Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I bought this because I was looking for thin/light tablet to replace my current ipad/laptop combo. I needed a tablet with full Windows 8 so that I could run older programs and games. Besides the standard review, I will be updating this post with games that I find are playable on this Atom (Clover Trail) powered tablet. Playable games so far: Torchlight 1 Battle for Middle Earth 2 Farcry 1 SNES Emulator: Using my iPhone as an SNES Controller. Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Playstation Emulator: Played a bit of FFVII, takes a lot of tweaking, but I got it to run smooth and look good. I haven't gotten the iPhone gamepad working with the emulator yet. Unplayable: World of Warcraft Diablo III Basically, any old strategy, puzzle, adventure game should work. Current generation games will need the i5 I think. I'll be trying more games on the Playstation 1 Emulator soon. Windows 8: When I first saw videos of windows 8 in action, I felt it was going to be Vista 2.0. After actually using it on a tablet, I feel it is the best OS for tablet computing. Switching between open programs, quickly seeing what is open, and having multiple programs up on the display at the same time is very easy to do. Some of these features are either difficult to do, or not possible on other mobile OS's. Powering on is very quick, even when the tablet is powered off completely. There is not much different between the iPad and Win8 in power-on times from a cold boot. For security, Windows 8 lets you login with a Windows Live ID, which syncs your settings across you're windows 8 devices (Backgrounds, passwords, etc). You can choose to use a standard password, or use a number (Pin) code (which is what I prefer for speed), or a picture login (you touch/swipe parts of the login picture and that is your password). The Start screen is filled with active tiles (as apposed to dead icons like the ipad) that cycle through relevant information (Email/News/Weather/etc.) without having to actually open those programs. Time/Date/Battery/Wifi info can be brought up at any time by swiping from the right side of the screen. I used to hate having to power-cycle my ipads display just to get the time/date. Start screen tiles can be arranged in groups to your liking. You can swipe from the left side of the screen to cycle through open programs, or see a list. You can grab any open program and either slide it to your main window, or snap it as a side-app next to your main window, either to the left or the right of the main window. As an example, I like having my email up in a side-window, while browsing the internet in the main window. No more having to switch to my email app. You could also put a movie on one of your side windows, or music. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple/Google add these features in the near future. The Windows desktop still exists, and is used mainly for legacy support for non-windows8 programs. Eventually all programs should have a Windows8 version that can run through the Start screen (aka metro interface). Until then, it is nice to know I can run Visual Studio, Photoshop, Morrowind =) , on my very portable tablet. As an IT professional, having a full version of Windows 8 is invaluable. Non-windows8 programs may run slow on these tablets with Atom processors, but it is a small trade-off to get a very thin and light tablet with a full version of windows 8. Battery Life: The battery seems to last forever on these Atom powered tablets. I can use it all day for work, play games during lunch, watch movies when I get home, all without having to plug it in. And because I can't play a lot of graphics intensive games (yet), this tablet Is far outlasting my iPad. Cost: In general Windows RT tablets are $500 for a 32GB version without a keyboard, and $600 with a keyboard. Upgrading to larger hard drives (64Gb/128GB) increase the cost as well. Windows RT will not be able to run old programs but they do use an ARM processor that has better graphics performance (for now). These Atom powered tablets are between $600 and $800. They start with 64GB hard drives, and some include a keyboard. Not all Atom tablets are the same. Some have digitizers, and some don't. I feel that the larger hard drive, digitizer, and full version of Windows 8 is worth an extra $50-$100 more over the Windows RT Tablets. Display: The display is nowhere near as good as the iPad 3/4s Retina display. But it is good enough for web browsing/email/MSoffice/light gaming. It is very bright, but hard to see under direct sunlight. I really wanted a 1900x1000+ display, but the cost is just too much. Overall I am happy with this tablets 1366x768 resolution. It is perfect for watching movies. If you do any kind of artsy graphics stuff, you may need to invest in the higher cost, more bulky i5 tablets until manufacturers see a larger demand from us for better displays, on thinner/lighter/cheaper tablets. Size: The size made me hesitate a bit before I bought this. Coming from an iPad, I was hoping for a tablet that had similar dimensions. The iPad seems more balanced for holding it with one hand by the edge of the tablet. This one is designed to be used primarily in landscape mode, but because it is so wide, it makes it hard to hold it by the edge. I have found that it is more comfortable to just hold it by placing my hand on the back of the tablet like holding a pizza. Some people may have to pass on these wide tablets due to the preference of holding the tablet by the edge of the screen. Functionally though, Windows 8 takes full advantage of the wide format for having multiple programs on the screen at the same time. The thickness is just about the same as the iPad, and I am happy with it. .38" vs .37" Sound: Amazing. Stereo speakers on the edges of the tablet in landscape mode. It's nice to finally have stereo sound on a tablet for watching movies, listening to music and playing games. Don't expect much bass. Weight: Very light. Just slightly heavier than the iPad 4. 1.65 lb. vs 1.44 lb. The wide format makes it seem heavier than it is though. I am leery of upgrading to the Surface Pro or any other i5 tablet because they start to reach 2 lb. or higher. I want my tablet to remain a tablet. Hopefully technology will advance quickly so that we can have thin/light/HD display tablets that have the power to play high quality 3d games and do artist stuff. For now, I opted to have a light tablet that makes sacrifices elsewhere. Digitizer: Coming from an iPad I did not know what I was missing. Not all of the Windows 8 tablets have a digitizer, so you will need to decide if you want one that does, and shop accordingly. This adds an extra layer to the display that detects the stylus (it shows a dot on the screen when the stylus gets close to the screen). Hovering over a program or icon is the same as hovering your mouse over a program on a Desktop PC. you don't have to touch the screen. Touching the screen is like a left-click on a mouse. Pressing the button on the Stylus while pressing the screen initiates a right-click. (These functions change depending on what program you are using). The digitizer used in the Samsung tablets is a Wacom, which I believe has 1024 points of pressure detection. This allows you to change the thickness of the lines depending how hard you are pressing on the screen. In note-taking programs, when the screen detects the stylus is close to the screen, the program will ignore youre palm, making it much easier to take notes. Some programs perform great with the digitizer, and some are slow/delayed. I think the Atom processer does a good job with processing digitizer input for the most part. For artists, I would say a digitizer is a must have. The stylus is kind of small, and it is stored in the case of the tablet. It is very difficult to remove and I think they should have improved on this. Overall, I am going to like notetaking a lot better from now on. Performance: The Intel Atom Clover Trail chip is optimized for windows 8, and battery life. Perfect for a productivity tablet. The built-in graphics processing unit (GPU) is faster than the iPad 2, but slower than the iPad 3/4. I believe this was to improve battery life, and cut down on costs. The drivers for the GPU need some work before it can play full screen 3D games at its full potential. Expect games to perform better after a driver update is released in the future. Advances in technology should allow Intel to provide a better gaming experience without sacrificing battery life, size, weight of the tablet. Aside from gaming, I am happy with the performance of the Atom. Metro apps are flawless. Older desktop apps can sometimes lag, but overall they work fine. I was able to watch full HD 1080p movies with no issues. Old games that don't rely on GPU's perform good. See my list of playable games for an example. Connectors/Ports: This has a full, built-in USB 2.0 port, and MicroSD slot, and a MiniHDMI port. The USB port is great for connecting Flash Drives/Hard Drives/ peripherals, without the need for an adaptor. I outfitted my MicroSD slot with a 64GB memory card where I Store my downloads/Music/Movies/Games. I have not tried the MiniHDMI port yet. My list of Cons: The Keyboard Dock is unavailable. Aftermarket covers with built-in stands are not available yet. I will be buying the Microsoft Wedge Mobile keyboard. The cover doubles as a stand for the tablet. This will be smaller than the official Dock making it easier to keep with me should I need it. As already discussed. The Graphics drivers could use an update to take full advantage of the GPU. The case is made out of plastic. It flexes and feels kind of cheap. This obviously does not effect the performance and features. That's it. There used to be issues with sound and the digitizer, but Samsung updates fixed them. Just run the Samsung updater when you get your tablet. A work-around is to disable the sound/digitizer in the Device Manager, and then re-enable them. Or just reboot. Note: If you royally mess up your tablet, you can restore it to factory defaults: Hold down the Volume-UP button while turning on the tablet to enter the Windows Troubleshooting utility. Also note that Windows Restore Points are not enabled by default. If you want to be able to go back to a certain point in time, do the following: To enable System Protection: Go to the desktop, swipe the screen from the right side to bring up the settings panel. Click on "Control Panel". Click on "System and Security" and then click on "System". Then select "System Protection". Then press the "Configure" button. Turn system protection on, then create a restore point right away. Installing updates does not automatically create a restore point like I thought it would. Just create a restore point before any system updates to be safe (not necessary for program updates)