Windows 8 tablets from Samsung, Sony, and ASUS on display at IFA
Windows 8 tablets are on full display at the IFA conference, including interesting designs from Samsung, Sony, and ASUS. Sony’s ATIV line – which stands for “active” and spells “VITA” backwards, which means “to live” in Latin – includes the Smart PC, Smart PC Pro, and Tab. Sony has the VAIO Duo 11 and ASUS has a pair of Vivo Tab tablets.
The Samsung ATIV Smart PC and Smart PC Pro share many similarities, such as a hybrid notebook/tablet design, a SuperBright 11.6-inch Full HD LCD display (400nit brightness), a detachable keyboard-docking system with additional USB ports, mHDMI, miniSD, and Samsung’s trademark S Pen. It also includes apps like S Note, S Camera, and S Player. But whereas the Smart PC packs an Intel Atom processor, USB 2.0, and 14 hours of battery life into a 9.9mm chassis, the Smart PC Pro has an Intel Core i5 processor, USB 3.0, eight hours of battery life, and a thickness of 11.9mm. Both devices run the full version of Windows 8. Samsung’s ATIV Tab also runs Windows 8, rather than Windows RT, and features a 10.1-inch display, 8,200mAh battery, USB and uHDMI ports, and a 60-day trial of Office 2010. The device weighs 570g and is just 8.39mm thick.
The Sony VAIO Duo 11 is a “slider hybrid Ultrabook” which sports an 11.6-inch super-bright wide-view Full HD OptiContrast Panel running at 1920 x 1080, a digitizer stylus pen, and an optional sheet-type battery extender with a stylus holder. The Surf Slider design allows it to easily transition between keyboard and tablet modes, and it includes an Intel HD Graphics 4000 GPU, front- and rear-facing 2.07MP cameras, USB 3.0, HDMI, Ethernet, VGA, NFC, GPS, accelerometer, gyro, digital compass, and rotation lock come standard. The rest of the specs are customizable, with Sony allowing you to choose between Windows 8 or Windows 8 Pro, an Intel Core i3, i5, or i7 processor, 4GB or 8GB of DDR3L RAM, and either a 128GB or 256GB SSD. All of this is packed into a 17.85mm thick design which weighs 1.3kg.
Of the three manufacturers, only ASUS has a Windows RT tablet. The Vivo Tab RT includes a 10.1-inch Super IPS+ display running at 1366 x 768 with a 178 degree viewing angle, an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor, 12-core graphics, 2GB of RAM, and a 32GB SSD packed into an 520g, 8.3mm thick chassis. It also has front- and rear-facing cameras, as well as NFC and a keyboard dock which adds an additional 15 hours of battery life, more USB ports, and a trackpad. ASUS is especially proud of the device’s hidden hinge design, docking mechanism, and SonicMaster audio. ASUS also has a Windows 8 version of the device, with an 11.6-inch HD display running at the same resolution as its younger brother, NFC, stylus, 2GB of RAM, 64GB SSD, front- and rear-facing cameras, and the same keyboard dock. The Vivo Tab weighs 671 grams and it is 8.9mm thick. If these devices sound slightly familiar, that’s because ASUS previously announced them under the name Tablet 810 and Tablet 600.
All six of these Windows 8 tablets are expected to be released on October 26, day-and-date with the launch of Windows 8 and the exciting Surface tablet. It should be a very interesting fall for computing devices.
[Samsung Tomorrow | Engadget | SuperSite for Windows]
