Samsung ATIV Smart PC: Revisiting Clover Trail Convertibles
by Vivek Gowri on March 18, 2013 12:00 AM ESTSamsung ATIV Smart PC: Battery Life
The battery life this platform offers is fantastic. The 31Wh battery gives over 10 hours of runtime in our internet browsing test, which is in the same ballpark as the Tegra 3 Windows RT tablets, but also better than the iPad from a power efficiency standpoint. It’s worth noting that the iPad has a much higher resolution display that results in a significantly higher power draw, but offers almost the same 10 hour battery life with a much larger 42.5 Wh battery.
I do wish that the notebook dock contained a second battery, though. The ASUS VivoTab with the dock has 55Wh of combined battery capacity (30Wh in the tablet, 25Wh in the dock) and is rated to have 19 hours of total battery life. If you get even 75% of that in real world use, you’re still looking at a Windows 8 system with nearly 15 hours of battery runtime, which is incredibly valuable. The lack of a secondary dock has a bigger impact in the Ivy Bridge-based ATIV Smart PC Pro than it does here, because the Pro has relatively mediocre battery life (I’ll get to that in the 700T review) and could really use another couple of dozen watt-hours. Even without the second battery, the 500T still has excellent battery life, but it’s a bit of a missed opportunity to be sure.
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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.