3 Days with a VivoTab Smart

[Lurchorama]

So a few days ago I stumbled upon a VivoTab Smart for a cheap price on Gumtree (for Americans, read: Craigslist... sorta). I wanted something new to play with so I snapped it up.
At the same time I had been playing with Miracast (read here) and with talk of 8.1 natively supporting Miracast this was a great time for that too.
Needless to say the Miracast experiment didn't pan out, but in the interim I've found myself really enjoying having a *proper* computer in the form of a tablet. And having early access to 8.1 RTM has been nice too.
It's not just having regular apps (which is damn nice) but all the other little things that you cant (or isnt easy to) do on a cut-down Tablet OS. Mapped Network Drives, Random little other utils, etc etc. But I'm also quite impressed with the number of useful applications that have merged themselves into the Metro environment (Media Monkey, Zinio, etc).

So, nutshell version:
Pros

• Having proper Apps
• Having a proper filesystem
• Being able to do all those little corporate network things that are a PITA on other tablet OS's
• This Metro Interface really does work on a Tablet (still not a fan on a PC with KB/Mouse)

Con's

• Battery life isnt great
• The 'old school' bit on Win 8 really needs work on a touch interface
• Pop-up/On Screen keyboard doesnt auto pop-up in the 'old school' areas

I'll add more/update as time progresses; but right now, I'm giving it a 7.5/10. Great; but it needs work.

 

[Laura Knotek]

How long has the battery lasted for you? I was curious how your actual results compare with what is advertised.

 

[Lurchorama]

It's hard to tell. I've been mucking around with it pretty hard. In saying that; it does have a bad habbit of going dead over night. Every morning I've had to charge from scratch.
In saying that tho; it's pretty quick to charge.

 

[halcyonboy]

have you calibrated the battery? generally speaking you should get a decent amount of use out of a charge. i'd let the battery drain completely and then charge it for at least 12 hours. I've found that the light goes white before fully charged. if you can calibrate it, it should show you some decent performance. that's at least my experience thus far.