Writing detailed reviews should always be a long-term process. Often its not possible though. Even after spending many many hours with a device, you don’t find out about everything that an owner would.
This has been true of the TabletKiosk i7210 ultra mobile PC which I still use as my daily PC in docked, mini-PC, extended-screen mode. I’ve had it for nearly two months now and I think I’ve finally found out pretty much everything there is to know about it. Good and Bad.
I have been extremely impressed and a little surprised at how easily it has fulfilled the desktop role and how capable it is with many many tasks. I can run 6mbps videos while blogging. I can edit images without restriction using The Gimp. Backups to another PC using a crossover cable and a Gig-e interface are faster than any of the other notebooks I have had and I have memory and disk space a-plenty. As a mini-PC, the i7210 is near-perfect. I would even expect the i7209 to perform just as well in this role.
i7210 set up as my desktop mini-PC. Coffee cup is usually empty!
The ergonomics of the i7210 are still feeling good. Although I’m a bit spoiled now that I have the Pepperpad to lounge around with (The thumbboard is such an advantage,) I am very happy with the casing, the fingermark-free finish, the great mouse pointer, the buttons, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The screen quality is excellent too and I love the soft-touch screen. I don’t do much handwriting but the diagrams and annotations I’ve done have been perfect. Because the screen is so small you can rest your palm on the frame and avoid any issues with palm-touch.
No device is perfect though and In the review of the i7210, I outlined some outstanding issues which I had also brought to the attention of TabletKiosk. I want to review these issues now because potential buyers need to be aware that these issues are still outstanding. In the order they appear in the review, here they are.
Screen backlight. It is not possible to adjust the backlight down to zero. The lowest setting is about 20% which, in low-light conditions is still more than is needed. This is not a major issue in my opinion as you can turn the screen off completely with the lock switch.
Screen off/standby/Hibernate issues. This continues to be one of the two major issues with the i7210. I can not rely on this device to go into standby. And even worse, when you put it manually into standby with a hibernation setting set, it will come out of standby to hibernate but get stuck. You end up with dead battery, a loud beeping noise and, if you’ve packed the i7210 away in a case, a very very hot device. This really needs to be fixed. I should not be expected to shutdown the device completely after every use. Especially as under battery power, there are other issues that make booting a very slow process (see below.) Apparently Tablet Kiosk are working on a fix for this.
No floating TIP. This problem is fixed with the use of floattip.exe. Its because the BIOS is not a tablet PC bios. I can live with running another program in the background.
Loudspeaker quality is poor. Not only poor but so quiet that I have problems listening to podcasts on it. I don’t expect this to ever get fixed. If you need better speaker output, you will want to invest in a small external speaker set or headphones.
BIOS throttles CPU under battery power. Here is the most serious issue with the i7210. Under battery power, the performance drops so much that it gets annoyingly slow. It appears that the BIOS takes over the ACPI control and throttles the FSB speed (or multiplier, I’m not sure which) down. I am rarely able to get the CPU to rise above 600Mhz. Even under 100% CPU loading and regardless of BIOS settings, power-saving settings or third party CPU control software. I use the i7210 under external power for about 80% of the time and so I don’t find the problem occurring often but, when it does, its really noticeable. Boot up time takes 50% longer, video performance drops down to the point where even a 1.5mbps video is a problem. (Take note here because the 500mhz Raon Digital Vega, can run a 2mbps video very smoothly for 4 hours on one battery.) Even skype video or other webcam activities are unuseable. The i7210 may be one of the most powerful UMPC’s under external power but under battery power, its very slow indeed. You won’t find this ‘feature’ mentioned anywhere in the marketing materials!
But why? Why have ECS (Original Equipment Designer for this UMPC) throttled the CPU under battery power? Isn’t that what ACPI is there for? Or is the load so high that the battery would be dead before it booted up! Please, ECS and others – don’t use CPU throttling tactics to reach desired battery life.
In general I’m happy with the i7210 as I use it mostly via mains power as a portable mini-PC. In this fixed scenario its fantastic but this is supposed to be an Ultra Mobile PC and in mobile scenarios I’m really dissapointed about how slow it is.
More info, news, gallery and links for the i7210 here. i7209 here.
Steve / Chippy.
You hit the nail on the head with the CPU throttle issue. I absolutely love my i7210….when it’s plugged in. The performance takes a huge hit when not tethered to the AC though. making it frustrating for plane flights etc.
The problem certainly hasn’t gone unnoticed by other users. I find it very dissapointing and it had to be said!
Thanks for the feedback.
Steve.
Question: does the 7209 has the same issue while working on battery?
I find the Q1 a little bit slower when it’s on battery but not up to those points described by you.
Hi I suspect it would have the same bios therefore the same problem.
I had another session trying to fix it yesterday but the bios is cutting the fsb speed and therefore everything slows dramatically.
I talked to TabletKiosk about the cpu throttle issue and they have an unofficial bios they will send you to fix it, but the fix is to run at full throttle all the time, no adjustment at all, not even the ability to turn it on or off. This wouldn’t be terrible if there was an extended battery for this model, even the plans for one. Also the lack of car cradle and the fact that TK have no intention of designing one (according to the guy I talked to at corporate) makes me regret not buying the Q1. I love the i7210 for the most part, but there are too many things I am not sure I can live with (or without), so I will wait for round 2 of the UMPC devices and trade up.
Hi Anon.
I’ve tested on of the BIOS’ and it cured the problem. Under battery power there isn’t much difference as SpeedStep still works OK. TK probably have the info that the FSB or multiplier can’t be changed. This is true but you still have speedstep. I didn’t notice much, if any, power disadvantage with this BIOS. If/When I get my broken i7210 back, i’ll probably try the bios again.
Steve.
Hey Steve,
Enlightening post – when you mentioned the CPU throttling under battery power, you compared it to the performance of the Vega. I’m strongly leaning towards the latter since my aim is to use a semi-pocketable device for use on the go (with my laptop for desk work), and so performance under battery power is important. Would software such as onenote 2003 work fine on a Vega under battery…indeed, would the tabletkiosk 7210? Anyway, great blog – I always seem to spy the same names in the forums I research, and I really appreciate how prolific you, and other UMPC owners continue to be.
Cheers,
Pat
Hi Pat.
Did you see my onenote test on the Everun? It wasnt that good due to the vectoring/ soft touch screen issues. Did you buy a Vega?
Sorry it took so long to reply to this email. I’m trying hard to catch up on my ‘todo’ list!
Regards
Steve.