What do you think of new Windows 8 tablets?

[davidbec]

I was browsing Amazon a few days go and looking at the tablets that are now on sale. I also came across an article showing what Intel was planning for 2013 and it does not appear like a new Atom is going to be released until the very end of 2013 or even 2014 when they release their next CPU 22nm architecture with the Ivy Bridge graphics included. Yes they are dumping PowerVR.

With that in mind it means that the Z2760, which Gigabyte elected not to use in the S1082 is the last Atom chip we will see for a long time.

So what are my options for an upgrade next year?

I am looking favourably at the Acer W510.
It has the Z2760 and a full sized USB port. USB 2.0, which is not so good, but I don't really have any choice. It does have HDMI, and a micro SD card slot. Again I would prefer a full sized SD card slot, but yet again no other choice. The MS Surface and the Samsung Ativ 500T also use micro SD.

It comes with a 64GB SSD and Bluetooth 4. It is also very light at 1.3lbs compared to 1.89 for the S1080, and 1.6lbs in the Samsung.

The Samsung Ativ is nice looking but runs the CPU at 1.5Ghz vs 1.8 in the Acer. The only benefit I see is the pen. But I can buy one of those. The other thing is that the Samsung is 11.6 inches with the same resolution as the Acer. A little big for me. Eveything else in the specifications remains pretty much the same, the price is also very close although the Samsung seems to be the favourite.

What I found strange however was that in a review I saw of the Z2760 the Windows Experience score for the processor was the same (3.4) as my N570.

What are you looking at for next year?

[Ray!]

I'll be using the S1080 for some time to come, unless it fails for some reason. While I have Windows 8 running as a dual boot, I'm mainly using Window 7, as I'm still not entirely convinced that Win 8 is fully sorted out.

[davidbec]

Microsoft has announced the Surface Pro will have a USB 3 port and a Displayport. Additionally it will be .57 inches thick. Take note that the S1080 and family are .59 so is thick suddenly ok again?

[rnomis]

I am reasonably happy with windows 8 on my S1081 despite being ripped off by Microsoft over the price for the upgrade (it didn't seem to discount the offer code so with tax this was UK £30!)
Anyway, it boots up faster than win7 I have the 64GB SSD version and boots in around 30 seconds. I had to merge the partitions to get it on but so far OK.

I have two problems:
I have hacked the registry to get the higher resolution but it crashes when I try to run any apps. This is a known issue so for the moment I am keeping it to the standard resolution while I wait for some kind soul to rewrite the Intel driver (you would have thought that with their resources they would have done this already). The apps are not that important for the moment.

The other and more pressing problem is the Bluetooth driver. There doesn't appear to be one installed. I see that davidbec had a problem which he seemed to have resolved.

I had to do some extra work to for bluetooth.

 It would be great if someone could document how to do this. I have a company iPhone with a generous data package and would dearly love to pair my S1081 with it as I did with windows 7

thanks in advance

[davidbec]

Hi and welcome to the Windows 8 on S10x party!

To fix my Bluetooth I just had to download the driver from gigabyte. Bare in mind however that I have an S1080 not an S1081. I reloaded it a few weeks ago and interestingly enough I did not have to do the gigabyte download.

[rnomis]

Thanks for the information. However, I have now installed it twice and added a desktop icon but it will not run. When I open the file location, it points to rundll.exe
Not sure where to go from here.

[davidbec]

Can't remember exactly how I got mine installed. Have you tried getting windows to browse just for the driver for the device rather than running the install program?

[davidbec]

Enter the Latitude 10 from Dell
http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/latitude-10-tablet/pd?ST=dell%20latitude%2010&dgc=ST&cid=76289&lid=4563070&acd=G2fvFRSL

Pretty descent to be honest. It has FULL USB, FULL SDCARD. Oh Joy!! Gorilla glass and a swappable battery. Intel Z2760 for long battery life, micro HDMI, 64GB SSD and  8MP back camera with flash.

Very cool. The best Part!! It can be yours for under $600.

[davidbec]

Here I have the new Microsoft Surface Pro compared to the Gigabyte S1185. Both are expected to be in the same price range.


OS
Windows 8
 Windows 8 Pro

CPU
S1185 - 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i5-3337U Processor (1.8GHz-2.7GHz)
Surface - 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i5-3317U Processor (1.7GHz-2.6GHz)

Display
S1185 - 11.6" Capacitive Multi-touch Panel 1920x1080 IPS LED backlight
Surface - 10.6" Capacitive 10 point Multi-touch Panel 1920x1080 Cleartype PLS LED backlight

System Memory
S1185 - 2/4/8GB DDRIII, 1 slot (Max 8GB)
Surface - 4GB DDRIII

Chipset
Mobile Intel® HM77 Express Chipset

Video Graphics
Intel® HD 4000 Graphics

Storage
S1185 - 64/128/256GB mSATA SSD
Surface - Micron C400 64/128GB mSATA SSD

I/O Port
S1185 - USB (3.0)*1, USB (2.0)*1,VGA, HDMI, Headphone-out jack (Audio-in Combo), MicroSDXC, SIM card slot, Keyboard dock connector
Surface - USB 3.0, microSDXC, Headset jack, Mini DisplayPort, Cover dock

Audio
1.5 watt speaker*2, Microphone

Communications
S1185 - Wireless LAN: 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth: Bluetooth V4.0 +LE, WWAN (3.5G): 3.5G Antenna built-in, 3.5G Module supported (optional)
Surface - Wireless LAN: 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth: Bluetooth V4.0 +LE,

Webcam
S1185 - Front: 1.3 Megapixel,  Rear: 5 Megapixel
Surface - Front and Back unknown exactly but 720 capable

Battery
S1185 - Li-polymer, 7.4V, 39Wh
Surface - 42 W-h

Dimensions
S1185 - 297 x 183 x 13.6 mm - 2.2lbs
Surface = 275 x 173 x 13 mm - 2lbs, VaporMg casing

Extras
Surface - integrated kickstand, digitizer and pen with 1024 levels of sensitivity.

[Ray!]

You just pointed out something I'd missed completely. The S1185 uses an mSATA SSD, while the S1080 series uses a SATA I/II/III SSD.

This:



vs this:



Also included in the S1080 series is a mini-PCIE slot, which is the same as an mSATA slot. I've installed a mini-PCIE to SD card adapter in mine and can now use an SD card (up to 32GB) for extra internal storage. At some point in time I want to see if an mSATA SSD will work in this slot.

mSATA drives are a fair bit more expensive than SATA SSDs, so why did they go this way with the S1185? And have they removed the mini-PCIE slot as well. Considering the increase in tablet dimensions, the S1185 could have hosted quite a bit more than the S1080.

[davidbec]

yup unfortunately they are using mSATA. Depending on the manfacturer there could be a large performance hit compared to a SATA SSD.

I was tryng to find information on the PCIE slot and I do not believe it supports the SATA protocol, which is required in order for it to support an SSD in the slot.

[davidbec]

Just a word of warning to persons who are interested in purchasing Windows 8 tablets, especially those running the Intel Z2760 processor. The SoC that this processor is used in does not support the SATA protocol and as a result many of the tablets which use it will not carry SSDs or hard drives. Rather the manufacturers have been including eMMC drives. These are essentially SDCards without the casing, soldered onto the main board.

Here http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/11/lenovo-thinkpad-tablet-2-review/ is the Lenovo X2 review. In it you will see the test results from a number of tablets which use the Z2760 and eMMC drives. Average read speed is 82MB/s and average write 34MB/s. SSDs tend to be in the +200MB/s area for read and +150MB/s for write.

So be aware when making your purchase that if the tablet uses an eMMC drive your performance will not be as high as you expected and sometimes the fault will not be the processor.

[Ray!]

I have to say that Gigabyte got so many things right with the S1080 series of tablets that it's a shame they have moved away from this. The first thing is the ability to easily open the back and get access to the components. Then the use of and ability to change HDDs/SSDs, add mini-PCIE storage (via an adapter) or a mobile data card, the ability to change the battery and simply be able to clean the insides.

The Microsoft Surface, for example, appears to be the complete opposite: http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft+Surface+Pro+Teardown/12842.

I'm personally very happy that I bought the S1080, after seeing so many reviews of newer tablets that don't seem to offer anything better, but in fact seem to be inferior in so many ways.

[davidbec]

You are so right Ray.

From the time I saw the specification on the S1080 I knew I had to have one and I have not looked back since. I thought the tablets coming out especially this year would surpass it in terms of performance and capabilities but it did not happen. None of the non-Gigabyte units exceed it in capabilites and the performance on the Atom units are no different for busniess use. Games and movies are better, but that's all.

I was hard on gigabyte when I first saw the S1082 specifications, but now I think I understand why they did not go with the Atom this round.

The 2014 Intel Atom though looks to be a game changer.

[davidbec]

CNET has posted their Windows 8 tablet roundup.
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-3121_7-57582331-220/how-to-choose-an-entry-level-windows-8-tablet/

Missing of course is the Gigabyte range of tablets.

In the comments area people are talking about what tablet they like and what they have purchased. Some have mentioned that Baytrail is set to arrive later this year, so they are holding out for that. I too am holding out for a Bay Trail tablet with lot of useful ports along the sides. Hoping that the processor and chipset are allowed to really stretch themselves and show what they are capable of and believe me what they can do is quite a lot.

There is mention of a  new Windows 8 Toshiba table coming on the market targeted at businesses. It is supposed to have a full SD slot, full USB3, micro HDMI and WWAN, 3G or 4G, don't recall right now. It is said to be .5 inches thick and weighing in at 826grams. Processor, RAM and size of the disk were unknown at the time of the article.

There are rumors of a Microsoft Surface 2 tablet coming soon. Some speculate that it may have 7 or 9 inch screen options. Time will tell I suppose.


until next time...