There’s the requisite ultrabook entrails, a high-PPI touch screen, a decent-sized SSD, Bluetooth 4.0, USB 3.0, micro HDMI, a couple of cameras, a stylus, and a host of sensors. Better than a Windows RT tablet? Well, just take a look at all the hardware Samsung packs inside this thing. The 700T1C model we’re looking at today sells for $1,189.99 shipped at Newegg with the keyboard dock in the box. …and the all-important keyboard dock accessory. It has a Core i5-3317U processor, an 11.6″ 1080p display… There’s no popping off the keyboard to surf the web on the couch more comfortably.Īs luck would have it, we have a member of this Windows 8 convertible breed in our labs: Samsung’s ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T, which is also known as the 700T1C. But keep in mind that actual laptops with the same kind of hardware don’t sell for much less, and they lack the flexibility of convertibles. Yes, these machines are a little spendy, with prices floating around the $1,000 mark right now. It’s certainly a lovely concept on paper. Strap on a keyboard dock, and you’d be hard-pressed to tell them apart from an ultrabook. They look a bit like jumbo iPads from the outside, and they run all the same Modern UI apps as their WinRT peers, but they’re full-featured x86 PCs under the hood. Some of those are effectively shrunken ultrabooks, with 17W Ivy Bridge processors, high-PPI displays, speedy SSDs, USB 3.0, and all that good stuff. If you’re prepared to pay a little extra-okay, a lot extra-you can spring for a Windows 8 convertible. Windows RT isn’t the only way to go if you want a Windows tablet, though. I’ll take a Nexus 10 or an iPad over a Surface RT any day. That leads to a lot of frustration and confusion, and the semi-useless portion of the operating system has a hefty storage footprint. Then there’s the matter of the desktop interface, which looks and feels like the real thing but won’t run any of your old apps (since x86 software isn’t compiled to execute on ARM hardware). They also tend to have lower-resolution screens (1366×768 ahoy), and they have a comparatively limited library of native applications. They’re slower to load applications, for starters. The thing is, Windows RT tablets just don’t seem to measure up to their Apple and Android rivals. Spurring some competition is always good. Oh, don’t get me wrong it’s great that Microsoft is pursuing a two-pronged strategy, with ARM on one side and Intel on the other. I’m not really impressed with Windows RT tablets.
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