How's the power of the Atom in this tablet?

[hopmedic]

I'm looking for a tablet with a detachable keyboard, something that I can easily take with me, but will have enough power to run Visual Studio. It won't be my daily driver, my powerful machine, as I have a laptop with an i7, 8GB RAM, and about everything you could possibly need. What I'm looking for is a way to leave the big machine at home, and take the smaller one with me, where I could work a little bit when I have time. It doesn't have to be massively powerful, but I would like for it to not be sluggish. I'd also like to know if the Atom PCs have the necessary hardware to run the Windows Phone emulator, as that's what I'm developing for.
Thanks!

 

[James8561]

Im not sure. My experience with Atom has been with netbooks and they were the worst of the worst. Although they've gotten better, I have doubts that they can run professional softwares fluidly.

 

[hopmedic]

Yeah, I've had a netbook, too, so I know the pain of trying to use that, though I never tried to use it with VS - not enough screen real estate to bother. I've read lots of comments that they've gotten better, in fact one thing I read somewhere is that this year's Atoms are twice as powerful as last year, but since I don't follow processor news, and haven't bought a computer in three years, I was hoping I could find someone who had actually tried it. :wink:

 

[Keith Wallace]

It's pretty terrible. That's the second-gen Atom. They're on to Bay Trail now, where the desktop performance is supposedly very nice (MUUUUCH better than Cloverfield). Go get an 64-GB ASUS T100 for $400 on Amazon, if you want anything Atom-based. You get the keyboard dock with 1 or 2 USB 3.0 ports AND Office 2013 with it. It's even listed for less than the W510 (which sits on Amazon for $500+).

Amazon.com: ASUS Transformer Book T100TA-C1-GR 10.1-Inch Convertible 2-in-1 Touchscreen Laptop (Gray): Computers & Accessories