Chippy from UMPCPortal had a bunch of adventures with various notebooks and tablets out there and finally decided on a Samsung Ativ 500T Smart PC. He tried it out with a Lenovo Lynx keyboard and wasn’t happy with it, so he also got a 3G version of the Samsung Ativ 500T Smart PC with 3G and paid 899 euro for it.
This is the 64 GB version with 3G, GPS and NFC and apparently the 3G runs at HSPA+ speeds. This UMPC Portal editor had problems with the Acer W510 and has trouble finding a decent keyboard on device like that. So, after trying and switching a bunch of Clovertrail slates, he decided on a Samsung one. This must be a good lesson to all of you out there searching for a tablet/notebook hybrid and being afraid to pay too much for it. I’ve recently seen a review of the Samsung Ativ Smart PC 500T with a $749 price tag and with pretty bad conclusions on its regard.
This “fully functioning PC” runs Windows 8, has a sleek and lightweight form factor and also has great specs. 2 GB of RAM, a pair of 1.8 GHz Atom cores and 64 GB of storage sound great. Sadly, the port access and the button placement is not that inspired and the top of the device is too busy, with SD card slots, USB 2.0, port, physical auto rotate on/off button and power switch. The latter is way too easy to hit by mistake, a problem we’ve come across on many other devices. Once again, be careful what you buy!
