ASUS VivoTab RT tablet and docking station/keyboard and guess what? I kinda liked it. Let me start at the beginning. The ASUS VivoTab RT is the new Windows RT tablet from ASUS. The device stats:
- OS: Windows RT
- CPU: NVIDIA™ Tegra® 3 Quad-core / Icera410
- Memory:Â DDR3L on board 2GB
- Storage: 64G / 3 Years ASUS WebStorage
- Display: 10.1“ Ratio: 16:9 ( 1366×768 ) 178° wide viewing angle IPS panel
- Camera: 8MP Auto-focus with LED Flash (rear), 2MP (front) with LED indicator
- Video: 1080p video recording
- Connectivity: WLAN 802.11 b/g/n
- Miscellaneous: Audio: 2-in-1 Audio Jack (Head Phone/Mic-in), 1 x Micro HDMI, 1 x Micro SD Card Reader (SDXC), Internal Microphone, Quad-Speakers with SonicMaster Audio Technology
- Battery:
- Tablet only: 25Wh 9 hours Li-polymer,
- With Dock: 25Wh+22Wh – 16 hours
- Dimension / Weight: 263 * 171 * 8.3 mm / 525g
- Price: $599 for Tablet AND dock/keyboard
The unboxing is pretty standard here.
It’s not super fancy and not trashy, just standard hardware boxing.
The first thing you’ll notice about this tablet keyboard combo is how light they are.
The tablet felt incredibly light in my hands and was very fast and responsive.
You unpack the tablet and then unpack the docking station which is also a VERY fantastic keyboard.
You can see the large hinge connector thingy at the top of the keyboard? Well it was REALLY stiff and I kept thinking I was doing it wrong and was scared to pull it back (in case I broke it).
It turns out that it pulls back fine but it takes some getting used to.
This is one of the best keyboard/docks I have ever seen. It looks and feels REALLY sturdy and well made.
Anyway, once you put tablet and keyboard together, you have a really good looking Ultrabook.
It feels really compact and good in the hand.
It fits together and disconnects really easily and felt really good.
The processor is really zippy and the colors are great. It feels like a great tablet but the issue is, it’s running Windows RT.
You have to contend with the fact that you can’t run legacy software and even though you do have Office 2013 pre-loaded on the device, you have to deal with the Windows Store and the Modern UI (Metro).
In addition, it’s screen is cool for a tablet but 10.1 inches is really small for a laptop. Hard to see living with that long term.
The cameras – (2 megapixels in the front, and 8 megapixels and 1080p video recording in the rear) are decent but won’t necessarily win any awards. As long as you have decent lighting, you’ll get decent photos but nothing too fancy in low light or fast movements.
I really dig the look and feel of the device and would recommend the Windows 8 counterpart. It feels solid and relatively easy to assemble/disassemble.
I used it for a couple of days off and on and the battery life was pretty good. When I ussed it with the dock, I got 3.5 days before needing to recharge.
Games (the few games I could find in the store) were fast and fluid and seemed to work well.
All in all, it’s a very decent effort from ASUS. I would definitely get a VivoTab running Windows 8 though because the RT limitations just don’t make sense for me at this point.
Once again, when both pieces are connected, it feels very good.
You can get this device at the Microsoft Store.
I’ll leave you with some pictures of the setup and the device as well as a brief review video.
Please leave your questions and feedback below in the comments…
Photos of the ASUS VivoTab RT Tablet and connector dock/keyboard
[gallery link="file" columns="6"]ASUS VivoTab RT Tablet Review Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_YqjyctEzI Thanks to ASUS again… ]]>Article Tags:
Asus · ASUS VivoTab RT · Microsoft Partners · review · Review ASUS VivoTab RT · reviews · Windows RT · Windows RT reviewArticle Categories:
Hardware · Hardware Reviews · Microsoft · Videos · Windows 8 Videos · Windows RT
All Comments
Looks REALLY good. Thanks for the review…
Nice video.. we need to see more of you dude,,,
Agreed, we need more of this on W8U… cool review and a nice insight into RT and Tabs.
More coming…
Takes a while to actually get this stuff…
I like the looks of this, toss in two more things and it would be fantastic.
1. A one or three TB USB WD hard drive portable. The reason for this is if you go on vacation and use this and want detailed pictures even with your DLS Digital Camera (Detachable lensed system), that is going to eat up a lot of space really fast, especially if you take a lot of pictures. And dont get me started about making home movies while on Vacation
2. A slimline portable USB dvd-rw so you can burn these to a disc if you want.
Grab these two things and it seems you have a VERY good little pad/computer here. Compact and small enough that it wont bother you to take it on the plane with you as part of your carry on, and easily able to go through the inspection and customs if you are going outside the country.
Asus always did make a quality product and it seems they hit the mark here. But I would wait as the RT is not the one you want on your tablet. Is way too proprietary like the Mac is and I want the freedom to place something on it if I find I like it without having to constantly check to see if the “MS Store” has it or not and if they dont to wait till they do.
Good points BUT
1 – you can always buy a portable external hard drive anyway
2 – DVD is so 2010..
🙂
Well. DVD burner is still useful when I need to give something to somebody that’s too big to go through upload and download from cloud. Flash drive is one solution but then I have to remember asking it back. For DVD, I could give and forget.
I would think that tablet users will be using Microsoft’s cloud storage quite a bit.
On more thing? I am one of the lucky few that MS always goes to for beta testing…how do you get to be so lucky that you get these neat little toys and how do you sign up for it? And the most important…do you get to keep these toys or do you have to send them back?
I have to send them back…UNFORTUNATELY.
All good though.. they are fun to review…
It’s a netbook, it’s a tablet… not, it’s a….
Looks like a great combo!
It’s pretty cool
plz review the hp elitepad 900
I’ve got this exact set-up with ATT’s 4g. It’s a GREAT combo, incredible battery life and it turns lots of heads. I’ve used it in a dozen Windows 8 classes and everyone is impressed. I would agree with the RT issue. It needs to be more compatible with windows legacy. Thanks for the review.
Thank you!
Next up.. Samsung Series 5
Can you speak to the video taking quality, the camera lens of course and the Volume.
Can you append to the video showing the ports.
The post speaks to video…
But not in great detail, tell me is it at least better than the surface, because I got chance to play with the surface for a week and although overall liked the device, I was not happy with the sound and camera.
I would say they are about equal with a slight edge to the asus. Still not great though.
Are the batteries removable?
I don’t think so…
So do u have to return the deivce after review or is it yours?