Asus' Eee Slate EP121/B121: A Windows 7-Based Tablet PC

Features
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published

Apple's iPad, Motorola's Xoom, Acer's Iconia. The list goes on. Are you tired of all the tablet talk? Are you familiar with tablet PCs? Asus has the latest Windows-based tablet. We go over its features and show how it compares to more familiar tablets.

Wireless Performance

Wireless Performance

We've changed the way Wi-Fi performance is evaluated. For background information, check out page 10 of Acer Iconia Tab A500: A Tablet With Honeycomb 3.1. If you're not sure how throughput, latency, processing time, and response time all tie together, we go over that on page 10 of Apple's iPad 2 Review: Tom's Goes Down The Tablet Rabbit Hole.

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.

The iPad, iPad 2, Xoom, and Iconia A500 all use the same 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 2.1 controller (Broadcom's BCM4329), but the Android tablets place a processing priority on networking tasks, so they benefit from better response times and throughput. 

The Eee Slate does well compared to the tablets, but it falls short of the Xoom's numbers when we're further away from the access point. Response times are excellent, but Asus' Eee Slate seems to prefer 802.11n to 802.11g.

The Eee Slate is a single-band device; it can't connect to 5 GHz networks. That's something to keep in mind if you own a dual-band router and prefer using the 5 GHz frequency range.

Andrew Ku
54 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Maziar
    Looks good but IMO,Win7 isn't designed for touch screens.Hopefully Win8 will add a decent touch UI to the OS which makes the Windows tablets more useful
    Reply
  • hardcore_gamer
    Intel HD graphics..that ruined everything
    Reply
  • I think thats the worst idea in tablet world; putting windows 7 on a tablet... dealing with sidebars even makes me sick on 24" screen with a hi-res mouse... I cant think of it on 12" screen with fingers... and thats already tried and failed a few years ago; tablet PC's... Will somebody take any lesson from failed ideas? or even from Ipad's success? Grow-up and see what's happening... or leave it all to Apple...
    Reply
  • back_by_demand
    All this tells me is that the inevitable rise of Fusion or Sandybridge with integrated graphics, or ION based tablets, Windows 8 will steal the show.

    When the hardware gets to a good enough standard then the peoiple will flock to a REAL operating system.

    Reply
  • DjEaZy
    ... whardcore_gamerIntel HD graphics..that ruined everything... AMD's Fusion would be a better choice...
    Reply
  • boiler1990
    I'd like a W8 tablet that could simply change interfaces between the WP7-esque look in tablet mode and a W7-like interface with the addition of a keyboard dock (basically a W8 Transformer).
    Reply
  • I current own a ASUS slate. For those who are interested in this tablet. Here is my suggestion. Get the 2G ram/32G SDD one. and upgrade the ram to 4G and intel X310 series 80G. the final price will be abour $50 more than 4G/64G one; however, u gain better SSD performace as well as more storage. I have been using this one for 3 monthes now, I would say, compare to wacom's other drawing table, this one still a little beyond, however, when u compare with Wacom's Cintiq12WX, Slate does provide the same function, without an extra computer. I would say 256 level vs 1024 level is a little trade off for convenience and price. As a graphic designer (not illustrator), i dont really find the 256 level is a huge issue. Tho if ASUS intend to relseae 2nd Gen of this product' i will be really interested in seeing them switch to AMD fusion. intel's HD chip is simply a joke. I would trade off some CPU power for more powerful graphic. Anyway, final thought.. this is the only table with pen function that can run Adobe CS5. I only hope it wont be hard to find the replacement battery...
    Reply
  • Phu5ion
    A tablet with Intel graphics and Windows OS? What a waste.
    Reply
  • spsfinest
    Why is there no page for battery life? Was this thing such a poor performer you were to embarrassed for it to post the info Tom?
    Reply
  • acku
    @spsfinest -> Page 9
    Reply