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The Intel Atom Thread

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Roland00Address said:
Play briefly with a transformer 100 today. Was not happy with it, it is better than my clovertrail dell latitude and while it wasn't SLOW, it was not a place I would be happy with it. It took too long to load a 1080p quicktime file. That is probably the emmc storage and not the cpu and gpu, but it is still not what I would want for a laptop replacement.

With a non windows os and the same loading time I would probably not complain, but when you are used to windows 7 / 8 with a ssd it was quite noticeable the difference in speed.
Click to expand...

everyone is saying bay trail is very slow, certainly not what people had hoped for:

http://laptops.reviewed.com/content...=usat&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=collab

if you want decent windows performance you need to get an i5 thingie like surface
 
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blackened23 said:
So you're surprised that Bay Trail doesn't match a core CPU with a SSD. Is this a joke or what? Most of these products are 300$, maybe your expectations are the real problem...
Click to expand...

Yes that is exactly what I am saying. I own or have owned these following ultra portable computers (I never spend a lot of money on ultra portables)

  • Original Asus 7", some form of celeron m processor at 533 mhz prior to atom. Bought at full price.
  • Celeron Su2300 dual core at 1.1 ghz (based off core 2 duo) with mechanical hard drive. Computer was a clearance clouseout.
  • Core i3 330um at 1.2 ghz (1st gen core) with 1st gen sandforce ssd that I upgraded myself. Computer was a clearance closeout.
  • Core i3 330m at 2.1 ghz (1st gen core) with 2nd gen intel sandforce ssd that I upgraded myself (the laptop motherboard can only do sata 1 not sata 2). I bought this as a refurb thinkpad edge and upgraded the ssd
  • Dell Lattiude 10 with 1.8 ghz clovertrail and 64 gb emmc. I bought this as a refurb

All those said computers cost <$550 even with the ssd upgrade, many of them cost less than $400.

The t100 felt slower than the 1st gen core processor at 1.2 ghz with ssd. It felt closer to the Dell Lattiude 10 than the 1st gen core arrandale at 1.2 ghz with ssd.

This is probably to the emmc controller and not the cpu itself. That said almost all the atom tablets will be using emmc. If you spend extra for a reall ssd in a tablet most likely the oem will include some form of haswel chip even if it is a pentium or celeron.
 
blackened23 said:
So you're surprised that Bay Trail doesn't match a core CPU with a SSD. Is this a joke or what? Most of these products are 300$, maybe your expectations are the real problem...
Click to expand...
Yes, and there go the expectations of those people who thought you could get a Windows tablet at a low price and still have a good experience thanks to Bay Trail magic power 😉

Regarding eMMC slowness, wasn't there a marketing push from Intel and SanDisk about fast eMMC? So either it's not enough for Windows, or ASUS didn't use SanDisk.
 
Nothingness said:
Yes, and there go the expectations of those people who thought you could get a Windows tablet at a low price and still have a good experience thanks to Bay Trail magic power 😉

Regarding eMMC slowness, wasn't there a marketing push from Intel and SanDisk about fast eMMC? So either it's not enough for Windows, or ASUS didn't use SanDisk.
Click to expand...

As someone who actually owns one and uses it on a daily basis... I can promise you that I got a Windows tablet at a low price and still have an excellent experience, thanks to Bay Trail magic power. This isn't even the fastest Bay Trail... 1.8GHz vs 2.4GHz.

Seriously... these unsubstantiated claims of it "feeling slow" and random comparisons against vastly different devices running unknown benchmarks don't do the machine justice.

If you're going to spend all day recalculating a 10k cell Excel spreadsheet repeatedly, then you likely aren't in the market for a device you can hold in one hand.
 
OBLAMA2009 said:
everyone is saying bay trail is very slow, certainly not what people had hoped for:

http://laptops.reviewed.com/content...=usat&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=collab

if you want decent windows performance you need to get an i5 thingie like surface
Click to expand...

You missed this

To be blunt, the T100 has subpar performance in almost all areas. As a web-browsing, YouTube-watching, Facebook-updating device, this Asus is rock-solid. Seriously—for casual use, this convertible is fine.

But if you want to do anything more, you should look elsewhere. The raw computing performance on the T100 is the definition of sluggish. Here are some examples:

Running a complex Excel equation took 26.59 seconds. This same test only took 6.23 seconds on the Microsoft Surface Pro.
Processing multiple filters on a test image in Photoshop took 38.8 seconds. This same test only took 19.44 seconds on the Samsung ATIV Tab 7.
Converting a test video from one file format to another using Handbrake took over 6 minutes. On the Asus Taichi 21? Only 2 minutes and 31.92 seconds.
In terms of raw power, the Asus Transformer Book T100 cannot hold a candle to these other hybrid laptops. On the other hand, it costs a fraction as much.
Click to expand...

For what its geared for baytrail is fine. For what its not, its not. But I think we can agree that handbrake, photoshop, and excel mathematics are not baytrail's primary market target.
 
SlimFan said:
As someone who actually owns one and uses it on a daily basis... I can promise you that I got a Windows tablet at a low price and still have an excellent experience, thanks to Bay Trail magic power. This isn't even the fastest Bay Trail... 1.8GHz vs 2.4GHz.

Seriously... these unsubstantiated claims of it "feeling slow" and random comparisons against vastly different devices running unknown benchmarks don't do the machine justice.

If you're going to spend all day recalculating a 10k cell Excel spreadsheet repeatedly, then you likely aren't in the market for a device you can hold in one hand.
Click to expand...

which one did u get?
 
Lots of interesting Dell Venue 8 Pro videos:

Dell Venue 8 PRO Full Review Windows Tablet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZayV4-LvHik

Dell Venue 8 Pro - Unboxing and first impressions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_zLlWWozdc

Dell Venue 8 Pro - How fast is this baby! Multitasking!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7yljA5BeMI

Dell Venue 8 Pro Unboxing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl6Dv0U6rvo

Dell Venue 8 Pro Stylus test in Fresh Paint
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t2HuvbMtcA

Halo Gaming on the Dell Venue 8 Pro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jCa3ehAfeo

POE on Dell Venue 8 Pro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgxzvY3fW0U

Dell Venue 8 Pro Castle Crashers demo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qeNwDhzwqA

This would be a great replacement for my 1st gen iPad mini.
 
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Sweepr said:
Lots of interesting Dell Venue 8 Pro videos:

Dell Venue 8 PRO Full Review Windows Tablet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZayV4-LvHik

Dell Venue 8 Pro - Unboxing and first impressions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_zLlWWozdc

Dell Venue 8 Pro - How fast is this baby! Multitasking!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7yljA5BeMI

Halo Gaming on the Dell Venue 8 Pro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jCa3ehAfeo

POE on Dell Venue 8 Pro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgxzvY3fW0U

Dell Venue 8 Pro Castle Crashers demo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qeNwDhzwqA

This would be a great replacement for my 1st gen iPad mini.
Click to expand...

nice find!
 
I looked up the reviews on new egg. More than half were 5 star, with only one less than 3 star, so I think the comments here about slowness are overblown. Some reviews even mentioned that the performance was "snappy" or "responsive". Also, the reviews of battery live in real world uasge were positive. Negative performance comments were more related to software glitches than slow response. Also a caveat is that so far there are only nine reviews, so a small sample size.

Seriously though, I can't imagine any reasonable person buying one of these for image manipulation , complex excel calculations, or huge data base work. For surfing/Facebook/you tube use, with occasional light office apps, this seems like a fantastic value.
 
frozentundra123456 said:
I looked up the reviews on new egg. More than half were 5 star, with only one less than 3 star, so I think the comments here about slowness are overblown. Some reviews even mentioned that the performance was "snappy" or "responsive". Also, the reviews of battery live in real world uasge were positive. Negative performance comments were more related to software glitches than slow response. Also a caveat is that so far there are only nine reviews, so a small sample size.

Seriously though, I can't imagine any reasonable person buying one of these for image manipulation , complex excel calculations, or huge data base work. For surfing/Facebook/you tube use, with occasional light office apps, this seems like a fantastic value.
Click to expand...

you dont say...
 
OBLAMA2009 said:
which one did u get?
Click to expand...

Asus T100TA 64GB.

Kids can play Minecraft on it, so that's bonus. Once one of these devices comes out with LTE, I'll probably waterfall it to my 8 year old. I'll probably head towards the 11" Dell, but I'll have to wait and see what the final price/details are.
 
I can't stand 7/8" tablets especially as an ebook reader (Calibre). The 10" model of the Pro looks far more interesting with way more connectivity.
 
escrow4 said:
I can't stand 7/8" tablets especially as an ebook reader (Calibre). The 10" model of the Pro looks far more interesting with way more connectivity.
Click to expand...

I have a 7inch Acer iconia tablet. It has a lot of issues, but size-wise, it has pluses and minuses. On the plus side, it is very easy to carry and hold in one hand. It fits nicely in a backpack or small carry on bag for travel. I like it fine for reading books, but magazines seem to never fit properly and are extremely hard to read. Also, it is sometimes very hard to read e-mail messages if there are several follow up messages to the original, as they get scrunched together. Ten inch tablets just seem almost too big to me though. Not nearly as easy to hold and carry around, but of course more functional. I have a friend who has an 8" newer tablet. I have not had a chance to get together with him since he got it, but I am looking forward to getting his impressions.
 
escrow4 said:
I can't stand 7/8" tablets especially as an ebook reader (Calibre). The 10" model of the Pro looks far more interesting with way more connectivity.
Click to expand...
16/9 looks odd for ebooks, even 16/10 doesn't look right. But it's perhaps because I've been reading real books for way too long :biggrin:
 
escrow4 said:
I can't stand 7/8" tablets especially as an ebook reader (Calibre). The 10" model of the Pro looks far more interesting with way more connectivity.
Click to expand...

Nothingness said:
16/9 looks odd for ebooks, even 16/10 doesn't look right. But it's perhaps because I've been reading real books for way too long :biggrin:
Click to expand...

I was bored, so I did some research using the Newegg search engine.

For 7" tablets here is a breakdown of the most common resolutions:

1. 800 x 480 (165 listings) In between 16:10 and 16:9 aspect ratio
2. 1024 x 600 (98 listings) In between 16:10 and 16:9 aspect ratio
3. 1280 x 800 (37 listings) 16:10 aspect ratio

For 8" tablets here is a breakdown of the most common resolutions:

1. 1024 x 768 (35 listings) 4:3 aspect ratio
2. 800 x 600 (13 listings) 4:3 aspect ratio
3. 1280 x 800 (12 listings) 16:10 aspect ratio

So based on what is being sold on Newegg it looks like 8" is probably a better choice (in general) for eBook usage if the 4:3 is the preferred aspect ratio.
 
Interesting, thanks!

Another thing that bothers me on tablets is backlighting, it's tiring and it bothers my wife at night 🙂 I'm considering a dedicated e-book reader such as Kindle Paperwhite.

This is getting off-topic, so I'll stop here 😉
 
I bought an Asus VivoTab Smart, clover trail, full Windows 8, now upgraded to 8.1 and I read my ebooks via Calibre horizontally. Yes it is rather fat, but I'd say the size is perfect.
 
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