I've got $599 to spend...

[dakranii]

I received $599 today, unexpectedly, and have been interested in the Surface RT. But before I jump into it, what about other brand tablets and the Surface Pro? I don't really know what's going on in the world of W8 outside of the Surface and I don't know why I should wait for the Pro.

Here are my two biggest hesitations with the Surface RT.
1 - No NFC. But my next WP8 will have it, so I don't know how necessary it really is
2 - No 3G/Cellular. This could go either way for me, but I'd prefer to have it. I can always tether with my phone, but having the tablet be 3G on its own means no draining the battery on my phone.

What other tablets are out there I should consider? What makes them worth considering against the Surface?

And why should I wait for Pro? I imagine it'll be considerably more expensive? I doubt there will be a Surface Pro starting at $499, right?

 

[sconrad308]

The ASUS VivoTab RT includes NFC. But it doesn't have 3G/Cellular.

 

[jdevenberg]

I personally chose the vivo tab Rt over the Surface RT. If you buy it at staples.com you get a free dock. Plus Asus will give you another dock for free as well if you register your vivo and request the dock after.

 

[dakranii]

I personally chose the vivo tab Rt over the Surface RT. If you buy it at staples.com you get a free dock. Plus Asus will give you another dock for free as well if you register your vivo and request the dock after.

That's good to know. Did they have a tablet in store to try out? Why did you choose the Asus over the Surface?

 

[anon(5335877)]

I'm going to get one of the Atom powered tablets because none of the RT tablets seem to have an active digitizer.

I mean, honestly, it depends on what you're going to use the tablet for.

The advantage of the Pro is you can run x86 programs and better performance, but the disadvantage is probably the price, the battery life, and the heat. It's supposed to be priced in the ultrabook range of prices, and the Core i3/5/7 Ivy Bridge processors can get pretty hot. I'm not sure about the battery life, but I wouldn't expect it to be that much better than an ultrabook (unless Microsoft works some kind of magic?) since they're running pretty much the same hardware.

The Atom tablets that I'm looking at are kind of the middle ground between RT and the Core iX tablets. Not as power as Ivy Bridge, but offer decent performance, decent (maybe even comparable to ARM) battery life, don't heat up like Ivy Bridge does, and sit in between RT tablets and Ivy Bridge tablets in terms of pricing.

But really, I feel like the next generation of tablets that use Intel's next gen Atom processor or Haswell (successor to Ivy Bridge) are going to be much better. They're supposed to be more power efficient and have better graphics and stuff like that. I really wish I could have waited until next year for them, but I really need something to use now.

 

[baseballbert]

Coincidentally enough, that's how much I will sell my Lumia 900 for! It's yours if you want it! ;-)

 

[dakranii]

Coincidentally enough, that's how much I will sell my Lumia 900 for! It's yours if you want it! ;-)

sweet! Tell me where to send the check. ;-)

 

[jdevenberg]

That's good to know. Did they have a tablet in store to try out? Why did you choose the Asus over the Surface?

Staples doesn't have it in store yet, but both best buy and office depot have demo units out, and staples is doing free one day shipping.

My reasons for getting the Vivo over the Surface were
1. NFC, its cool to have
2. Size. 10.1" tablets are nearly too wide, and at 10.6" the surface is even wider.
3. Dock. As cool as the Surface covers are, I wanted a proper dock. One to use on my lap on long car rides. One with extended battery. One that turns my tablet into a proper netbook.
4. Size. The Vivo is a lot lighter, like 22% lighter. And around 10% thinner.
5. Screen is brighter and has better contrast. Also being smaller with the same resolution gives the Vivo slightly better pixel density

 

[texantony]

I'm not sure if RT is your only option, but I just came back from staples and tried out the Samsung Series 5 with the atom processor and full windows 8 and I was impressed. I have a Surface but I'm considering it. Being an atom processor I was a little hesitant but it was pretty smooth, to my surprise. Anyhow, they have it for $50 less. $599. Keyboard is separate.

 

[PuckCowboy]

Anyone else considering the Thinkpad Tablet 2. Looks like one of the best Atom options out there.

 

[anon(5335877)]

Anyone else considering the Thinkpad Tablet 2. Looks like one of the best Atom options out there.

I'm considering it, but as of yesterday I couldn't really find any reviews on any of the Atom tablets.