Bought Surface 3 - Regrettably returned.

[Ygglens]

I can dream. I forgot to mention dual SIM capability

With free photoshop and sketchbook, 8 gigs of ram, and a 500 gig SSD.

 

[P_Devil]

Your response is scared me! In no universe is vivotab comparable to s3.

WinBook TW802 Tablet - Black 503151 - Micro Center

This one was $50, and don't let the brand fool you. 100* better warranty. Heck, even the build quality is superior!

I wouldn't recommend the WinBook series of tablets, not after seeing the mass amounts of returns after the tablets were put up for sale. The Microcenter closest to me had stacks of the 7", 8", and 10" WinBooks from the floor to the ceiling. They were all returns after Microcenter offered them at their discount prices. I was returning something else when I asked about the stacks and the employee said that they all had something physically wrong with them. The touch would stop working, the display went wonky, something. Then he said "it's no surprise, the WinBooks are pieces of crap." Plus I played around with the 7" version and it performed like a $50 tablet whereas the HP Stream 7 was actually pleasant.

I wouldn't recommend the Asus VivoTab Note 8 either. I had one for about 6 months and it was nothing but a pain. I purchased it at Microcenter and ended up returning it for another one because the touch input would stop working but the Wacom stylus would be fine. Restarting the system always brought back the touch input but I hated having to do it. So I returned it for a new one (that's when I saw the stacks of WinBooks) and it had the same exact issue. I had Asus service the tablet. It was gone for about 3-4 weeks and it was returned to me with a report saying that the necessary repairs had been made. I turned it on and it worked fine. I put it into sleep mode and went to go use the tablet in bed that night. Touch input stopped working again. I ended up selling the damn thing for $100 on Craigslist because I was passed the return window at Microcenter. I just wanted it gone.

In terms of Windows tablets I've really only had positive experiences with the HP Stream 7, Dell Venue Pro 8 3000 (which I still have), the Surface Pro 2 (I sold it), and the Surface 3 (I bought it two weeks ago). The only reason why I didn't keep the Stream 7 was that it could not smoothly output HD video to my HDTV using the Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter. It would stutter and drop frames here and there. That was using the modern version of IE, the Xbox video app, and VLC.

 

[Yazen]

I wouldn't recommend the WinBook series of tablets, not after seeing the mass amounts of returns after the tablets were put up for sale. The Microcenter closest to me had stacks of the 7", 8", and 10" WinBooks from the floor to the ceiling. They were all returns after Microcenter offered them at their discount prices. I was returning something else when I asked about the stacks and the employee said that they all had something physically wrong with them. The touch would stop working, the display went wonky, something. Then he said "it's no surprise, the WinBooks are pieces of crap." Plus I played around with the 7" version and it performed like a $50 tablet whereas the HP Stream 7 was actually pleasant.

I wouldn't recommend the Asus VivoTab Note 8 either. I had one for about 6 months and it was nothing but a pain. I purchased it at Microcenter and ended up returning it for another one because the touch input would stop working but the Wacom stylus would be fine. Restarting the system always brought back the touch input but I hated having to do it. So I returned it for a new one (that's when I saw the stacks of WinBooks) and it had the same exact issue. I had Asus service the tablet. It was gone for about 3-4 weeks and it was returned to me with a report saying that the necessary repairs had been made. I turned it on and it worked fine. I put it into sleep mode and went to go use the tablet in bed that night. Touch input stopped working again. I ended up selling the damn thing for $100 on Craigslist because I was passed the return window at Microcenter. I just wanted it gone.

In terms of Windows tablets I've really only had positive experiences with the HP Stream 7, Dell Venue Pro 8 3000 (which I still have), the Surface Pro 2 (I sold it), and the Surface 3 (I bought it two weeks ago). The only reason why I didn't keep the Stream 7 was that it could not smoothly output HD video to my HDTV using the Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter. It would stutter and drop frames here and there. That was using the modern version of IE, the Xbox video app, and VLC.

That's pretty intensive work for a $99 tabet haha.

 

[onlysublime]

I wouldn't recommend the WinBook series of tablets, not after seeing the mass amounts of returns after the tablets were put up for sale. The Microcenter closest to me had stacks of the 7", 8", and 10" WinBooks from the floor to the ceiling. They were all returns after Microcenter offered them at their discount prices. I was returning something else when I asked about the stacks and the employee said that they all had something physically wrong with them. The touch would stop working, the display went wonky, something. Then he said "it's no surprise, the WinBooks are pieces of crap." Plus I played around with the 7" version and it performed like a $50 tablet whereas the HP Stream 7 was actually pleasant.

I completely agree about the WinBook 7" or 8" tablets. I picked one up because it was advertised as having a GPS sensor built-in. If that was the case, you could use the tablet as a turn-by-turn GPS device with the appropriate software. Turns out it was advertised incorrectly.

But I played with the device at the store and for 3 days. At the Microcenter store I was at, someone had completely rendered the demo useless. Some accessibility function was enabled which rendered the touch nonfunctional. Since it didn't have a physical keyboard and touch was rendered useless, it was an adventure just getting the device back to normal. It was a pretty dead device and no one knew what to do. So I did some googling and found out what happened and fixed it but the process was not quick.

So I opened up the package at home, found out it didn't have the GPS sensor, but decided to play around with it. Screen was awful. For its price range, I guess I couldn't expect much but it was those narrow viewing angle TN screens that was barely bright. Calling it DIM was more appropriate. Everything was so tiny on the screen. The speed was terrible. Well, scrolling the Start screen was fast. It felt like one of those cheapy Android tablets that get sold in supermarkets.

I've also used the HP 8" machine. That is tons better than the WinBook. But Windows on such a little screen is not good. The only thing good about that machine is it could run stuff like Popcorn Time.

Comparing my Surface Pro 2 and the Surface 3 side by side, the SP2 destroys the S3 in performance. However, the brightness of the S3 was higher than the SP2. A white page is very white on the S3 and next to the SP2, makes the SP2 look grayish. And I'm very proud of how accurate and bright the SP2 is (having compared it to great machines like the Acer S7 or Dell XPS ultrabooks). Without something next to the SP2, its white is very white and bright.

 

[Yazen]

I completely agree about the WinBook 7" or 8" tablets. I picked one up because it was advertised as having a GPS sensor built-in. If that was the case, you could use the tablet as a turn-by-turn GPS device with the appropriate software. Turns out it was advertised incorrectly.

But I played with the device at the store and for 3 days. At the Microcenter store I was at, someone had completely rendered the demo useless. Some accessibility function was enabled which rendered the touch nonfunctional. Since it didn't have a physical keyboard and touch was rendered useless, it was an adventure just getting the device back to normal. It was a pretty dead device and no one knew what to do. So I did some googling and found out what happened and fixed it but the process was not quick.

So I opened up the package at home, found out it didn't have the GPS sensor, but decided to play around with it. Screen was awful. For its price range, I guess I couldn't expect much but it was those narrow viewing angle TN screens that was barely bright. Calling it DIM was more appropriate. Everything was so tiny on the screen. The speed was terrible. Well, scrolling the Start screen was fast. It felt like one of those cheapy Android tablets that get sold in supermarkets.

I've also used the HP 8" machine. That is tons better than the WinBook. But Windows on such a little screen is not good. The only thing good about that machine is it could run stuff like Popcorn Time.

Comparing my Surface Pro 2 and the Surface 3 side by side, the SP2 destroys the S3 in performance. However, the brightness of the S3 was higher than the SP2. A white page is very white on the S3 and next to the SP2, makes the SP2 look grayish. And I'm very proud of how accurate and bright the SP2 is (having compared it to great machines like the Acer S7 or Dell XPS ultrabooks). Without something next to the SP2, its white is very white and bright.

That's interesting, the WinBook I purchased in August had an IPS display. Not saying the screen was excellent as there was noticeable color banding, but it wasn't any worse than similar offerings.

Btw Kodi has an addon that works like popcorn time, might scale better on a smaller device. Not as intuitive to configure though

 

[Somerichs]

I wonder if your issues with the ASUS were specific to the fact it had a Stylus or not? The one in the MS Store is not the Vivotab Note 8 but rather just the Vivotab 8. It does not include a stylus. Not sure how different it really is, though. Like I said, specs look good for the price, and the reviews are mostly positive.

Coincidentally, I got my mom the Stream 7 from the MS Store for $79 and had a chance to mostly set it up for her. The build is quite good for the money; heavier than I expected. Seems like a nice little machine, though going up to the 8" form factor offered by the Vivotab 8, AND getting another gig of RAM, would be most welcome, I think.

Win 8.1, and especially in the small tablet form factor and in going from the desktop to the apps, definitely takes some getting used to, coming form plain 'ol Windows 7 on a laptop, but I think i'd get up to speed pretty quickly.

 

[onlysublime]

That's interesting, the WinBook I purchased in August had an IPS display. Not saying the screen was excellent as there was noticeable color banding, but it wasn't any worse than similar offerings.

I just went back and looked at the specs. It is IPS. Shocking. Probably the worst IPS display I've ever seen if it was IPS. I'm not saying it's worse than other machines of that price range. I'm saying it's as bad as displays of that price range.

 

[Yazen]

I just went back and looked at the specs. It is IPS. Shocking. Probably the worst IPS display I've ever seen if it was IPS. I'm not saying it's worse than other machines of that price range. I'm saying it's as bad as displays of that price range.

Yeah, IPS used to be exclusive to expensive displays... Kind of the same story with ClearBlack lool