.png "ASUS VivoTab Note 8 (M80TA)")
The 1200x800 8 inch IPS display has a tall vertical (portrait) or wide screen format, depending on how you position the tablet (3:2 aspect ratio). It's plenty bright, nice for videos, and the text is sharp. The resolution is a pretty good match for the display size, keeping text large enough to be readable. The integral Wacom digitiser options 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity. The stylus can activate the screen from as distant as an in. more or less and also the palm rejection is extremely smart. The stylus inherent is beneficial, works well, and could be a definite and for this tablet. (And it stores conveniently in the tablet itself as with Samsung's earlier models, which is definitely the right design choice.)
The included license for Office is a big plus for those who need it, especially at this price point. The included One Note also seems to work very well and might even be more useful to many. In my early tests, I was very impressed with the hand-writing recognition (conversion to text) functionality. Much better than I expected.
The tablet looks good to me (not snazzy, but fine) and the back has a nice soft feel to it. The front is just about a similar as most others - black, shiny edge and screen. the power button and volume buttons are pretty typical, however did have a pleasant feel. One odd note is that the Windows "Start" button is on the edge of the tablet instead of the front. I'm not too sure about this design choice. I might get used to it, but I really liked, for example, the B&N Nook's HD+ tablet's easy to use front button. (So I mostly "swipe-in" from right to left to get the Start screen rather than using the button).
The tablet is fairly light and easy to hold, though the 7 inch size tablets are a little easier to use with one hand, the larger 8 is better for video and productive work, I think. It's the "sweet spot" for me, anyway, (I loved the Toshiba Excite 7.7" which also worked well for me). The 8.9 inch models are better for watching videos, but harder to hold and use for any lengthy period of time.
The display is very nice to my eyes, having good contrast and bright colors (and being plenty bright as mentioned earlier). I'm not obsessed with resolution and the resolution seems perfectly fine to me for this size display. Certainly, everything appears sharp and clear.
The Intel Atom Z3740 central processor performs fine and in use the tablet feels fast and snappy nearly all the time. the 2 GB of RAM looks sufficient for many functions, additional would be higher, however I didn't notice any major issues in traditional use. You will experience some slow down if you try to do too many things at once. This is a tablet, not an ultra-book, after all. One space to notice is that the enclosed thirty two GB of internal storage is nearly fully consumed by the Windows OS and apps, therefore you may have to be compelled to add a thirty two or sixty four GB micro-SD card for storage if you propose to try and do any real work on this factor. I installed a 64 GB microSD card. In PC Devices I then configured this as the default storage location for Music, Pictures, and Videos.
So far, battery life seems right at the claimed 8 hours (Update: I think there's a mistake in the highlights listed on Amazon for this product where it indicates 6 hours, I believe 8 is correct as is shown in Asus info later in the listing.) or even better. I think you might easily get more if you are conservative. I can easily go all day without worry. For occasional use, you might go a week. At any rate, 8 hours or better is very good. Most tests I could find online seemed to confirm this. The included charger is a powerful 2 amps and the unit charges using a standard micro-USB cable which is nice. No proprietary charging cable needed! (Charging time looks about 3-4 hours, even if they suggested an 8 hour normal charge before use within the fast begin guide.)
The cameras is not tested extensively nevertheless. I don't use tablet cameras that much myself, these seem to be about average in my cursory use.
Initial set-up was a breeze, much easier than earlier Windows tablets I've tried, due to the fact that numerous post-setup updates were not needed to get everything working correctly. In this case, things worked properly out of the box, as they should. I was up and running in just a few minutes. Finally, windows tablets are now competitive with Android tablets, in this aspect. (I love both Android and Windows tablets, but this tablet changes the game, as you can now have a tablet running the full Windows 8.1 OS at the same price as an Android tablet. Yes, there are pluses and minuses to that, but the case remains that, before this, Windows tablets came at a high cost premium by comparison. Now the "cost" playing field has been leveled.)
I will be updating this review over the next week or two, as I gain more experience with this tablet, but based on my tests so far and my initial impressions, I am rating the Asus VivoTab eight at five stars supported the exceptional price, features, and also the enclosed Wacom analog-to-digital converter stylus. This pill packs lots into a pleasant package for the value asked.
I will continue to test to make sure there are no significant problems or glitches, as yet undiscovered, and will update if needed.
Hardware Notes:
- Includes dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.
- Includes a microSD card with OS recovery software. (Remove and keep in a safe place!)
- Ports: One micro-USB, one 3.5 mm Headphone, one microSD card. No HDMI.
- GPS hardware on-board is Broadcom GNSS.
Usage notes:
- Making written notes with MS One Note on this tablet is really simple and helpful. - Drawing diagrams and annotation them works fairly well (for easy things, anyway).
- Included Home Office means you have some serious app power on-board out of box for productive work.
- Not impressed by the "cameras," but as an avid photographer, I never am.
- As you would expect, "desktop mode" is not the preferred mode, however, thanks to the digitizer stylus, it is actually usable. Still, as a tablet, the metro/modern interface is much easier to use.
- As with most tablets, speakers are OK, not great. Use headphones or external speakers for best sound.
- Some nice security features like secure boot, disk/data encryption, and so forth available.
- Can use an OTG USB cable (not included) to connect USB devices.
- Has Miracast capability, but I have no compatible displays, so unable to test this feature.
- Includes 1,000 GB of Web Storage free for one year. Plus some free SkyDrive (MS) cloud storage as well.
