Just got back from CES. Broke and tired, but was fun. Here a quick overview of what I have learned using Windows 8 slates shown at the show:
1. Atom slates were out in force at the Intel booth, and was the most compelling of all the form factors shown; iPad form factor with iPad battery life capable of running X86 apps. It made everyone who doesn't follow this sector go OOH~ AH~. Convertible had many interest as well, but mostly from those who are in the know. The Lenovo Helix was popular just because they only had ONE unit at the show (stlll prototype that didn't have all the parts working properly, such as the Waocm pen) and was a rare beast, but clearly public is more interested in getting something close to iPad form factor.
2. Of all the Wacom enabled Atom slates, I was most disappointed with the Dell Latitude 10 and most impressed with the Lenovo Thinkpad tablet 2.
Dell was my most anticipated of the Atom Wacom slates because of the removable battery. What I didn't know before I tried it is that Dell F'd up the firmware for the Wacom digitizer. Both of the units at the show had same problem of initial pressure detection of the pen being much much higher than the normal 3 grams. It felt like it require at least twice the pressure level of the other Wacom slates to detect pressure, if not three times. At first, I thought the pen was somehow turned off. That's how hard you have to press on the tip to get the pen to click on a button, or make ink markings. This is absolutely unacceptable and Dell must fixed this ASAP.
Lenovo's Thinkpad Tablet 2 on the other hand totally won me over. It's design and build quality is absolutely gorgeous. The rubberized material felt great in my hand and my god it's a lovely looking slate. I think I might have to bite the bullet and replace my Samsung Note 10.1 with this.
Other Atom Wacom slate felt good as well. The Asus and the Sammy had no problem like the Dell. But the size and the design of the Lenovo is just a step above the others.
3. Panasonic won my bipolar product designs award of having one of the worst and the best Windows 8 slates at the show: The 4K 20" slate was a DISASTER, while the 10.6" Toughbook Core i5 slate was quite compelling for those who have the need and the dough.
The 4K tablet is basically a 20" Windows 8 slate with LV Core i5 and 4GB of RAM like all other high end W8 slates. It even has a battery. But mating those parts with a giant (for portable) 20" 4K display with a beyond crappy optical pen digitizer make for a horribly useless professional device. The tablet i tried BTW was over heating like crazy. Photoshop CS5 was choking under the stress. And that pen. HOO boy.... It is a POS. It's optical, and hardly has enough X/Y accuracy for a 20" 1080p screen, let alone a 2160p one. And it's has a pathetic 75Hz refresh to boot. Also, NO PRESSURE SENSITIVITY. What's the f'n point? I don't know either. It was clearly designed by bunch of marketers and will crash and burn HARD.
The Toughbook slate on the other hand, was VERY nice. It's running your typical 1.7GHz Ivy Bridge LV Core i5, but can be upgraded to 8GB of RAM (only other slate around 2 lbs other than the nowhere to be seen Kupa Ultranote with that distinction), SWAPPABLE BATTERY, water resistant rubber seals for all ports, and Wacom pen support with pen slot. Other than the bezel step around the LCD (necessary for ruggadizing) and the high price ($2800 start), this is one the best Core processor W8 slate solutions I've ever seen.
I took pics and videos so expect a separate post on the Panasonic slate later.
