A WELL-DESIGNED WINDOWS TABLET THAT SUFFERS FROM A HANDFUL OF MINOR FLAWSPRICE $450
SUPPLIER www.asus.com/au
Of oil the Windows 8 tablets in this Labs, the VivoTab Smart has the sleekest design. On its own, the tablet weighs a reasonable 620g, and with the optional TranSleeve keyboard cover with which our sample was supplied, it still weighs only 1kg, Yet, with a full-blown copy of Windows 8 onboard, this tablet is capable of acting as your desktop PC, mobile workhorse and sofa browsing device, all in one, There's a reasonable selection of connectors around the edges: a microSD slot for expanding the tablet's 64GB of internal storage, a micro-HDMI output for hooking up a secondary display, and a single micro- USB port for charging the device and transferring data.
It's here that we hit the first snag, however. If you want to connect peripherals such as external storage or a full-sized keyboard, mouse or printer, you have to use an OTG adapter cable plugged into the VivoTab's micro- USB socket. The problem is you need this socket to keep the tablet charged, and you can't do both at once. The keyboard cover is a bit of a fiddle, too. Unlike the Surface's Touch and Type Covers, it comes in two parts that snap snugly together when closed, but separate for typing. This works fine on a desk, but is unusable on your lap. Asking extra for it is a bit much.
In the benchmarks, the Asus’ Atom processor saw it race through the SunSpider test, but its performance was below overage elsewhere. Although image quality on the lO.lin IPS display is fine, its 1366 x 768 resolution looks a little low these days. Battery life is great, however - the Asus lasted 12hrs 49mins in our video test.
All in all, the Asus VivoTab Smart isn't a bad product, but the price is high, especially when you factor in the keyboard cover, and it isn't without its problems.
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