs over double the price when compared to budget-friendly systems of only a few years ago."
As you make no effort to distinguish between different CT platforms. And when you get called out for it, you quote the article which just mentions 2 examples.
duploxxx - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
typical OEM behavior, go with the flow i.s.o. design to differentiate. There has always been a netbook atom killer called Brazos, same for the tablet space it exists, http://www.anandtech.com/show/6672/vizio-tablet-pc... no slugish gui or impossible 3d like on the clovers, i had many tabs in house for testing, just makes the all day experience horrible. from an smooth workable gui experience (swiping between screens, switching applications) on tablets: IOS > ANDROID = AMD Soc >>>>> Clover this is how you can rate the experience.nerd1 - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
I don't care about UI experience, I do care about the active digitizer (for inking) and battery life.DanNeely - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
The part of the Asus device chaos that's annoying me the most is that from what I can tell from their webpage; their 10" atom model is only available with a wireless keyboard and a cover that can be folded up to let the two imitate a laptop on a table while the winRT model has an actual keyboard dock with the extended battery and ability to use like a laptop even if a perfectly flat surface isn't available. The atom tablet and keydock would otherwise match what I am looking for almost perfectly.