Are you ever going to review any of these Windows 8 8" tablets? The Venue 8 Pro is excellent and has been out for months, but all I see here are more Ipad reviews.
Excite pro and write are one of an example of wrong design. Whilst it has a very good spec but judging by many reviews (amazon, etc). It is very hot while running game or watching movie, Tegra4 just doesn't cut it to fully powering 2560x1600.
The Click is even worse. In the timeframe without baytrail, this should've been a good thing but nowadays with baytrail is out in the crowd and can compete with a6-1450 or a4-5000, this just seems very badly designed or a wrong move. For $600, you can grab asus t100 and an ext HDD. I'm wondering whose fault is this? AMD? Toshiba? or ...?
Anyway, if you want to review dell's windows 8 tablet, please also review their active stylus as well :D
Regarding Excite Pro being bad design. This is not true anymore. After December's OTA firmware updates and for £169 at amazon.co.uk excite pro became the best tablet of 2013, I had it for week setting it up for my father. Check the reviews on amazon.co.uk now...
Disagree... as much as I am conservative in desktop monitors and would not mind to keep my 1920x1200 28 inch tn panel forever to counter the need for stronger hardware to be able to play games in native at max detail, retina for tablets, especially for older people with weaker sight is so much more pleasant to read on and consume media. And of course the excite pro performs flawlesly after December's update, I had it taxing for a week myself, did you? I dont need any link, I have my personal experience.
NO soc can handle 2560x1600 (at least talking gaming, everything else sure), and most gpus can't either with many games hitting well below 30fps at that res and some even the avg fps is below 30 and this is with some stuff already turned down or off...LOL. They shouldn't be aiming tablets above 1080p until 10nm most likely even then it will take on chip cache (like IRIS) or something to help a maxwell or volta to based tegra (M1/V1? like K1?) pull this off.
But if someone doesn't need the pen, you can save a hundred and get the same specs from Toshiba for $500 (t4, 1600p etc). I have no interest in any 1600p tablet. It seems as if google may be figuring out GAMERS need 1920x1200 or 1080p to have fun on these if rumors are true. They may be going larger screen on the 10 (12in rumor? or near it in same footprint) and 1920x1200. I hope so, as even that is tough for mobile without gimping graphics. My radeon 5850 can't pull this res in MANY games without dialing it down. Can't wait for 20nm maxwell to upgrade my monitor to 1600p and maybe be able to play most stuff there, and if not throw the game over to my dell 24 (1920x1200) and max graphics out again when needed. The story only gets worse as engines keep upping their game too. Will I be able to max out unreal 4 at 1600p with maxwell? Or will I be right back into the 1920x1200 5850 boat again that I'm in now just one notch up? Will star citizen and it's ilk be able to play 1600p maxed or again dialed down (and games after this surely get more taxing not less).
It's funny my 1200p dell is probably near death and I'll finally be buying a card that can play ANY game maxed on it (6yrs+ old now). I hoped the 5850 would do it a few years ago but that was a pipe dream for most games (I don't believe in playing anything NOT maxed out). Games taxed it pretty much from day one and I waited nearly 7 months for Amazon to finally give it to me at the price they announced ($260, 400+ backorders they tried to screw out of the model by switching to a model with a few different letters). No complaints though, once I got it, it was still selling for ~$300...LOL. Still a decent card today but much else at the time (with more power) added too much heat to an AZ room. It's comic they are aiming tablets at a res I don't even have on my desktop yet (and only 2% or so of the world runs there or above still today). Idiots are in charge of tablets. 60% of the time on mobile is spent gaming, you'd think they'd be 1080p as even a console can barely do this with xbox1/ps4 (and some games upscale to this already).
IF they don't start aiming lower, I really hope at some point google can get android to change res like windows etc. If I could drop games down it would make all of these SOCS more able to game. Not sure why android can't do this already. It can't be that hard to do something windows has been doing for what 2 decades? That should have been built in to android from day 1. Whatever, one day they'll wise up I hope... :) Hopefully desktop gpus in mobile and their drivers will get this in at some point since they've been doing it for 20yrs on them.
Actually, it makes more sense for games to offer different resolutions for UI and 3D scene than for you to go and decrease screen resolution by the OS. A few games, MMORPGs for the PC to be specific, already offer this option. You keep all your UI elements at the best resolution, which does not require much GPU power at all, and you can scale the rendering resolution down to a level that your GPU can handle at good framerates.
10.1 inch Toshiba Excite Pro with tegra 4 and retina was available for £169 in UK, absolutely amazing value and performance. Bought one for my father's 70th birthday. Thats the bit in between the top end and bottom end of Toshiba line. For that price nothing comes close to it and the price and fearures makes that tablet the best tablet of 2013.
Is it really that difficult for manufacturers to use a 16:10 screen in these things? 16:9 is okay for movies, but this in a tablet that can be used as a reader, 3:4 and 10:16 matches the paper size used in books compared to 9:16.
Heck, if you playback video in a browser, 16:10 will allow the video to fill the screen better, as the menu bar eats up room.
After Intel demos FHD and QHD as optimal resolutions for their new Bay Trail CPUs, Toshiba simply makes no sense. From what I hear, the Dell Venue Pro 11 is selling like hotcakes because of the AMAZING 1080p display, Z3770, and keyboard docks for $500 without the dock. That's the price and specs of a Surface, but you instead get a full Windows installation.
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17 Comments
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cbehnken - Friday, January 17, 2014 - link
Are you ever going to review any of these Windows 8 8" tablets? The Venue 8 Pro is excellent and has been out for months, but all I see here are more Ipad reviews.JarredWalton - Friday, January 17, 2014 - link
If someone sends us one for review, yes. Maybe I should just go buy one....nathanddrews - Friday, January 17, 2014 - link
If I had the money to burn, I'd buy you one. :Pkyuu - Friday, January 17, 2014 - link
I'd love to see a review of the Dell Venue 8 Pro, and also Asus's new 8-inch Wintab.damianrobertjones - Sunday, January 19, 2014 - link
Maybe, you know, call Dell and ask for a sample? Isn't that what you guys do...World_without_madness - Friday, January 17, 2014 - link
Excite pro and write are one of an example of wrong design. Whilst it has a very good spec but judging by many reviews (amazon, etc). It is very hot while running game or watching movie, Tegra4 just doesn't cut it to fully powering 2560x1600.The Click is even worse. In the timeframe without baytrail, this should've been a good thing but nowadays with baytrail is out in the crowd and can compete with a6-1450 or a4-5000, this just seems very badly designed or a wrong move. For $600, you can grab asus t100 and an ext HDD.
I'm wondering whose fault is this? AMD? Toshiba? or ...?
Anyway, if you want to review dell's windows 8 tablet, please also review their active stylus as well :D
ados_cz - Friday, January 17, 2014 - link
Regarding Excite Pro being bad design. This is not true anymore. After December's OTA firmware updates and for £169 at amazon.co.uk excite pro became the best tablet of 2013, I had it for week setting it up for my father. Check the reviews on amazon.co.uk now...World_without_madness - Saturday, January 18, 2014 - link
Well, if you look around for more. Check this out, it still persist :Dhttp://forums.computers.toshiba-europe.com/forums/...
It is just plain stupid to give this kind of resolution in 10 inch. Full HD is enough, heck even most laptop doesn't have full HD as standard yet.
ados_cz - Saturday, January 18, 2014 - link
Disagree... as much as I am conservative in desktop monitors and would not mind to keep my 1920x1200 28 inch tn panel forever to counter the need for stronger hardware to be able to play games in native at max detail, retina for tablets, especially for older people with weaker sight is so much more pleasant to read on and consume media. And of course the excite pro performs flawlesly after December's update, I had it taxing for a week myself, did you? I dont need any link, I have my personal experience.TheJian - Tuesday, January 21, 2014 - link
NO soc can handle 2560x1600 (at least talking gaming, everything else sure), and most gpus can't either with many games hitting well below 30fps at that res and some even the avg fps is below 30 and this is with some stuff already turned down or off...LOL. They shouldn't be aiming tablets above 1080p until 10nm most likely even then it will take on chip cache (like IRIS) or something to help a maxwell or volta to based tegra (M1/V1? like K1?) pull this off.But if someone doesn't need the pen, you can save a hundred and get the same specs from Toshiba for $500 (t4, 1600p etc). I have no interest in any 1600p tablet. It seems as if google may be figuring out GAMERS need 1920x1200 or 1080p to have fun on these if rumors are true. They may be going larger screen on the 10 (12in rumor? or near it in same footprint) and 1920x1200. I hope so, as even that is tough for mobile without gimping graphics. My radeon 5850 can't pull this res in MANY games without dialing it down. Can't wait for 20nm maxwell to upgrade my monitor to 1600p and maybe be able to play most stuff there, and if not throw the game over to my dell 24 (1920x1200) and max graphics out again when needed. The story only gets worse as engines keep upping their game too. Will I be able to max out unreal 4 at 1600p with maxwell? Or will I be right back into the 1920x1200 5850 boat again that I'm in now just one notch up? Will star citizen and it's ilk be able to play 1600p maxed or again dialed down (and games after this surely get more taxing not less).
It's funny my 1200p dell is probably near death and I'll finally be buying a card that can play ANY game maxed on it (6yrs+ old now). I hoped the 5850 would do it a few years ago but that was a pipe dream for most games (I don't believe in playing anything NOT maxed out). Games taxed it pretty much from day one and I waited nearly 7 months for Amazon to finally give it to me at the price they announced ($260, 400+ backorders they tried to screw out of the model by switching to a model with a few different letters). No complaints though, once I got it, it was still selling for ~$300...LOL. Still a decent card today but much else at the time (with more power) added too much heat to an AZ room. It's comic they are aiming tablets at a res I don't even have on my desktop yet (and only 2% or so of the world runs there or above still today). Idiots are in charge of tablets. 60% of the time on mobile is spent gaming, you'd think they'd be 1080p as even a console can barely do this with xbox1/ps4 (and some games upscale to this already).
IF they don't start aiming lower, I really hope at some point google can get android to change res like windows etc. If I could drop games down it would make all of these SOCS more able to game. Not sure why android can't do this already. It can't be that hard to do something windows has been doing for what 2 decades? That should have been built in to android from day 1. Whatever, one day they'll wise up I hope... :) Hopefully desktop gpus in mobile and their drivers will get this in at some point since they've been doing it for 20yrs on them.
ShieTar - Thursday, January 30, 2014 - link
Actually, it makes more sense for games to offer different resolutions for UI and 3D scene than for you to go and decrease screen resolution by the OS. A few games, MMORPGs for the PC to be specific, already offer this option. You keep all your UI elements at the best resolution, which does not require much GPU power at all, and you can scale the rendering resolution down to a level that your GPU can handle at good framerates.ados_cz - Friday, January 17, 2014 - link
10.1 inch Toshiba Excite Pro with tegra 4 and retina was available for £169 in UK, absolutely amazing value and performance. Bought one for my father's 70th birthday. Thats the bit in between the top end and bottom end of Toshiba line. For that price nothing comes close to it and the price and fearures makes that tablet the best tablet of 2013.meacupla - Saturday, January 18, 2014 - link
Is it really that difficult for manufacturers to use a 16:10 screen in these things? 16:9 is okay for movies, but this in a tablet that can be used as a reader, 3:4 and 10:16 matches the paper size used in books compared to 9:16.Heck, if you playback video in a browser, 16:10 will allow the video to fill the screen better, as the menu bar eats up room.
dwade123 - Saturday, January 18, 2014 - link
Adds a killer screen on their ARM model, then puts a crappy subpar one on the Windows model. Lol.267267123 - Saturday, January 18, 2014 - link
After Intel demos FHD and QHD as optimal resolutions for their new Bay Trail CPUs, Toshiba simply makes no sense. From what I hear, the Dell Venue Pro 11 is selling like hotcakes because of the AMAZING 1080p display, Z3770, and keyboard docks for $500 without the dock. That's the price and specs of a Surface, but you instead get a full Windows installation.damianrobertjones - Sunday, January 19, 2014 - link
"but holding a 13.3” 1366x768 tablet is still probably more conspicuous than most of us would like"I hope the same sort of thing is said when looking at the latest 12"+ Samsung tablets...
Shadowmaster625 - Monday, January 20, 2014 - link
$600 for a $30 SoC and a crap hard drive is outrageous.