How I Learned To Love the Atom. Samsung Smart PC XE500T Review

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Gaming

I must admit I am surprised how many people have asked me directly or just looking on other forums how often people ask about the gaming capabilities of these devices. Simply put, this device was not built for gaming. As you might imagine though some have tried, so the below video shows you how WoW runs on this device.

Photoshop

Being a full windows based x86 tablet it can indeed run photoshop. The software starts quite quickly and is surprisingly descent for viewing psd files and content creation on small canvasses. It doesn’t however take much to produce lag or stress the processor; selecting a large enough brush size will demonstrate its limitations quite quickly. If content create and working with large canvasses and many layers is your thing than you are going to have to consider the surface pro or one of the OEM pro models. (The only downside with the pro models is that the PS UI does not scale and is thus quite small on the FHD displays).

Video Processing

This is another category of things to do on a pc that I wouldn’t purchase this unit for. Nevertheless much like the gaming someone has tested it so see the video below.

Overall I am pleasantly surprised and very happy with the power of the new atom processor. For day to day or business usage the Smart PC hasn’t missed a beat. I think if you do your research and consider why you want a tablet then its pretty hard to be disappointed and depending on what you expect out of an atom based pc you may be pleasantly surprised at the smooth and quick experience you get.

Speakers and sound

The smart pc touts dual stereo speakers which have been nicely placed as thin slivers on the front of the device. It’s nice to have a tablet where the speakers have been placed in such a sensible position.

The output from the speakers is quite audible, I don’t have any methods of measuring this other than saying music listening/movie watching wasn’t an issue and the speakers are more audible than those on the surface. They aren’t without drawbacks though and certainly lack some bass which at higher volumes can give it a ‘tinny’ sound. For most usage though it was fine and as you would expect the sound output from the headphones is abundant and sounds good removing the issues with ‘tinnyness’ from the speakers at the highest volumes.

Camera

The front facing camera worked without issue for skype and the quality was what we have come to expect from front facing cameras. Up until this point I have never really used the rear camera of a tablet but using this device to annotate a lot (inking) and making great use of OneNote to say goodbye to paper I have found the rear camera quite handy for quickly recording, sometimes scanning in sort of (better cameras needed) documents on the go.

This is mainly centred around my business usage: a quick snap, drop the image into one note so I can review/record or annotate later, in some instances if you get the quality of the image correct OneNote will also be able to convert text in the image to text on the page.

Docking Station

The docking station for the Smart PC is a handy addon not only giving you a mechanism to sit and pivot your tablet but the full sized keyboard backs isolated keys with great tactile response which delivers an easy to use and full featured keyboard experience. The trackpad on the docking station allows for multi-touch gestures and these take some time to get use to and avoid. Initially I found myself performing them without intention whilst trying to drive the device. After using it for some time I am use to the trackpad now but its definitely on the lower end of the spectrum for trackpad quality.

Besides a keyboard and trackpad the docking station also provides two more USB 2.0 ports for the device.

The tablet part of the device locks into the docking station reasonably easy and once locked in has a great grip – even allowing you to life the unit by the display if needed.

Fully open with the Dock Attached, good viewing angle for typing

http://imageshack.us/a/img23/875/closedee.jpg

Closed with the dock attached

There is some confusion surrounding if the Samsung docking stations have a battery in them and I can confirm they do not (the pro model docking station for the 700T does not either). This is of course an advantage in the sense that the keyboard dock is lighter than those being offered by the competition (Asus 810C / HP Envy X2) but where that is not a concern than you are missing out on a further battery which in the case of the Asus delivers potentially up to 19 hours of battery.

 

Operating System and Software

Windows 8 is still quite young but has already taken its share of beatings from many a commentator and user. Perhaps the mismatched UI that does not separate a touch experience from the desktop and touch devices is to blame. I’m not really going to discuss windows 8 in great detail other than to say on this device Windows 8 and its new UI really shines.

Having the power of a full operating system backed up by a capable processor and an all day battery is something many of us have been waiting to see for a long time. I liked my short play with the MS surface but having a full OS just makes things so much easier not having to worry about if there is an app for this and that etc.

 

Bloatware?

It is disappointing that out of the box the device comes with an assortment of well, bloatware such as Norton Internet Security trial…despite Windows 8 shipping with the new and integrated Windows Defender. None the less performance did not seem to be too impacted except for internet browsing in desktop IE.

One of the new Windows 8 features allows you to wipe the device with ease to solve this problem quickly – I will caution you not to use this option to hastily though, after doing this despite the Samsung Software updater it took quite a bit of fiddling to get all the drivers back on the device and for a short time until everything was loaded back on the inking experience did not feel as good. For cautious users perhaps just going through and uninstalling the pre-packaged software will be the preferred solution. That being said you do always have the option to restore to factory defaults. The system won’t let you use any of these options until you are connected to a power source.

I will also say for anyone who purchases these that the first firmware update can take a long time to install so don’t panic if it seems frozen its not!

Software Freedom

Just on the software front, I will say it’s a welcome change not being tied down to any one piece of software. I can transfer files, music, videos anything any number of ways, I don’t need to buy 3rd party apps or do this and that, it just does it out of the box. I don’t want to sound Bias as my iPad has served me well, but saying goodbye to itunes as well as paper is just an added bonus of this device.

 

Conclusion about the Smart PC

The new clover trail atom processor and all of the components of this device come together to deliver a tablet experience that is going to please and surprise many people. In most instances of day to day usage, business and or student usage, the device delivers an impeccably smooth user experience, slicing through tasks with ease.

The landscape based 11.6 inch display really opens you up to some extra multitasking capabilities with the Windows split screen mode or even the metro apps snap view mode.

The build quality of the device could be better but overall, all things considered, for a first gen product I feel Samsung has got a lot of things right here and for my own use I have not come across any show-stoppers and could comfortably recommend this device if it’s the right tool for your needs.
I would recommend these atom range of tablet pcs for Business users, students, portable enthusiasts or anyone who is not expecting to run games but wants to do more than just browse the net and play movies (see below).

 

Tablets, selecting the right tool for the job in the age of compromise

This is somewhat separate from the review but I want to take a moment to just talk about selecting the right tablet pc as some of the questions floating around and consumer perception has me concerned.

The power of this new generation of tablets from the RT, atom right through to the pro based ones is impressive and lays the ground work for what I suspect will be the start of a Windows tablet resurgence. That being said, there is no ‘god’ tablet or tablet that is going to tick every box and you really need to think about what your needs and uses are to avoid disappointment and maximise your usage and satisfaction with any tablet device you choose from one of these to an iPad to Android etc.

This comes down to 2 things, selecting the right tablet for you at a macro level and then at a micro level.

At a macro level if your requirements from a tablet are web-browsing and media watching, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend an atom based tablet to you. Yes, they can do those things but there are 1) simpler 2) cheaper 3) more proven 5) lighter devices out there just as capable of performing those tasks. Conversely if games is what you are looking for then you aren’t going to find it with a tablet and would be better investing the same (or less) amount of money in an ultrabook that has discrete graphics. If you thinking inking is ridiculous and can’t see yourself using it then that makes your choices even simpler again. Is graphics work primarily what you will use this for? excellent glad that you know that because that makes your choice even simpler.

At a microlevel the compromises become a bit easier to consider. Looking at some of the field in comparison to the Samsung Smart PC (Could do this with any of the devices):

 

* Depending on your point of view 10 inch could be good or bad so have included it in both.
The Asus 810 is the closest match to the Samsung smart pc but even with that whilst I am still interested in the unit for me a stylus silo is a pretty important requirement and since using the Smart PC I would probably say having USB on the tablet whilst not critical is definitely nice. Now the Dell Latitude 10 and Lenovo Think Pad Tablet 2’s would meet my requirements of having inbuilt styluses but then the compromise there becomes we go back to 10 inch screens, although we go down in weight a bit too.

Same considerations are going to be true with the Surface Pro and any oem based pro model. The trade off is going to be the price, the weight, the shorter battery life. That being said users of the Samsung Smart Pc Pro are reporting 6 hours of constant use, maybe that’s enough to get you through the work day? Maybe the near 1kg weight won’t be an issue for you if you intend to dock these devices a lot.

I am not convinced I have demonstrated the compromise / trade-offs well enough with the above but with the range of Win8 tablets coming (hopefully soon!) there is probably the right tablet out there for you, but you need to consider carefully what you want as at this stage ‘the powerful processor, orgasmically good build quality, all day battery, light weight, full HD display, ports galore, not over-priced’, god tablet does not exist yet.

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