
Let's just throw this out there: the fact that tablets are enjoying as much success as they are still surprises us. Playing with touchscreens is fun. But, for all of their entertainment value, tablets just can't provide the same functionality you'd expect from a device able to replace more powerful notebooks. The only explanation, then, is that most folks are buying them in addition to, rather than as substitutes for, other technology.
If you're a road warrior, packing one more device certainly isn't an attractive proposition. The whole point of mobility is supposed to be consolidating down to keep you faster, lighter, and more free. But every type of device seems to perform certain tasks sort-of-well, so you might instead end up with a notebook, an e-book reader, a cell phone of course, and perhaps even a point-and-shoot camera. Then you have chargers and interface cables. Tossing a tablet on top of that stack just doesn't sound appealing.
Tablet PCs, on the other hand, really do make it possible to scale back on the number of devices you lug around in a more realistic way. While tablets are small, sexy, and fast enough for basic content consumption, their lightweight operating systems and sometimes-limited app selection continues to be a source of frustration. Tablet PCs support desktop operating systems and rely on a digital pen instead of a mouse. That's an important distinction that enables any OS X-based program on a Modbook, whereas the iPad is constrained to apps from the Apple App Store.
Unfortunately, tablet PCs are pretty gosh-darned rare, which is somewhat surprising given their simultaneous portability and interoperability with Windows-based programs. Moreover, the performance of a tablet PC is only limited by the hardware a vendor can cram inside.
The latest Windows-based tablet comes from Samsung. Dubbed the Series 7 11.6" Slate, it breathes much-needed life into this critically endangered form factor, beating out Asus' Eee Slate as our favorite tablet PC.
| Specifications | Samsung Series 7 11.6" Slate |
|---|---|
| CPU | Core i5-2467M (Sandy Bridge), 1.6 GHz, 3 MB Smart Cache, 2C/4T, 17 W TDP, 32 nm |
| Screen | 11.6" WSVGA (1366x768), Superbright Plus Technology |
| Memory | 4 GB DDR3-1333 SO-DIMM |
| System Drive | Samsung SSD 64 GB, SATA 3Gb/s |
| Graphics | Intel HD Graphics 3000, 350 MHz Base Frequency, 1.15 GHz Max. Dynamic Frequency |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Home Premium |
| Wireless | 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth |
In the world of tablet PCs, there are two form factors: slates and convertibles. The presence of an attached keyboard is the defining difference. Slates rely almost exclusively on a digitizer in order to translate gestures from a pen or touchscreen. Convertibles feature attached keyboards that let you type as you would on a notebook. Unfortunately, for true road warriors, convertibles are often larger and heavier than slates.
The Series 7 11.6" Slate is, as its name makes clear, a slate-style tablet PC. As a result, it ends up looking a lot like the iPad 2 and any number of Android-based tablets. Tablet PCs are generally bulkier, though, because they employ hardware that's more closely tied to the desktop than the compact SoCs dominant in the mobile space.
| iPad 2 (3G) | Xoom | Eee Slate | Series 7 11.6" Tablet | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Length | 9.5" | 9.8" | 12.3" | 11.7" |
| Width | 7.31" | 6.6" | 8.2" | 7.2" |
| Height | .34" | 0.5" | 0.7" | 0.5" |
| Screen Size | 9.7" | 10.1" | 12.1" | 11.6" |
| Aspect Ratio | 4:3 | 16:10 | 16:10 | 16:9 |
| Weight | 1.33 lb | 1.5 lb | 2.56 lb | 1.98 lb |
Samsung does a stellar job of preventing Sandy Bridge-class hardware from bloating the size of its solution. The Series 7 Slate is certainly larger than the iPad 2 and Xoom, but really, it's about as thick as Motorola's tablet. It's a bit heavier than the tablets to which we're accustomed, but again, at under two pounds, that's completely tolerable.
Our only complaint about the Series 7's I/O is that you only get a single USB 2.0 port.
Samsung's Series 7 Slate has a brushed aluminum back that's polished smooth, along with a black acrylic display trim that effectively resists scratches. This thing certainly isn't bulletproof, but the design is assuredly more rugged than some of the tablets we've reviewed over the past year. Apple, for example, knows how to make a beautiful product. However, our reference iPad continues to age ungracefully. Our initial impression is that the Series 7 would hold up to a daily work routine better.
There is one noteworthy oddity: for some reason, Samsung decided not to include a built-in holder for its digitizer pen, presumably to reduce the Slate's thickness. That'll be of little solace when you lose the pen, though.
Although there are several tablet PCs on the market, we're most interested in the Series 7 Slate because it features a Sandy Bridge-based processor. That gives it the performance profile to potentially function as a notebook replacement, leaving a lot of the Atom-powered competition to fill in for more anemic netbooks.
Samsung complements the potent platform with some of the features you'd expect to find on a tablet, like front- and rear-facing cameras. There is no flash, limiting snapshots to well-lit environments, but we're still glad to see Samsung step up from Asus' Eee Slate, which only had a front-facing camera (not to mention an older, slower hardware foundation). For a more thorough refresher on that earlier effort, check out Asus' Eee Slate EP121/B121: A Windows 7-Based Tablet PC.
| Camera | Front-Facing | Rear-Facing | Flash |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple iPad 2 | 0.3 MP (640 x 480) | 0.7 MP (960 x 720) | None |
| Asus Eee Slate | 2.0 MP (1600 x 1200) | - | - |
| Asus Transformer | 1.2 MP (1024 x 768) | 5.0 MP (2592 x 1944) | None |
| Motorola Xoom | 2.0 MP (1600 x 1200) | 5.0 MP (2592 x 1944) | Dual-LED flash |
| Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 | 2.0 MP (1600 x 1200) | 3.0 MP (2048 x 1536) | Single-LED flash |
| Samsung Series 7 11.6" Slate | 2.0 MP (1920 x 1080) | 3.0 MP (2048 x 1536) | None |
| Toshiba Thrive | 2.0 MP (1600 x 1200) | 5.0 MP (2592 x 1944) | None |
We covered the basic tenets of how Windows 7 enables tablet functionality in our Eee Slate review. That's is why we're skipping directly to Samsung's UI enhancements.
Samsung put in an obvious amount of effort to facilitate tablet-like usability. In addition to the standard Windows 7 Input Panel, you also have a custom Swype keyboard and shortcut toolbar.
Samsung's Touch Launcher is perhaps the most unique feature of any tablet PC that we've ever seen. You can launch it by selecting the taskbar icon or pressing the physical Home button. This program is effectively a pseudo-Android/iOS home screen. You swipe to move between panels, and while some of the apps listed are just desktop shortcuts, others (like the RSS Reader, Twitter, Social Dashboard, and Weather apps) have a simplified touch screen UI, just like Android and iOS.
Frankly, we think Samsung created a better touch screen interface than the version of Microsoft's Metro UI that shipped with the Windows 8 developer build. It's home screen operates as an interface layer that's separate from the familiar desktop environment. It's incredibly intuitive for anyone, even those who have no experience in Android or iOS, to use. If I can't find or don't want to use the digitizer pen, this is the interface I turn to for quick navigation.

Comparing tablets and tablet PCs utilizing dissimilar architectures isn't easy, which is why our suite consists solely of Geekbench, since it runs on multiple platforms. Like SiSoftware's Sandra, this is a synthetic metric. However, it lets us make an apples-to-apples hardware comparison, independent of the architecture we test.

Unlike Asus' Eee Slate, Samsung's Series 7 11.6" Slate employs a modern Sandy Bridge-based platform. Of course, Samsung uses an ultra-low voltage processor, which is why its 17 W Core i5-2467M trails the 35 W Core i5-2520M in Asus' K53E notebook. Still, that's a significant upgrade from the 18 W Core i5-470UM in Asus' Eee Slate.

This test demonstrates the disparity between Cortex-A9-based iPads and notebook-class Core i5s when it comes to memory performance.
See how the Sandy Bridge part destroys Arrandale? If you're good with history, you'll remember that Arrandale consists of two dies on one package. The memory controller is on a separate piece of silicon as the execution cores, negatively affecting throughput. Sandy Bridge puts all of that logic on the same 32 nm die, bumping support up from two channels of DDR3-800 to two channels of DDR3-1333.

In the interest of keeping things simple, we're going to stick to graphics comparisons between Samsung's Series 7 Slate, Asus' Eee Slate, and a competing Sandy Bridge-based notebook, all of which employ variations on Intel's HD Graphics engine to enable desktop gaming you can't get from a tablet.
| Specifications | Asus K53E | Samsung Series 7 11.6" Slate | Asus Eee Slate |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Core i5-2520M (Sandy Bridge), 2.5 GHz, 3 MB Shared L3 Cache | Core i5-2467M (Sandy Bridge), 1.6 GHz, 3 MB Shared L3 Cache | Core i5-470UM (Arrandale), 1.33 GHz, 3 MB Shared L3 Cache |
| Cores/Threads | 2 / 4 | 2 / 4 | 2 / 4 |
| Graphics | Intel HD Graphics 3000 | Intel HD Graphics | |
| Memory | 6 GB DDR3-1333 | 4 GB DDR3-1333 | 4 GB DDR3-800 |
| System Drive | Seagate Momentus 5400 RPM 640 GB (ST9640423AS) | Samsung 64 GB SSD | SanDisk P4 64 GB SSD |
| Graphics Driver | 15.22.52.64.2559 | ||
Asus' K53E notebook enjoys the benefits of a 35 W TDP to push higher processor and graphics core clock rates compared to our 17 and 18 W slate examples. The result is an obvious advantage in game like World of Warcraft.
With that said, at nearly the same thermal budget, Samsung's Sandy Bridge-powered Core i5-2467M is measurably faster than the Eee Slate's Core i5-470UM. The Fair quality slider isn't playable on either tablet, but you're certainly welcome to try raiding using the Low preset.

Playing at 1280x720 remains viable on the Series 7 Slate, though anything higher is probably going to be out of reach. In general, older DX 9-based games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Left 4 Dead 2, and Far Cry 2 fall in the same realm of playability on Intel's HD Graphics 3000 engine.

Calling HD Graphics 3000's gaming potential modest would be really generous. However, we're more impressed with the capabilities of its Quick Sync feature for video encode/decode acceleration.
Just how effective is Quick Sync in a tablet PC form factor? We took an unprotected 30 GB Blu-ray rip and transcoded it for an iPad 2 using MediaEspresso in less than 20 minutes. The same workload on a Core i5-2500K using the processor's four cores alone consumes more than an hour. Then we ran another test, taking an unprotected 665 MB Blu-ray MTS file and transcoding it in just over one minute (1:13, to be exact). The same workload tackled by the desktop Core i5 took 10:08.
In that context, then, Quick Sync continues to represent a significant productivity-oriented win for Sandy Bridge-based processors when they're using integrated graphics (as Samsung's tablet PC does).
| Specifications | Asus K53E | Asus Eee Slate | Samsung Series 7 11.6" Slate |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCMark Overall | 2419 PCMarks | 1508 PCMarks | 2566 PCMarks |
| Lightweight Score | 1913 PCMarks | 1287 PCMarks | 1994 PCMarks |
| Productivity Score | 1461 PCMarks | 1100 PCMarks | 1409 PCMarks |
| Video Playback and Transcoding | 22.99 FPS | 18.58 FPS | 23.14 FPS |
| Video Playback and Transcoding: Downscaling | 17.39241 MB/s | 1.23366 MB/s | 6.64269 MB/s |
| System Storage: Gaming | 3.38 MB/s | 10.62 MB/s | 13.44 MB/s |
| Graphics: DX9 | 15.38 FPS | 3.44 FPS | 5.67 FPS |
| Image Manipulation | 9.26 Mpx/s | 4.87 Mpx/s | 4.51 Mpx/s |
| System Storage: Importing Pictures | 5.20 MB/s | 4.69 MB/s | 22.52 MB/s |
| Web Browsing and Decrypting / Web Browsing | 10.46 pages/s | 5.44 pages/s | 5.58 pages/s |
| Web Browsing and Decrypting / Data Decrypting | 78.87 MB/s | 28.77 MB/s | 30.89 MB/s |
| System Storage: Windows Defender | 1.08 MB/s | 4.20 MB/s | 5.03 MB/s |
| Web Browsing With 3 Tabs | 11.68 pages/s | 6.13 pages/s | 6.43 pages/s |
| System Storage: Adding Music | 1.07 MB/s | 1.22 MB/s | 1.38 MB/s |
| System Storage: Starting Applications | 2.09 MB/s | 12.16 MB/s | 30.98 MB/s |
| Text Editing | 9.95 operations/s | 0.56 operations/s | 0.57 operations/s |
While the K53E notebook employs a faster processor with a thermal ceiling more than twice as high (35 W versus 17), Samsung's Series 7 11.6" Slate is able to beat it by leveraging a superior storage subsystem.
That wasn't the case when we reviewed the Eee Slate because Asus chose SanDisk's SSD P4, which chronically suffered from poor random write performance. How bad was it? Our mechanical Seagate Momentus 5400.6 beat it. Compare the SSD P4's 200 random 4 KB write IOPS to the Momentus XT's 338.
The mSATA-based 3 Gb/s SSD in the Series 7 11.6" Slate (MZMPA064HMDR) is a derivative of the 470 series used as a reference drive in most of our test platforms. Samsung sells the drive in two different capacities: 64 and 128 GB. We have the former, but you should expect the latter to deliver slightly better performance since it has more flash dies populating each NAND channel.
Real-World Benchmarks

While Windows 7 is a much more feature-rich operating system than iOS or Android, the Series 7 Slate's powerful hardware is better-equipped to boot into it faster than any other contender in our charts.


Input lag on the Series 7 11.6" Slate clocks in is recorded at just under 200 ms, which is great for most people. However, our baseline measurement doesn't necessarily capture the lag you'd experience in the real world. The first letter appears on the screen shortly after you type, but it often takes over 250 ms before Windows is ready to accept the next letter. This delay occurs because, after you press a key, the "hit" indicator takes a while to disappear. The result we generate, then, is most relevant to single-action items like clicking on the Start menu or launching a program.


Our battery tests represent a worst-case scenario for all of these devices because we dial brightness up to each screen's maximum value. This is something you'll see evolve in 2012 to include battery life results indicative of a normalized screen brightness level.
For the time being, though, we put specific emphasis on display quality, and we want to show you what you end up with, mobility-wise, when you take advantage of the higher-end screens available on tablets and tablet PCs. The resulting scores are particularly hard on the slates based on x86 hardware. Because they consume significantly more power and are never allowed to sit idle, they generally don't compare favorably. The advantages of ARM's architecture is most apparent in this case.
Despite a battery test that we already know is stacked against both slates, Samsung's offering is vastly superior to Asus' here. Not only does it come equipped with an excellent display, but it also shoulders three hours of a relatively heavy workload before running out of juice. If you enable the ambient light sensor to auto-dim brightness, you can easily expect four to five hours of useful life. And that's what makes this tablet PC better suited to the daily grind as you jump from one meeting to the next.


Samsung's IPS Panel Under The Microscope
Under a microscope, it's difficult to distinguish the tell-tale features of this LCD screen, since Samsung uses a fairly thick sheet of glass. Even still, we're able to identify certain clues, like the small tab on the end of each subpixel. We're able to confirm our suspicion that this is a Samsung display by disassembling the Series 7 Slate and finding an SEC3052 IPS panel.
This is the first IPS-based tablet we've tested. But this isn't just any IPS panel, like the ones found on Apple's iPad and Asus' Transformer. Samsung is using the same Superbright Plus Technology (SPT) that originally debuted with its Series 9 notebooks. Most IPS panels deliver around 300 nits of luminance, but SPT claims to enable 400 nits without sacrificing 170o viewing angles.

Compared to other IPS displays, the Series 7 Slate delivers slightly better color performance, but it falls short of the Galaxy Tab 10.1's gorgeous Super PLS panel.


Interestingly, Samsung's Slate has excellent contrast ratio. but that can't be attributable to its brightness because white luminance maxes out at 363 nits (lower than Samsung's claims). Thanks to deep blacks, however, the Series 7 11.6" Slate is still able to achieve a contrast ratio over 1000:1. This really helps when you're trying to discern details in movies with dark color palettes.




| Samsung Series 7 11.6" Slate | ||
|---|---|---|
| White Luminance cd/m^2 | ||
| 369.2990 | 360.4587 | 355.2979 |
| 353.0946 | 363.803 | 342.0505 |
| 350.7533 | 336.9604 | 352.4084 |
| Black Luminance cd/m^2 | ||
| 0.3291 | 0.3553 | 0.3224 |
| 0.3161 | 0.3203 | 0.3360 |
| 0.3185 | 0.3109 | 0.316 |
The graphs below exaggerate the lack of uniformity between our nine-point luminance test because we chart on a relative scale. However, when you look at the raw scores in the table above, you see that Samsung's Slate actually sports excellent white and black uniformity.


Camera App
If you've ever used an Android or iOS device, the camera interface should look pretty familiar.
Camera Quality: Rear-Facing, Distance
Low Light Indoors
Well Lit Outdoors
Well Lit Outdoors
Well Lit Outdoors
Well Lit Outdoors
Well Lit Outdoors
The rear-facing camera takes decent shots, but only if you're close to the object you're shooting. Samsung doesn't let you manually set focus, which is a major disappointment since autofocus doesn't really work. Point-and-shoots and smartphones are probably better candidates for group shots from a distance.
Camera Quality: Rear-Facing, Up Close
Low Light Indoors
Well Lit Outdoors
Well Lit Outdoors
Well Lit Outdoors
Well Lit Outdoors
Well Lit Outdoors
Camera Quality: Front-Facing
While Samsung's front-facing camera is on par with some of the best tablets, you still need reasonable lighting for VoIP-based communications apps like Skype.
The Series 7 11.6" Slate only comes with a single USB port, making it impossible to simultaneously use a wireless mouse while transferring files from your thumb drive.
Samsung's minimalistic approach really emphasizes a more mobile approach, though. So, if your purpose is to replace a desktop, you also need the company's docking station ($100). Its connectivity package is fairly minimalistic, including a headphone jack, a power port, Ethernet, HDMI output, and a single USB 2.0 port. However, it offers a simple and convenient way to expand connectivity and prop up the screen without imposing a mess of cables.
Samsung's Slate supports Intel's Wireless Display (WiDi) technology. A few things have changed since our first look at WiDi, because Intel now allows you to play protected video content, and it supports 1080p.
Of course, WiDi requires a compatible adapter like Netgear's Push2TV HD. Once you get your hands on that piece of hardware, connecting is relatively simple. Just hook up the adapter via HDMI to your TV or monitor and you're ready to start.
The next step is to connect the display via Intel's WiDi software by entering a PIN.
A video signal from the tablet PC is then streamed wirelessly onto your HDTV.
We've tried connecting WiDi on a few TVs, and the process is easy each time. The only problem we've seen is that the display isn't always proportioned quite right. Fortunately, WiDi lets you adjust the image. The resulting image quality is good, but not great. It’s on par with streaming movies on Amazon or Netflix.
The bigger problem is that streaming video requires on-the-fly encoding, which not only employs Quick Sync's fixed-function logic, but also the HD Graphics engine's encoding units. We didn't have a USB 2.0-based Blu-ray drive to connect, but standard-def DVD playback causes CPU usage to spike to 30%.
Wireless Performance
Two scenarios are being tested here:
- Five feet, line-of-sight: The wireless device is set five feet from the router without any obstructions.
- 20 feet, no line-of-sight: The wireless device is set 20 feet from the router and there are three drywall obstructions in our testing environment that reflect the possible degradation you might see in an indoor environment.
All devices idle for two minutes before testing in order to prevent power-saving rules in the OS from affecting wireless performance.

Most tablets don't support 802.11n connectivity through the 5.0 GHz band. Sticking with 2.4 GHz should save a little bit on battery life, but it also means vendors can use a slightly cheaper networking controller. Even still, we're prefer the option to use 5.0 GHz, if only to take advantage of another frequency less likely to be affected by interference.

Prior to Intel's Sandy Bridge architecture, there was too large a gap between desktop and mobile devices for us to be satisfied with a notebook that could take the place of a stationary workstation. Fortunately, the efficiency improvements inherent to Intel's latest design help bright that gap to a significant degree. Now more so than ever, it's possible to completely forgo a desktop for productivity-oriented tasks without kicking yourself in the shin over performance compromises.
Why should you care? Tablet PCs are intended to replace notebooks. The familiar clam shell form factor makes it easy to balance desktop-class parts, a battery pack, a big screen, and the convenience of a complete keyboard. Smashing everything down into a single plane naturally amplifies the space constraints tablet vendors working with very low-power mobile technology are forced to accept. And that's why most tablet PC designers are forced to settle on previous-generation hardware for their tablet PC efforts, as illustrated by Asus' Eee Slate. Of course, nobody wants to toss a modern desktop in favor of a mobile platform based on old components.
Enter Samsung's Series 7 11.6" Slate.
| Pricing | 16 GB | 32 GB | 64 GB | 128 GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| iPad 2 (Wi-Fi) | $499 | $599 | $699 | - |
| iPad 2 (AT&T/Verizon 3G) | $629 | $729 | $829 | - |
| Xoom (Wi-Fi) | - | $499 | - | - |
| Iconia Tab A500 (Wi-Fi) | $449 | - | - | - |
| Eee Slate E121 | - | $999 | $1299 | - |
| Eee Slate B121 | - | - | $1499 | - |
| Series 7 11.6" Slate | - | - | $1049 | $1349 |
Intel's Sandy Bridge architecture flips the script on all of that. A more efficient architecture actually makes it easier to incorporate modern hardware into a tablet PC's limited dimensions, offering better performance and eating less battery power in the process. That's what Samsung demonstrates with its Series 7 11.6" Slate. It's the first tablet PC capable of replacing a notebook, while delivering desktop-class performance, and in a more mobile package. If you're a road warrior, consolidating the number of devices you tote around is finally possible. Of course, that assumes you're also willing to buy Samsung's docking station, which runs another $100.
But even after that extra cost, the Slate's price tag is more competitive with ultraportable Sandy Bridge-based notebooks than other tablet PCs. Similarly-priced solutions from Motion Computing employ Atom processors, while more expensive offerings from companies like Asus still leverage slower Arrandale-class hardware.
Samsung didn't just slap together hardware haphazardly and rely on Microsoft's operating system to make this work as a tablet. The company actually took the time to create a customized touchscreen interface that almost embarrassingly feels easier to use than Windows 8's Metro. The fact that this is the first and only tablet PC based on a Sandy Bridge-based platform, yielding great performance, is a major bonus.
Interestingly, this is the exact same tablet PC that Microsoft distributed at its BUILD conference to encourage Windows 8 development. Yet, Samsung hasn't really made any effort to promote it, which is a shame. It's a phenomenal device that delivers much better value than the competition, which is why the Series 7 11.6" Slate deserves our Tom Hardware's 2012 Recommended Buy award.
The Series 7 11.6" Slate isn't without its faults. In order to achieve a thin and sexy design, Samsung chose to omit the seemingly very basic pen holder. As a result, it's super easy to lose the digitizer-enabled pen. Fortunately, the Series 7 11.6" Slate uses a touchscreen, so forgetting where you put the pen isn't a huge problem unless you need to take hand-written notes. Buy a case to easily remedy Samsung's oversight. You'd probably end up snagging on anyway.
Despite our very minor complaint, Samsung comes very close to proffering the perfect tablet PC. The design of this slate makes sense.
Display Analysis
Before we start our rather rigorous benchmarking process, we disable dynamic brightness because it prevents us from getting an accurate and reproducible measurement of the display’s potential. Second, brightness is set to the highest value. If you don't use the same settings, your color gamut is going to look smaller than what our benchmarks show.
With respect to gamma, understand that it doesn’t affect black or white performance, only midtones. If gamma is set too high, the midtones appear dark. If it's set too low, they're pale. Adobe, Apple, and Microsoft all recommend a gamma of 2.2. It's an arbitrary value carried over from the NTSC standard, but it was originally chosen because it allows colors to appear more natural in slightly dim environments.
Battery Life & Recharge Time
Testing a tablet’s battery life tends to be highly variable unless you control the entire experience from beginning to end. Cumulatively, touch gestures don’t have a great impact on battery life. The biggest factors are CPU/GPU processing, screen brightness, volume, and Wi-Fi use. In order to accurately measure battery life, I coded a script that automatically plays MP3s at 50% volume while browsing different Wikipedia pages every 12 minutes. This benchmark is probably overkill, but it gives you an idea of a worst-case scenario.
Very few sites go through the trouble of benchmarking recharge time. However, in my view, it's as important as battery life. Though, it's not necessarily desirable to have a fast recharging time. Ideally, you want a nice slow charge so that your battery lasts more than a few hundred charges. Rapid charge times keep you away from the wall socket longer, but in the long run it cuts down on the health of the battery. Usually, the rate of charge starts to slow down somewhere in the 80% to 95% range, which is why the charging time from 0% to 10% is faster than 90% to 100%.
Real-World Performance
Early on, we discovered how difficult it is to benchmark tablets.
Benchmarking responsiveness with a camera is the easiest approach. Of course, normal cameras don't cut it, since they only shoot at 29 FPS. That's unacceptable if you're trying to measure precise time differences. Going the stopwatch route is no better, due to human-introduced errors. As a result, we're using a 1000 FPS high-speed camera to measure performance. Since one frame equals one millisecond, it’s possible to measure timing with a high degree of accuracy.
Boot and launch times aren't as important as input lag in our view. However, we're defining input lag in a slightly different way from the manner it’s used in discussing display technology. Our focus is more on real-world usability. As such, we define input lag "as the time between pressing a key and text appearing on-screen." This tells you how fast a tablet is registering an action. Ideally, you want low input lag so that you don't feel the tablet stuttering as you type or click on buttons. The average college student has a reaction time of 200 milliseconds for visual stimuli, so that's really the target for which we look.
Wireless Performance
Earlier this year, the lab overhauled the process of evaluating Wi-Fi performance. For background information, check out page 10 of Acer Iconia Tab A500: A Tablet With Honeycomb 3.1. Moving forward, I'm going to focus mostly on throughput, which is why I've elected to exclude response time scores. Generally, these two metrics go hand in hand, so I feel that it's somewhat redundant to publish both.





































