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.
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jtsmall - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
Then look at the HP Envy X2 here http://bit.ly/114Mcnb and here http://zd.net/114NqPgThis dockable Win 8 Atom Z2760 tablet sounds like what you're asking for.
DanNeely - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
The Envy's currently at the top of my candidate list due to price; but it's a big bigger than I really want. I can stuff a 6.5" laptop into the pockets of holding in a few of my pairs of pants which, while a bit awkward, is less of a hassle than either carrying it loose or wearing a backpack for a single item. The 7.5" tall form factor of the Envy (and every other atom tablet/laptop combo) is too big to fit.nerd1 - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
Envy x2 is almost perfect EXCEPT FOR the (current) lack of active digitizer solution. They said they will have some digitizer (Atmel?) but no one has confirmed that it actually works yet.DanNeely - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
What's the current status of Clovertrail drivers? A number of initial reviews mentioned them still being a bit flaky; if those problems have been sorted out is something I was really hoping to see on a review dated a few months after launch.powerarmour - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
Intel doesn't want anyone to talk about them, it's their massive Achilles heel on their PowerVR based chipsets, they are absolutely dreadful for anything 3D related, even 2D is pretty badly borked... :PDeath666Angel - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
Thanks for the review!I have the XE700T1C and am looking forward to your review of it. I had to decide between spending 850€ for good battery life but mediocre performance (even lower than the i3-330UM Acer laptop it should replace) or spending 1300€ for something that has enough battery life and all the performance I can expect and need in a portable machine. :D I expect that Temash/Kabini will offer more of a balance, but those are vapoware as of now. :(
I agree that the dock could use a battery, really a shame they didn't include it. However, I do like the flaps on the ports. Gives it a cleaner look than having the stuff open. What would be your alternative to the flaps? :) I wouldn't mind them being slider mechanisms. But I take the flaps over open ports any day.
On my XE700T1C, I had no trouble peeling off the stickers, so I don't think that is a big point. There is also nothing of importance printed onto it.
You could do more to elaborate on the typing experience with the dock and the stylus experience.
Death666Angel - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
Forgot something. You say 10.1" is the nicer form factor. I disagree. 10.1" is fine if all you do is run Metro apps or desktop apps in full screen. But running 2 programs side by side is really terrible for me with 10.1" screens. The 11.6" screen of my XE700T1C has the perfect size to start running 2 apps side by side. The larger size also makes taking notes easier for me. I don't think one size fits everyone, so I'm not trying to tell everyone to use 11.6". But there are legitimate reasons to go to the bigger screen. The size difference is easily offset by the pros for me.And if people don't need the Wacom digitizer, they should think about the W700 from Acer. It is super cheap and has the best battery of any Core tablet. It doesn't offer a keyboard dock though (only a stand and a bluetooth keyboard). But the performance is ridiculous when compared to Atom powered stuff and it still usually offers 7+ hours of battery life. If people want a try with the higher performing Windows tablets they should look for the Samsung predecessor of the XE700T1C, the XE700T1A (Series 7 Slate) which comes in Celeron and Core i5 2nd gen flavors and a lower resolution screen without the keyboard dock but with a desktop dock and a bluetooth keyboard with an active digitizer. :) It costs as much as most Atom powered tablets with a few extras here cost.
powerarmour - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
Shame about the absolutely dire Clover Trail graphics drivers though...beginner99 - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
The Mozilla Kraken Benchmark must contain an error. The Razr i beats clovertrail by a huge margin while obviously being much slower (medfield). Something is not right in that benchmark.A.J. - Tuesday, March 19, 2013 - link
That's because Razr i using Chrome-like browser in Android.You can easily get ~12000ms in Kraken using Chrome25 in the z2760 platform.