The Asus VivoTab and VivoTab Smart good x86 alternatives to the Surface?

Posted by latlong on October 24, 2012 04:30 am 19

Asus recently announced their Windows 8 lineup and I found the The Asus VivoTab and VivoTab Smart quite interesting. Both are affordable Atom tablets, and the VivoTab have a Wacom Digitizer with a laptop dock. The VivoTab Smart will have an optional sleeve with a kickstand which attaches magnetically. Asus will also offer a Bluetooth keyboard, and the price for the devices might start at $499.

From lillputing about the tablets:

Asus VivoTab

The Asus VivoTab features an 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display, 2GB of RAM, and a 64GB solid state disk.

It has a Wacom active digitizer and digital pen (but no place to store the pen). The tablet has a 30Whr battery, a 2MP front-facing camera, and an 8MP rear camera.

Asus also offers an optional keyboard dock with a 25Whr battery. When using the tablet and dock together, Asus says you should be able to get up to 19 hours of battery life.

Asus VivoTab Smart

The VivoTab Smart is a cheaper tablet that’s basically what you’d get if you took the VivoTab RT and swapped out the NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor for an Intel Atom chip and replaced Windows RT with Windows 8.

The VivoTab Smart and VivoTab RT are about the same size, shape, and weight. Even the $499 starting prices are the same.

Asus will offer an optional sleeve which attaches to the tablet via magnets. The sleeve doubles as a kickstand, and there’s an optional Bluetooth keyboard.

Pricing for the sleeve and keyboard haven’t yet been set.

This model is thinner and lighter than the VivoTab, but offers similar performance. Unfortunately it won’t work with the VivoTab keyboard docks and there’s no active digitizer, so if you want to use a pen you’ll need to find a capacitive stylus.

Source: http://liliputing.com/2012/10/asus-introduces-vivotab-vivotab-smart-windows-8-tablets-for-499-and-up.html

The VivoTab:

via www.asus.com

Specifications for VivoTab

OS System	Windows 8
CPU	Intel® Atom™ Z2760 Dual Core CPU @ 1.8GHz
Memory	RAM: 2GB / Storage: 64GB EMMC
Storage	32G / 3 Years ASUS WebStorage
Display	11.6" Ratio: 16:9 ( 1366x768 ) LED Backlight screen with IPS
	Scratch resistant Corning® Fit Glass, anti-fingerprint, Super IPS+
Camera	8MP Auto-focus with LED Flash (rear)
	2MP (front) with LED indicator
	1080p video recording
Connectivity	802.11 b/g/n
	Bluetooth 4.0
Digitizer	Wacom digitizer stylus
GPS	Supported
Sensor	G-Sensor, Light Sensor, Gyroscope, E-compass, NFC
Interface	2-in-1 Audio Jack (Head Phone / Mic-in), 1 x Micro HDMI
	1 x Micro SD Card Reader (SDHC), Internal Microphone,
	Quad-Speakers with SonicMaster Audio Technology
Battery	Tablet only: 30Wh 10.5* hours Li-polymer,
	With mobile dock: 30Wh+ 25Wh – 19* hours
Dimension / Weight	294.2(W) x 188.8 (D) x 8.7 (H)mm / 675g
Remark	(1) May vary by SKU and country.
	(2) Battery life is measured by playing 720p video playback,
	Brightness:100 nits, default volume with headphones

Source: http://www.asus.com/vivo/en/vivoTab.htm

The VivoTab Smart

via www.asus.com

Specifications for VivoTab Smart:

OS System	Windows 8
CPU	Intel® Atom™ Z2760 Dual Core CPU @ 1.8GHz
Memory	RAM: 2GB
Storage	Internal Storage: 64GB
	32G / 3 Years ASUS WebStorage
Display	10.1" Ratio: 16:9 ( 1366x768 ) LED Backlit screen with 178° wide viewing angle IPS panel
Camera	8MP, F2.2, Lens: 5P, Auto-focus (rear) with LED flash,
	2 MP(front) with LED indicator
	1080p video recording
Connectivity	802.11 b/g/n
	Bluetooth 4.0
GPS	Supported
	G-Sensor, Light Sensor, Gyroscope, E-compass, NFC
Sensor
Interface	2-in-1 Audio Jack (Head Phone / Mic-in), 1 x Micro HDMI,1 x Micro USB
	1 x Micro SD Card Reader, Internal Microphone,
	Dual Speaker with SonicMaster Audio Technology
Battery	Tablet: 25Wh 8.5* hours Li-polymer
Dimension / Weight	265.5 (W) x 171 (D) x 9.7 (H) mm / 580g
	Color: Black / White / Red
Remark	(1) May vary by SKU and country.
	(2) Battery life is measured by playing 720p video playback,
	Brightness:100 nits, default volume with headphones

Source: http://www.asus.com/vivo/en/vivoTab.htm

Since the Tegra chipset in the surface seems a little bit slow here are some benchmarks from Anandtech between the surface and an unknown Clovertrail tablet.

JavaScript Performance
Time in ms (Lower is Better)	Kraken	SunSpider	RIA Bench Focus
Intel Atom Z2760	33855.7ms	714.9ms	3872ms
Microsoft Surface (Tegra 3 1.3GHz)	49595.5ms	981.1ms	5880ms

Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6385/microsoft-surface-review/10

TouchXPRT 2013
Time in Seconds (Lower is Better)	Photo Enhance	Photo Export	Video Transcode	MP3 Transcode	Photo Slideshow Creation
Intel Atom Z2760	210.83s	73.93s	53.91s	98.66s	85.81s
Microsoft Surface (Tegra 3 1.3GHz)	306.12s	116.36s	87.27s	160.99s	125.06s
ASUS VivoTab RT (Tegra 3 1.3GHz)	312.14s	109.89s	89.69s	155.84s	122.65s