Hands on With ASUS' Tablet 600 & Windows RT
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 4, 2012 9:40 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
- Asus
- Windows 8
- Computex 2012
Earlier today ASUS announced its first Windows RT device, the Tablet 600. Based on NVIDIA's Tegra 3 SoC (T30), the Tablet 600 features a 10.1-inch 1366 x 768 IPS display and an optional keyboard dock with trackpad and integrated battery. Earlier tonight I had the opportunity to play with ASUS' Tablet 600. Check out the gallery below for more shots of the 600.
In short, the build and feel of the device are both what we've come to expect from ASUS. The display looks awesome, and Tegra 3 felt reasonably quick (albeit not perfectly smooth) running Windows RT. Drivers still need tweaking however as the platform is far from final. Still no word on pricing or availability.
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mayankleoboy1 - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
how can a 1366x768 display look awesome ?can you give some hands on feeling of win8 on a tablet?
retrospooty - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
"how can a 1366x768 display look awesome ?"on a 10 inch screens its not bad. It's still higher res than the ipad 2.
frostyfiredude - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
Because it's on a 10.1 inch display not a 13-15 inch display like we're used to. It's not breaking any density records obviously, but 1366x768 on a 10.1" makes it 155ppi which is reasonable enough. Being a similar high quality IPS to the Prime I can imagine it'll look quite nice. If it lets them sell it for a competitive 500$ price that's the best corner to cut for a tablet IMO, besides it'll help with battery life. If/when WinRT catches on in the tablet world a more expensive version that doesn't hold back anything would be quite welcome.jwcalla - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
$500 wouldn't be too competitive IMO. By the time this thing is released, you could get much better hardware with the iPad or Android for the same price, if not cheaper. And you have a reasonably mature app ecosystem on those platforms.Heck, the newest iPad is already $550 and it has that ridiculous resolution.
IIRC Windows RT isn't expected until October. By then the Tegra 3 would seem a bit dusty for a newly released product. I'd think they'd have to run it with a pretty big discount to be competitive.
faizoff - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
I'm going to wait for a Win tablet and this looks very much like what I need. Exciting times ahead.tayb - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
My biggest concern for Windows 8 tablets is battery life and pricing. I'm very excited about the potential but if it craps out after 5 hours it is worthless to me. Alternatively, if it manages 10 hours of battery life but the entry price is $700+ it's also worthless to me. 9+ hours battery life and an entry price of $500 or less and I'm in. Otherwise this is a flop in my opinion.Zane K - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
Unless there is some serious subsidies going on, I don't think that It's going to be price competitive, But that is up to Microsoft.Battery life i don't think that will be there either, at least not from the start. Apple and Google have much more experience in ARM than MS.
MS's only hope are people that perceive it as a proper edition of windows, which it's not, and x86 windows tablets which will be proper windows.
Cheers
Zane
Solidstate89 - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
"Unless there is some serious subsidies going on, I don't think that It's going to be price competitive"Because they were never able to sell 300 dollar netbooks or anything. Microsoft's OS licensing does not cost the OEMs hundreds of dollars per device - they buy in bulk.
"Battery life i don't think that will be there either, at least not from the start. Apple and Google have much more experience in ARM than MS."
Yeah, because it's not like Microsoft has had WinCE running on ARM devices for freaking decades or anything.
"Battery life i don't think that will be there either, at least not from the start. Apple and Google have much more experience in ARM than MS."
I don't think it is. I think the opposite is true for their ARM tablets. They have to make it feel and act as differently as possible so people will forget the bad experiences they had with past Windows tablets.
Solidstate89 - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
Ctrl + c fail. That last quote was supposed to be;"MS's only hope are people that perceive it as a proper edition of windows"
tuxRoller - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
If this were the wince kernel you'd have a point.I don't understand why people are so excited about W8 ARM tablets. The only things they will offer over ios and android will be Office (which itself has been rumored to be coming to said systems in November). Other than that, you'll be stuck will, basically, what you have now with windows phones (albeit completely different beneath the ui).