Asus VivoTab Smart Windows 8 tablet up for pre-order for $499

The Asus VivoTab Smart is a Windows 8 tablet with a 10 inch display, Intel Atom Clover Trail processor, 2GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage. It has a starting price of $499, and the tablet’s up for pre-order from J&R and Abt.

Asus VivoTab Smart

At that price, the VivoTab Smart is cheaper than the Asus VivoTab RT — a $599 tablet that’s about the same size, but which has 32GB of storage, an NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor, Windows RT operating system, and an included keyboard dock.

Not only does the VivoTab Smart not come with a keyboard dock, but Asus doesn’t even offer one. Instead you can get an optional Blueooth keyboard which can also latch onto the tablet and act as a cover to protect the screen.

What the VivoTab Smart does have that the RT model does not, is the ability to run pretty much any app designed for Windows. While the Intel Atom Z2760 Clover Trail processor isn’t exactly a speed demon, the low power chip is an x86 processor, which means that this tablet can run the full Windows 8 operating system, as well as apps designed for Windows 7 or Windows 8.

Windows RT tablets, on the other hand, can only run apps designed specifically for Windows RT. For the most part those apps are only available for download from the Windows Store.

Asus also offers another VivoTab model with an 11.6 inch display and a digital pen. There is an optional keyboard dock for that model — but that VivoTab has a starting price of $799.

Anyway, back to the VivoTab Smart, this model has a 1366 x 768 pixel screen, PowerVR SGX 545 graphics, an 8MP rear camera, 2MP front-facing camera, 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0.

The tablet has a micro HDMI port, micro USB port, and micro SD card reader, weighs about 1.3 pounds, and has a 25 Whr battery which Asus says should be good for up to 8.5 hours of run time.

thanks Paul!

Posted on Wednesday, December 12th, 2012, 4:00 pm by Brad Linder | 11 Comments

anthonymel

So the difference between this and the Lenovo ThinkPad 2 is the digitizer? The ThinkPad 2 will start at $650 too.
alexDW

Does it have a GPS ? There is a confusion, some sources seem to suggest it does and some that it does not.
http://www.facebook.com/kingankylosaurus Mike Cohagen

It’s a shame that it’s so ugly as otherwise it seems to be more or less the same as the ThinkPad Tablet 2 in terms of hardware but cheaper. No stylus and fake iPad appearance is a deal breaker for me, though. I will pay extra money to support something like Lenovo’s ThinkPad line, who have the balls to have an identity of their own which was partly created by an actual industrial designer like Richard Sapper. However, I am 100% against fake Apple designs like this one which I can only assume was whipped up in a 3D program by someone who bought their talent from a educational institution rather than possessing raw talent and knowledge to begin with.

From an aesthetic point of view, severely rounded corners framing a perfectly right-angled display looked cheap and dated on products five years ago, and it looks even worse now. Look at a TV from 5 years ago, and look at a TV now. See how ridiculous the old, rounded TVs look? The same thing is happening to computers, tablets and phones.

I know this would cost Microsoft millions/billions of dollars in revenue, but I think it would be interesting if they only allowed certain approved products that meet a specific design criteria to carry a Windows OS and logo to control the quality and overall appearance of Windows certified devices. Reason being is, if you give most companies like Dell or HP the freedom to do whatever they want, they are obviously going to copy the company that is number one and crank out poorly made pretend products. Little do they know, most of the non-Apple companies are only digging themselves into a hole by not either creating or jumping onto the next design trend, because Apple’s products certainly look dated now that every $600 Windows laptop looks like a MacBook Pro (which makes the $600 laptop seem even more sad), and they won’t be number one forever. The company that does something very different will eventually surpass them.
CyberGusa

The LTP2 is also smaller at 10.1″, has full size USB 2 port (no need for port adapter), and you have the optional extras like finger print reader and NFC.

Not to mention the pen can be stored Internally with the LTP2, which isn’t the case for the more expensive Vivo Tab with digitizer.
Kasper Kyndsberg

the spec sheet above seem to be for another model. The screen has to wrong size and resolution
http://www.liliputing.com/ Brad Linder

I don’t understand what you’re saying. The VivoTab Smart has a 10.1 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel resolution, an Intel Atom Clover Trail processor, 2GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage.

Looking at the article again, I realize I put specs for a few different tablets in there, which could be confusing.
Guest008

What’s the point of a full W8 tablet without a detachable keyboard?

I would have bought this one if they sold it with a detcahable keyboard dock with included battery.
A bluetooth KB is very impratical in a plane, train or in bed on my lap…
Their 11″6 is way overpriced, the RT is useless…
So I won’t buy an ASUS device for now.
I guess I’ll take the ATIV 500T if I can convince myself that 11″6 is ok for tablet use… And that the lack of second battery is no big deal.
Or I’ll get an Acer W510… But Acer… Pfff.
I can’t believe there isnt a good 10″ CloverTrail tablet with a detachable keyboard (and a second battery included in it).
Guest008

This one is also 10″.
CyberGusa

The Smart version, yes, but just to clarify the higher priced Vivo Tab, with digitizer, version is 11.6″ and only the RT and Smart version are 10.1″… Forgot to mention the optional cellular modem for the LTP2… While the Vivo Tab Smart offers colors of Red / Black / White…
CyberGusa

It should, the official product page says “supported” and that’s the same as the RT, which has been shown to have GPS.
Kasper Kyndsberg

There’s a spec sheet beneath the article that states a SCREEN SIZE of 11.6 inches and SCREEN RESOLUTION of 1920 x 1080.

Asus VivoTab Smart Windows 8 tablet up for pre-order for $499

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