Database Users

Windows 8 Tablets Clover Trail Vs ARM

I know it's a little too early for this thread but it's going to be an interesting topics which will be debated endlessly in the next couple months. Lets face it, CES did little to convince us either options will be superior.
Background information:
Windows 8 seems to be designed for not only tablets in mind, but how the OS is intended to be used. In order to make this possible Mircosoft is designing a version of the OS to be used on ARM processors. ARM processors, found in today's tablets and smartphones, are designed for high preformance with low power consumption.
At the same time Intel has invested a lot of money and research to develop the Clover Trial Atom processor. The atom processors are the processors found in yesterdays notebooks but this new design is also intended for low power consumption.
Known Characteristics of Each:
ARM:
HTML 5 apps only
Possibly Metro UI Only
Low heat
Clover Trail:
x86 architecture. Legacy apps will be compatible as well as HTML 5 apps
Lower preformace than sandy bridge processors
Looking at the above list it seems easy to pick the clover trail but the arm processors are likely to offer better battery life.
Heat issues are also a historic known issue on x86 processors, will continue with clover trail? If a tablet requires a fan width becomes an issue.
I will continue to update the characteristic lists as updates come out so everyone can make the best informed decision possible.
-writing this from my iPad 2 which I can't wait to ditch for something in the Windows 8 flavor

Even on a tablet, I hate the win8 look. I just want my win7 desktop on my iPad 2 also.

I don't think W8 will be as innovative as they say. Windows-8 will either be a hit or a big miss.

I see at least one error in your description, however: Windows 8 on ARM will not be limited to only the HTML5+Javascript apps. They've already demonstrated applications compiled for ARM specifically (including MS Office), so it's safe to conclude we'll see both.
Personally, I LOVE the Metro UI. I think it's the most brilliant shift in UI design in the last 30 years.
For me, I'll be going Windows 8 on ARM and tossing my iPad to the side (probably sell it) as soon as it's available. I'll keep my Windows 7 desktop as-is for the sake of x86/x64 applications in a traditional interface, but Windows 8 is where the market's going. In spite of the naysayers, the odds of it failing are very, very small.
Even Windows Vista, which was a fairly awful product at launch, sold very well (not as well as XP or now 7, but still, well over 200 million units), so it's not remotely a stretch to think that Windows 8, which is slim, light and mind numbingly fast, will also sell well.

Intel's Medfield Atom has proven to be a better performer than the ARM A9 core while offering similar/better power consumption on paper. Personally I don't care for either. I'd rather get ULV Ivy Bridge and live with 4-5 hours of batterylife and probably 8-10 with a keyboard dock, if available.
A ULV Broadwell in 2014 will make all of this moot anyway, x86 chips are more powerful and has major productivity software on lock because of it. Intel is now taking heat/power consumption very seriously and Metro apps for the most part are cross platform so it's Intel's to lose, don't forget that.

dont bet against Intel.... their upcoming tri-gate and finfet tech are gonna put them right in the same league as ARM as far as power consumption is concerned..
if I were a betting man, I'd bet that ARM Windows will be a niche player, while x86 windows will continue to be the dominant flavor, even for tablets, because of Intel's ability to bring down power consumption and price.
That, plus the standardization of x86, and ability for users to install legacy apps + mess around with their OS in an easy way will sway the market far in x86's favor...

Windows 8 has one silver lining left, and that's the Office suite. Android still has no good alternative, and Apple as a killer office app, but not THE Office app.
As long as Microsoft has the mouse behave like a finger, with swiping etc.... Then they'll stand a chance. I wouldn't bet on MS though... for the consumer segment, they need strong solid partnerships, and so far they only have Nokia.

coolqf said:
Windows 8 has one silver lining left, and that's the Office suite. Android still has no good alternative, and Apple as a killer office app, but not THE Office app.
As long as Microsoft has the mouse behave like a finger, with swiping etc.... Then they'll stand a chance. I wouldn't bet on MS though... for the consumer segment, they need strong solid partnerships, and so far they only have Nokia.
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What are you talking about? They have everyone for Windows 8. Android tablets aren't selling like their phone counterparts, are OEMs are waiting impatiently to jump on board with Windows 8. Windows still has many major productivity software for 3D rendering, design (pick any type), video, etc. Android has ICS's movie make and super gimped up Adobe touch apps. Android tablets are nothing more than giant mobile phones. Windows 8 tablets will be Metro touch apps that equal Android mobile apps plus all the desktop software we professionals use.

x86 is miles ahead of arm. as soon as dev's make arm ports of x86 apps i dont know if i will bother with windows 8 on arm until then

2 questions/thoughts... call it what you will.
1. ARM ver of Win8 will (or not?) be way more closed than current (traditional Windows approach) - sort of like Windows Phone is now. Meaning if you want an app you have to get it of the store (ONLY) not from any website like today with Windows. True or False?
If true... imho this is a very bad news for ARM ver of software.
Let say you live in Europe and you want/need program that is specific for US store only. What will you do in such case? Even iOS (bad, closed system, controlled by BIG, BAD APPLE) is more frindly about this tnah Android or Windows Phone.
2. Is it possible (for current ARM SOC's) to emulate x86 (in order to get older soft to work)? I dont think so.
On the other hand x86 should be more than capable to "pretend" it is ARM device . In such case having x86 W8 onboard means we cen als use ARM software if we want to need to (unless both x86 and ARM W8 will be lock tight - but than why would anyone jump of Win7????).

fact is we have no idea what RT will bring to the table or what the software will or will not be able to do, but if we look at the hardware we see a few notable differences
ARM, ultra low watt consumption (potentially good battery life), High performance BUT less grunt so to speak, cheaper price point
x86, higher power consumption(potentially a shorter battery life compared to ARM), High performance but more bang per buck, more expensive price point.
there is a distinct difference between the two models, a difference which I think will be very important. Most every day folk will not need more than ARM, for everyone else including many business users, x86 is there
Being able to run x86 code is my primary concern, im not talking heavy work, the programs are small and light, but x86 is essential for the time being for it to be flexible.
However provided RT isn't completely tied down like WP is AND is at a reasonable price point, I think it will make great inroads in the Low/Mid range tablet market.

I started looking into tablets after September last fall. I wanted something that would give me the most bang for the buck, or at least the minimum compromise. Things broke out in 3 general sections as mentioned previously: ARM, Atom/AMDCxx and X86/AMD (higher end iCore style).
As Windows 8 goes, there will be no real difference between Atom and X86. The instruction sets are the same. Both will support Metro and Windows Legacy apps.
ARM will only support Metro.
Price seems to break along those lines, but I found an exception.
I expect the ARM versions to run in the neighborhood of $400 and less; the Atom class to be in the $400 to $800; and the full X86 to be $600 and up. Of course equipment will also impact this price.
Probably, the most significant piece of equipment will be the screen. While pricing current machines for ARM and Atom (as well as X86), the 1366x1024 resolution was rare and it is required for a split screen feature of the Metro interface.
In the end, I picked a Dell Duo with a dual core hyperthreading Atom processor because it had the required resolution and the price was down as low as anything I could find. I also got a keyboard, but suffered the weight and short battery life.
Performance has been good in most situations, though tinkering with Unity 3d seems like a bad idea on the Atom with Windows 8 (but it's not a release OS yet). And performance lags a little in Unity 3d game execution, too.
Metro looks good to me so far.
So, for an iPad style consumption usage I think the ARM is probably going to work great. Dual core if you can get it.
For a little heavier usage and legacy aps, you'll want an Atom type systyem. I'd say dual core minimum.
And if you want superior performance with no compromise, as always, expect to put the green on the table.

Something on the subject:
http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2173...V3&utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Twitterfeed

Lurk said:
In the end, I picked a Dell Duo with a dual core hyperthreading Atom processor because it had the required resolution and the price was down as low as anything I could find. I also got a keyboard, but suffered the weight and short battery life.
Performance has been good in most situations, though tinkering with Unity 3d seems like a bad idea on the Atom with Windows 8 (but it's not a release OS yet). And performance lags a little in Unity 3d game execution, too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How does internet video work for you on Win 8? What Atom is in your Duo?
I couldn't get netflix or hulu working well on an N280.
I am running 8 on an e-350 (Acer w500), and video works great, but the touch screen is poor around the edges like a number of other Windows 7 tablets where they were designed for accuracy in center, instead of across the board.
---------- Post added at 11:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:11 PM ----------
dazza9075 said:
There is a distinct difference between the two models, a difference which I think will be very important. Most every day folk will not need more than ARM, for everyone else including many business users, x86 is there.
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I actually expect a number of our business users on RT. We won't push them to it, but the option will probably be given.
Today they use:
Web based tools.
A few silverlight sites.
Office
We're likely to port our silverlight apps to METRO, first one took a little under a day. At that point, if they wanted an iPad like device, with the new news about sideloading: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsstor...deploying-metro-style-apps-to-businesses.aspx
It is a pretty good fit.
Obviously designers, ops, etc are not going to find RT sufficient, but I expect a subset will. We have some that only use iPads today anyway.

michiganenginerd said:
How does internet video work for you on Win 8? What Atom is in your Duo?
I couldn't get netflix or hulu working well on an N280.
I am running 8 on an e-350 (Acer w500), and video works great, but the touch screen is poor around the edges like a number of other Windows 7 tablets where they were designed for accuracy in center, instead of across the board.
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Click to collapse
Same question.
I had Asus 1201N (but it had dual core Atom 330 onboard + Nvidia ION card) - no problems with any video but it was HOT, VERY HOT and very noisy.
I kept Samsung NC10 (same atom chip as in 1201N but single core only and no ION). Watching any video on it is a nightmare :-(. Even YT is not working well.

How does internet video work for you on Win 8?
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Click to collapse
Internet video seems to be very good. Currently, things run fairly smoothly. The connection speed is a bigger impact than the processor speed.
Odd item. I just tested real quick and I can now play YouTube videos in the Metro browser. I guess they have the HTML 5 delivery working.
HD on Netflix is a little choppy right now and stutters in the desktop browser. It could be the connection.
What Atom is in your Duo?
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N570 @1.67ghz
I couldn't get netflix or hulu working well on an N280
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I worried about performkance. That's why I went for a dual core at a minimum. The earlier Duo had an N560(?) at 1.5ghz. I don't think it would be enough. Again, it might be the connection, but @ HD right now, it's borderline.
Of course. sometimes it comes down to the video card/processor, too.
I am running 8 on an e-350 (Acer w500), and video works great, but the touch screen is poor around the edges like a number of other Windows 7 tablets where they were designed for accuracy in center, instead of across the board.
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I haven't experienced any issues around the edges ... or any where on the screen. I am pleased overall with the unit and was a bit disappointed when they stopped producing them in December. But, it was largely a test unit.

Thanks for the info Lurk.

Clover Trail pics
I found this article while browsing on tabletpcreview forum.
An online writer Padmx Max, got access to Clover Trails and took some pics of the board and the processor: here is the link
http://www.padmx.com/portal.php?mod=view&aid=1707
The processor is actually stacked under the memory so you can't really see it.
But it is an interesting idea.
Not sure it is Intel Z2580 or z2760 tho.

I have some questions and need suggestions

1. Are the only Windows 8 tablets without a fan equipped with Intel Atom Z2760 CPU?
2. What would you suggest when I would want a Windows 8 tablet without a fan?
Sent from my LG-P990 using xda app-developers app

Given that x86-capable processors run pretty hot, you're not going to find a lot of options. Some of the Atom chips may get by on passive cooling... maybe. Frankly, if you want a fan-less tablet, that usually means ARM, and that means Windows RT.
Of course, what with the latest hacks, the line between Win8 and Win RT is getting thinner than ever...

1. All Atom tablets are fanless as far as I know. My Samsung 500T barely even got warm and I think that was more the LCD than the processor. I don't believe there are any other x86 processors that are fanless right now.
2. Obvious an Atom tablet. You'll probably need to narrow it down a bit on what you are looking for. Is the tablet form factor more important or the laptop form factor. If using it as a tablet is more important, you'll probably want a lighter and smaller 10.1 inch tablet like the upcoming ASUS Vivotab Smart. If you want a laptop form factor with keyboard for typing, then a 11.6 inch tablet is idea for the larger keyboard size. Also do you need a pen built in, do you need a Wacom digitizer?
---------- Post added at 08:34 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:32 AM ----------
GoodDayToDie said:
Of course, what with the latest hacks, the line between Win8 and Win RT is getting thinner than ever...
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Click to collapse
It's not that thin at all. Windows RT tablets will never be able to run x86 desktop applications with it's ARM processor. That hack just lets you run unsigned Windows RT ARM applications.
---------- Post added at 08:39 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:34 AM ----------
PS. Maybe AMD's Temash APU might be fanless. Not entirely sure yet. It's shipping Q2 this year, but don't know when we'll see any tablets with it inside.

@Ravynmagi: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2095934 Ever heard of emulation? The speed sucks - you won't be playing high-end recent games, and running something like Photoshop would be painful (as much due to the tablet's low specs as due to the emulation, in that case) but we can *already* run (a few) x86 apps on Windows RT, and adding support for more is mostly a matter of making sure the system calls are supported.

GoodDayToDie said:
@Ravynmagi: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2095934 Ever heard of emulation? The speed sucks - you won't be playing high-end recent games, and running something like Photoshop would be painful (as much due to the tablet's low specs as due to the emulation, in that case) but we can *already* run (a few) x86 apps on Windows RT, and adding support for more is mostly a matter of making sure the system calls are supported.
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Click to collapse
An alpha tool made 4 days ago that can run notepad.exe and a 14 year old 2D game on an ARM processor. How could I have missed that?
Can you even install Photoshop, much less run it with this alpha tool yet? You can barely run Photoshop on an Atom, I think running it on an ARM through emulation will be more than painful.
I think it's a bit premature to be touting this as a solution to running x86 apps on an ARM tablet.

I view it quite differently: in any four days, an alpha tools has been written that can run simple apps, even old games, without recompiling them... and has already dramatically improved in performance.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you're going to be completely be able to replace an x86 machine with an ARM one... but the reason for that is simply a matter of performance of the underlying hardware. For low-demand stuff (the kind of thing you might run on a fanless tablet anyhow) it's not an unreasonable goal. Of course it's not there yet... but a week ago, it wasn't possible at all.

Thanks for all the replies so far.
But what do you think, will Windows RT ever be like Windows 8 on x86? What I mean is that will it run Flash, Java and be like a desktop that is also a tablet?

Wrong post.

kaspar737 said:
Thanks for all the replies so far.
But what do you think, will Windows RT ever be like Windows 8 on x86? What I mean is that will it run Flash, Java and be like a desktop that is also a tablet?
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Click to collapse
My opinion. I'm not sure what kind of future RT has. Why buy a Windows RT with ARM, when you can now get Windows 8 with Atom for just as cheaply ($500) that can do a lot more? Samsung and other manufactures have already abandoned their Windows RT plans, they don't see a future in it either.
By the way, Windows RT is able to run Flash if it's in Microsoft's white list of websites.

Ravynmagi said:
My opinion. I'm not sure what kind of future RT has. Why buy a Windows RT with ARM, when you can now get Windows 8 with Atom for just as cheaply ($500) that can do a lot more? Samsung and other manufactures have already abandoned their Windows RT plans, they don't see a future in it either.
By the way, Windows RT is able to run Flash if it's in Microsoft's white list of websites.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I'm afraid that app developers don't see a point developing apps for Windows RT. Also, RT tablets just seem to be too locked down. To me it seems that x86 tablets are like Android tablets- the experience you get is not determined by the OS maker but RT tablets are like the iPad- you can mostly do what the OS maker likes/approves.
Sent from my LG-P990 using xda app-developers app

kaspar737 said:
Yeah, I'm afraid that app developers don't see a point developing apps for Windows RT. Also, RT tablets just seem to be too locked down. To me it seems that x86 tablets are like Android tablets- the experience you get is not determined by the OS maker but RT tablets are like the iPad- you can mostly do what the OS maker likes/approves.
Sent from my LG-P990 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Windows RT apps run on Windows 8 too and Windows 8 will be shipped on millions and millions of computers around the world. So I think the Windows Store apps (aka Metro style) that run on RT and 8 will eventually show up in good numbers from developers. So if you do go with Windows RT, the apps will come, even if people abandon the OS and hardware platform.
Windows 8 has the best of both worlds though, you can run the RT apps and the x86 apps. And the Atom is the best of both worlds, the efficiency of an ARM processor with the ability to run x86 apps.

Atom is hardly the efficiency of ARM... it's just the first x86 processor to get within the same order of magnitude. They still need bigger batteries and/or suffer lower battery life. Mind you, they're closer than I thought x86 (which is an inherently inefficient design in some ways, due to the extreme complexity of the instruction decoder required) would get.

GoodDayToDie said:
Atom is hardly the efficiency of ARM... it's just the first x86 processor to get within the same order of magnitude. They still need bigger batteries and/or suffer lower battery life. Mind you, they're closer than I thought x86 (which is an inherently inefficient design in some ways, due to the extreme complexity of the instruction decoder required) would get.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6536/arm-vs-x86-the-real-showdown
"Whereas I didn't really have anything new to conclude in the original article (Atom Z2760 is faster and more power efficient than Tegra 3), there's a lot to talk about here. We already know that Atom is faster than Krait, but from a power standpoint the two SoCs are extremely competitive. At the platform level Intel (at least in the Acer W510) generally leads in power efficiency."

Ravynmagi said:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6536/arm-vs-x86-the-real-showdown
"Whereas I didn't really have anything new to conclude in the original article (Atom Z2760 is faster and more power efficient than Tegra 3), there's a lot to talk about here. We already know that Atom is faster than Krait, but from a power standpoint the two SoCs are extremely competitive. At the platform level Intel (at least in the Acer W510) generally leads in power efficiency."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could just link to the article
And, yes, the Atom Z2760 is more power efficient.
As far as tablets go, though, all the Atom tablets I've looked at have felt like cheap toys, whereas the Surface is possibly the best built device I've ever used. That's the main reason I chose the Surface RT, it just blows all the competition away in build quality.
As far as applications go, neither the Atom nor the Tegra are very well suited for intensive tasks like Photoshop and the like. They're both going to perform quite poorly at those tasks.
The Atom does have the existing software library, though in reality a large number of what people will need/want to use has already been ported over to Arm.
An interesting thing to note is that even though the Atom is more efficient than the Tegra the Surface still had better battery life compared to the W510 by almost an hour.
Build Quality: Surface beats W510 hands down. Acer has okay build quality, but the Surface is superb.
Performance: The Atom nudges out the Tegra
Applications: Any applications that need x86 won't be usable on the Atom, but they will run, so the Atom wins. The Tegra is rapidly catching up, though.
Battery Life: The Surface beat the W510 by nearly an hour, therefore I'm calling it in favor of the Surface. The Atom itself is more efficient, but that doesn't mean that the tablets built using the Atom are.

I stand corrected. Atom, even an older Atom, is surprisingly competitive with ARM on a power efficiency standpoint. I don't know that I agree with handing it the win outright, it won some of the "total usage" charts but lost some of the others, occasionally substantially. It's certainly a viable option for a mobile device though. Interesting... time was, Intel had difficulty squeezing their chips down to 5W, while ARM was expected to run at around 300mW. Apparently I need to keep a better eye on these things.

New Jolla Phone Announcement 20/05/13

Jolla will be announcing a new phone, you may have heard of this, will be announced tomorrow (20/05/13 at 4:30pm GMT), here is a live stream to the event I found from the Jolla official twitter account. #IAmTheOtherHalf
From what I have heard the screen will be no larger than 5" in size, and will likely get a physical slide out qwerty keyboard, don't quote me on this, just from research, that is all I found

It's 5/20 not 5/13. The only thing we know is Engadget guessed it was 5 inches from when Marc partially took it out of his pocket.

aironeous said:
It's 5/20 not 5/13. The only thing we know is Engadget guessed it was 5 inches from when Marc partially took it out of his pocket.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
some people in different countries represent the date in different ways, I did day/month/year as I am from UK.
UPDATE:
4.5" screen (unknown resolution at this time, known to be HD so either 720p or 1080p
dual core processor (unknown clock speed)
unknown RAM
unknown GPU
8mp AF camera
seems to have a front facing camera of unknown mp count.
replaceable battery
4G (LTE)
16GB + microsd card expandability
unknown battery size/life
(All specs quoted from jolla website)
disappointed that it is not quad core but as the OS is based on C++, efficiency will be much better than Android, providing the RAM is of decent size and the GPU is good, it shouldn't make that much difference speed wise, also doesn't seem to have a qwerty keyboard (only reason why I thought it would is that, one of the guys at Jolla in an interview, stated that more phones should have a physical qwerty keyboard.)

i am waiting for jolla :laugh:

nh1402 said:
some people in different countries represent the date in different ways, I did day/month/year as I am from UK.
UPDATE:
4.5" screen (unknown resolution at this time, known to be HD so either 720p or 1080p
dual core processor (unknown clock speed)
unknown RAM
unknown GPU
8mp AF camera
seems to have a front facing camera of unknown mp count.
replaceable battery
4G (LTE)
16GB + microsd card expandability
unknown battery size/life
(All specs quoted from jolla website)
disappointed that it is not quad core but as the OS is based on C++, efficiency will be much better than Android, providing the RAM is of decent size and the GPU is good, it shouldn't make that much difference speed wise, also doesn't seem to have a qwerty keyboard (only reason why I thought it would is that, one of the guys at Jolla in an interview, stated that more phones should have a physical qwerty keyboard.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Quad core doesn't really matter in Android as the OS itself currently only supports 2, apps have to specifically use the extra cores, and only a few games do. I believe KLP is supposed to change that to "N" cores (along with full Intel support). Because Android used a VM, it is RAM that makes the biggest difference. That is why iOS and WP7/8 are so smooth with much lower RAM than Android.
I have read, and anyone can correct me on this, that KLP is the start of moving away from Dalvik and will support ARM and x86 natively with fat binaries. This is the rumour why KLP was not released at I/O, because they are re-writing the OS as native.
As you mentioned, Sailfish is a native OS, it won't need as high of specs as Android, which also means cheaper phones (in theory).

I was just saying future proof wise, if their OS supports Quad-Core, and they provide one in their first phone, they could just stick with this phone for a while, as it wouldn't need to be updated yearly, to keep with the competition. The phone as of the last time I checked had the equivalent price of £350, which is more than a Nexus 4, and yet that has a quad core processor, I have mentioned that to Jolla via their support page, and will be releasing more details as the release date gets closer, the main thing that was a huge turn off for me was not the Quad Core processor as much but the MASSIVE Bezel around the 4.5" screen, but then found out that the final design of the phone will have a smaller bezel, as mentioned by the lead designer at Jolla.

If they want anyone to buy their phone, it just has to be cheaper. Nokia made pretty good inroads with their Lumia devices by making them very inexpensive (and often free) on contract. Windows Phone is now at 5% market share, and it is almost entirely Lumia devices. With Jolla being former Nokia people, hopefully they will understand this instead of making the mistake Palm did with the Prē
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium

Should Intel Be Worried?

I know, this is one of those silly little topics that gets thrown around every time a newer faster arm chip comes out, but this is the first time that I personally have ever seen an Arm chip as a threat to intel. When I saw the Galaxy s6 scoring around a 4800 multi-core I stopped and thought to myself, "hey, that looks pretty darn close to my fancy i5." Sure enough, the I5 5200u only scores around a 5280 in the Geekbench 64 bit multi-core benchmark. I understand that this is only possible because the Galaxy S6 has 8 cores, but it's still very impressive what Arm and Samsung were able to achieve using a fraction of the power intel has on hand. Of course I don't think that this chip will take over the market, but if Arm's performance continues increase at the same rate while maintaining the same low power draw, then intel might have some real competition in the laptop space within the near future. Heck, maybe Microsoft will bring back RT but with full app support.
I also know that I didn't account for how much power the GPU was drawing, but I feel as if that wouldn't be the only factor after seeing the issues with Core M.

I doubt they're worried. intel CPUs are wicked fast. i have a 3 year old i7 and it's faster than most of AMDs current gen CPUs.
if Intel is able to apply the same method/engineering they use on CPUs to the mobile platform, i bet it will smoke anything out there. kind of like how intel CPUs kill basically anything AMDs can put out.

tcb4 said:
I know, this is one of those silly little topics that gets thrown around every time a newer faster arm chip comes out, but this is the first time that I personally have ever seen an Arm chip as a threat to intel. When I saw the Galaxy s6 scoring around a 4800 multi-core I stopped and thought to myself, "hey, that looks pretty darn close to my fancy i5." Sure enough, the I5 5200u only scores around a 5280 in the Geekbench 64 bit multi-core benchmark. I understand that this is only possible because the Galaxy S6 has 8 cores, but it's still very impressive what Arm and Samsung were able to achieve using a fraction of the power intel has on hand. Of course I don't think that this chip will take over the market, but if Arm's performance continues increase at the same rate while maintaining the same low power draw, then intel might have some real competition in the laptop space within the near future. Heck, maybe Microsoft will bring back RT but with full app support.
I also know that I didn't account for how much power the GPU was drawing, but I feel as if that wouldn't be the only factor after seeing the issues with Core M.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is important to remember that ultimately the same constraints and limitations will apply to both Intel and ARM CPUs. After all ARM and x86 are just instruction set architectures. There is no evidence to suggest that somehow ARM is at a significant advantage vs Intel in terms of increasing performance while keeping power low. It has been generally accepted now that ISA's have a negligible impact on IPC and performance per watt. Many of these newer ARM socs like the 810 are having overheating issues themselves. The higher performance Nvidia SOCs that have impressive performance are using 10+ watts TDPs too.
Also it is always a bit tricky to make cross platform and cross ISA CPUs comparisons in benchmarks like GeekBench and for whatever reason Intel cpus tend to do relatively poorly in GeekBench compared to other benchmarks. You can try to compare other real world uses between the i5-5200U and the Exynos 7420 and I can assure you that the tiny Exynos will be absolutely no match to the much larger, wider and more complex Broadwell cores. Don't get me wrong, the Exynos 7420 is very impressive for its size and power consumption, but I don't think we can take that GeekBench comparison seriously.
The fastest low power core right now is without a doubt the Broadwell Core M which is a 4.5 watt part. This is built on Intel's 14nm process which is more advanced than Samsungs.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9061/lenovo-yoga-3-pro-review/4
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"Once again, in web use, the Core M processor is very similar to the outgoing Haswell U based Yoga 2 Pro. Just to put the numbers in a bit more context, I also ran the benchmarks on my Core i7-860 based Desktop (running Chrome, as were the Yogas) and it is pretty clear just how far we have come. The i7-860 is a four core, eight thread 45 nm processor with a 2.8 GHz base clock and 3.46 GHz boost, all in a 95 watt TDP. It was launched in late 2009. Five years later, we have higher performance in a 4.5 watt TDP for many tasks. It really is staggering."
"As a tablet, the Core M powered Yoga 3 Pro will run circles around other tablets when performing CPU tasks. The GPU is a bit behind, but it is ahead of the iPad Air already, so it is not a slouch. The CPU is miles ahead though, even when compared to the Apple A8X which is consistently the best ARM based tablet CPU.
"
---------- Post added at 04:46 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:33 AM ----------
tft said:
I doubt they're worried. intel CPUs are wicked fast. i have a 3 year old i7 and it's faster than most of AMDs current gen CPUs.
if Intel is able to apply the same method/engineering they use on CPUs to the mobile platform, i bet it will smoke anything out there. kind of like how intel CPUs kill basically anything AMDs can put out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This.
All of the little atom CPUs we see in mobile right now are much smaller, narrower and simpler cores than Intel Core chips. Once you see Intel big cores trickle down into mobile, it will get much more interesting.

Intel will catch up...quick too just watch. They've been working on 64-bit for over a year now...and they're already onto 14nm. Qualcomm should be worried, I don't think their ready for this competition. They talked trash about octa cores and 64-bits...now their doing both and seems their product is still in beta status, not ready for the real world. Intel and Samsung are gonna give them problems
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rjayflo said:
Intel will catch up...quick too just watch. They've been working on 64-bit for over a year now...and they're already onto 14nm. Qualcomm should be worried, I don't think their ready for this competition. They talked trash about octa cores and 64-bits...now their doing both and seems their product is still in beta status, not ready for the real world. Intel and Samsung are gonna give them problems
Sent from my SM-G920T using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Technically Intel and AMD have had 64 bit for well over a decade now with AMD64/EM64T and many Intel mobile processors have had it for years, so the HW has supported it for a while but 64 bit enabled tablets/phones haven't started shipping until very recently.
Indeed Intel has been shipping 14nm products since last year and their 14nm process is more advanced than Samsung's. Note that there is no real science behind naming a process node so terms like "14nm" and "20nm" have turned into purely marketing material. For example, TSMC 16nm isn't actually any smaller than their 20nm process. Presumably Intel 14nm also yields higher and allows for higher performance transistors than the Samsung 14nm.
It is likely that Samsung has the most advanced process outside of Intel however. I do agree that Qualcomm is in a bit of trouble at the moment with players like Intel really growing in the tablet space and Samsung coming out with the very formidable Exynos 7420 SOC in the smartphone space. The SD810 just isn't cutting it and has too many problems. Qualcomm should also be considered that both Samsung and Intel have managed to come out with high end LTE radios, this was something that Qualcomm pretty much had a monopoly on for years. Intel now has the 7360 LTE radio and Samsung has the Shannon 333 LTE.

rjayflo said:
Intel will catch up...quick too just watch. They've been working on 64-bit for over a year now...and they're already onto 14nm. Qualcomm should be worried, I don't think their ready for this competition. They talked trash about octa cores and 64-bits...now their doing both and seems their product is still in beta status, not ready for the real world. Intel and Samsung are gonna give them problems
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i agree about Qualcomm, i actually mentioned that some time ago.
i think Qualcomm will happen what happened to nokia/blackberry, they got huge and stopped innovating and ended up being left in the dust. perhaps Qualcomm thought they had a monopoly and that samsung and other device makers would continue to buy their chips..
in the end, i think the only thing Qualcomm will have left is a bunch of patents..

I understand that Core M is a powerful part, but I'm not sure I believer their TDP figures. I am, however, more inclined to believe Samsung as they achieving this performance with an soc that is within a phone; in other words, they don't have the surface area to displace large quantities of heat. Nvidia has always skewed performance per watt numbers, and, as a result, they haven't been able to put an soc in a phone for years. Now, the reason I doubt intel's claims is because of battery life tests performed by reviewers and because of the low battery life claims made by manufacturers. For instance, the New Macbook and Yoga Pro 3 aren't showing large improvements in battery life when compared to their 15w counterparts.
I'm not sure how I feel about the iPad comparison though; I feel as if you just compounded the issue by showing us a benchmark that was not only cross platform, but also within different browsers.
Also, I think I understand what you mean about how an ISA will not directly impact performance per watt, but is it not possible that Samsung and Arm could just have a better design? I mean intel and AMD both utilize the same instruction set, but Intel will run circles around AMD in terms of efficiency. I may be way off base here, so feel free to correct me.
I think that Qualcomm is busy working on a new Krait of their own, but right now they're in hot water. They got a little lazy milking 32 bit chips, but once Apple announced their 64 bit chip they panicked and went with an ARM design. We'll have to see if they can bring a 64 bit Krait chip to the table, but right now Samsung's 7420 appears to be the best thing on the market.

tcb4 said:
I understand that Core M is a powerful part, but I'm not sure I believer their TDP figures. I am, however, more inclined to believe Samsung as they achieving this performance with an soc that is within a phone; in other words, they don't have the surface area to displace large quantities of heat. Nvidia has always skewed performance per watt numbers, and, as a result, they haven't been able to put an soc in a phone for years. Now, the reason I doubt intel's claims is because of battery life tests performed by reviewers and because of the low battery life claims made by manufacturers. For instance, the New Macbook and Yoga Pro 3 aren't showing large improvements in battery life when compared to their 15w counterparts.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Technically the Core M will dissipate more than 4.5w for "bursty" workloads but under longer steady workloads it will average to 4.5w. The ARM tablet and phone SOCs more or less do the same thing. In terms of actual battery life test results, yes the battery life of most of these devices hasn't really changed since the last generation Intel U series chips but that isn't a real apples to apples comparison. As SOC power consumption continues to drop, it is becoming a smaller and smaller chunk of total system power consumption. Lenovo did a poor job IMO in originally implementing the first Core M device but Apple will almost certainly do a much better job. The SOC is only one part of the system, it is the responsibility of the OEM to properly package up the device and do proper power management, provide an adequate battery etc. Yes the new Macbook doesn't get significantly longer battery life but it also weighs only 2.0 lbs and has a ridiculously small battery. It also has a much higher resolution and more power hungry screen and yet manages to keep battery life equal with the last generation. Benchmarks have also indicated that the newer 14nm Intel CPUs are much better at sustained performance compared to the older 22nm Haswells. This is something that phone and tablets typically are very poor at.
tcb4 said:
I'm not sure how I feel about the iPad comparison though; I feel as if you just compounded the issue by showing us a benchmark that was not only cross platform, but also within different browsers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A very fair point, browser benchmarks are especially notorious in being very misleading. I think in this case Chrome was used in all cases which helps a little. My point in showing this is that we need to take those GeekBench results with a little grain of salt. Outside of that benchmark, I don't think you'll find the A8X or Exynos 7420 getting anywhere near a higher speced Core M let alone a i5-5200U at any real world use or any other benchmark, browser based or not. Even other synthetic benchmarks like 3dmark Physics, etc don't show the Intel CPUs nearly as low as GeekBench does.
tcb4 said:
Also, I think I understand what you mean about how an ISA will not directly impact performance per watt, but is it not possible that Samsung and Arm could just have a better design? I mean intel and AMD both utilize the same instruction set, but Intel will run circles around AMD in terms of efficiency. I may be way off base here, so feel free to correct me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is correct.
It is certainly possible for Samsung to have a design that is more power efficient than Intel when it comes to making a 2W phone SOC, but that won't be because Samsung uses ARM ISA while Intel uses x86. At this point, ISA is mostly just coincidental and isn't going to greatly impact the characteristics of your CPU. The CPU design and the ISA that the CPU uses are different things. The notion of "better design" is also a little tricky because a design that may be best for a low power SOC may not necessarily be the best for a higher wattage CPU. Intel absolutely rules the CPU landscape from 15w and up. Despite all of the hype around ARM based servers, Intel has continued to dominate servers and has actually continued to increase its lead in that space since Intel's performance per watt is completely unmatched in higher performance applications. Intel's big core design is just better for that application than any ARM based CPU's. It is important to remember that just because you have the best performance per watt 2 watt SOC, doesn't mean you can just scale that design into a beastly 90 watt CPU. If it were that easy, Intel would have probably easily downscaled their big core chips to dominate mobile SOCs.
You frequently find some people trying to reason that at 1.2 Ghz Apple's A8 SOC is very efficient and fast and then they claim that if they could clock that SOC at 3+ Ghz then it should be able to match an Intel Haswell core, but there is no guarantee that the design will allow such high clocks. You have to consider that maybe Apple made design choices to provide great IPC but that IPC came at the cost of limiting clock frequencies.

Cube i7 Book review: smart design paired with decent internals

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Windows tablets have been gaining popularity since the release of Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface Pro. Windows 10, which made its way to millions of PCs and tablets through free online upgrade last year, further enhanced the experiences of those two-in-one Windows devices.
Although Microsoft’s very own Surface and Surface Pro lines are still considered as the market-leading Windows tablets and also remain to be most popular, many other manufacturers, big and small, are trying to have a share in this fast-growing market of tablet & PC hybrids.
Cube, a Chinese brand mainly known for making budget Android tablets, has already released a bunch of Windows tablets since 2014. One of their most successful products was the Cube i7 Stylus, a Windows tablet which came with a Core M processor, 4GB RAM, a comfortable keyboard base and Wacom digitizer. Recently, Cube has released an upgraded version of the Cube i7 Stylus – the Cube i7 Book, which comes with many improvements such as an all new Skylake Core M3 processor, a USB Type-C port and a rotary keyboard base. The tablet itself is only priced at RMB2,199 ($329), even cheaper than the entry model of Microsoft Surface 3. You might need to spend more on the rotary keyboard base and a Wacom, but I am sure the added cost the two will be under $100.
Cube i7 Book Main Specs
OS: Windows 10 Home
Screen: 10.6-inch IPS, 10-point multi-touch, IGZO
Display Resolution: 1920 x 1080 (16:9)
CPU: Intel Skylake Core-M 6Y30
CPU Frequency: 0.9GHz (Base clock) – 2.2GHZ (Turbo clock)
GPU: Intel HD 515
RAM / Storage: 4GB DDR3L / 64GB SSD
Bluetooth: Bluetooth 4.1
WiFi: 802.11 b/g/n, WiFi hotspot
Camera: 5MP back camera, 2MP front camera
Battery: 9,000mAh
Ports: Micro SD Card Slot, Micro USB 3.0 Port, USB Type-C port, 3.5mm Headphone Jack, DC Charging Port
Size: 273*172*9.6mm, Weight: 710.5g, Color: Black front and blue rear
Retail Package
The Cube i7 Book has the same packaging used on other Windows tablets from Cube. Inside the box you will find a wall charger, an OTG adapter (Micro USB 3.0 to full USB 3.0), a warranty card and a user manual.
Design
The i7 Book looks like a triplet brother of the Cube i7 Stylus and Cube iWork 11 Stylus. The front is dominated by a 10.6-inch IPS display, with relatively big bezel around. We do love the small bezel design deployed on the Huawei Mate Book and Samsung Galaxy TabPro S. But when we use the slate as a standalone tablet, we do need the bezel to rest out fingers on.
The slate has an Aluminum rear side, which is coated in blue. I used to praise the use of blue color on Cube’s Windows tablets, as it reduces the industrial feel of the device. However, Cube seems to use this color combination in all of their Windows tablets, and it feels quite boring. Maybe it is just me who have this feeling because I have tested many of Cube’s tablets, first-time buyers may still appreciate the aesthetic.
Unlike the Huawei Matebook and Samsung Galaxy TabPro S, both of which only come with a single USB Type-C port and a headphone jack, the i7 Book still offers a slew of ports and slots. On the left side you will find a headset jack, a Micro USB 3.0 port, a 3.5mm DC charging port and a Micro SD card slot which supports cards up to 128GB.
There is also a USB Type-C port which can be transformed into a full USB port or an HDMI port, or both if you have the right adapter. I used the type-C adapter for my Macbook and it works brilliantly with the i7 Book.
The keyboard port can be found on the bottom side of the slate, this time it is an 11 contact magnetic port, as opposed to the 5-contact port we have seen on other Cube’s Windows tablets. So the magnetic force which draws the tablet and the keyboard could be potentially stronger.
If the Huawei Mate Book and the Samsung Galaxy TabPro S represent the design of Windows tablets in 2016, the Cube i7 Book still feels like a product from early 2015. The slate itself measures 273*172*9.6mm, and weighs just 710g— light enough for one-handed use with a stylus. As the tablet has a metallic build, it feels very solid, and could survive some pressure or even occasional drops. With the keyboard base attached, the total weight comes to 1.1 kilograms, still on the lighter end of the convertible tablet range.
Display and sound
The Cube i7 Book sports a 10.6-inch full HD IPS display, manufactured by Samsung. Although not as exciting as the AMOLED panel on the Samsung Galaxy TabPro S, it is still quite decent and offers a lot in terms of sharpness, colors and viewing angle. The brightness of the panel is towards the lower end of Windows tablets, but it is way more than enough for indoor use.
The sound quality of the side-facing speakers is in the same class of the Microsoft Surface Pro 3, and it is not a compliment. Although everything is clear and easy to make out, the bass is muddled, and there is not enough volume for you to listen to music or podcasts in a large bedroom. External audio systems such as a speaker or headphones are highly recommended.
Input mechanism
The Cube i7 Book came with five distinct input options. There’s the touchscreen, the optional Wacom Pen ($30), and the keyboard base, which in addition to its keys offers a touchpad, you can also connect the slate with a mouse.
Touchscreen
The touchscreen felt great in our tests. The surface was smooth and consistent, as you’d expect, and gestures were all correctly registered. Unfortunately, the screen is not made of Corning Gorilla scratch-resistant glass, but only a standard soda lime glass panel, a screen protector is necessary if you don’t want any marks on your screen after a long time of using the tablet.
Pen
If you want more precision than your greasy fingers can offer, the optional Wacom pen delivers. It makes stylus input quite natural, and works well with the Windows desktop thanks to its built-in buttons. Hover a bit above the screen and you’ll see a pointer, which makes it easy to avoid accidentally tapping a button or icon.
Drawing and taking notes with the pen is also quite easy, although it isn’t as comfortable as drawing on a paper due to the glossiness of the screen, the experiences are still quite similar. The Wacom pen supports 1,024 levels of pressure, so you can easily draw lines with different weight. This makes the i7 Book much more usable as a standalone tablet, as you can actually write things down on it and won’t always feel the need of a keyboard for input.
Rotary keyboard base
Keyboards for tablets are always somewhat uncomfortable to use. I have personally struggled to find my top typing pace with the Surface Type Cover and the stock Bluetooth keyboard for the Acer ICONIA W700. The keyboard bases for Cube i7 and i7 Stylus were actually more comfortable to type on than average tablet keyboards, but they were also very thick and heavy.
The i7 Book comes with an all new rotary keyboard base, which is, in my opinion, better designed than any other tablet keyboard. Not only can it instantly turn the tablet into a laptop, you can also use it as a stand to support the tablet in many different modes.
The screen can be adjusted from 0 to 120 degrees, limited, but still a huge improvement from the docking mechanism of the original i7 and i7 Stylus, which can only have a fixed angle.
Although the keyboard base still doesn’t quite measure up to the keyboard on an average laptop, it comes pretty close. The keys are well-spaced, and give enough feedback for touch typists to develop a flow. Of course, certain compromises had to be made to fit a full keyboard into such a small dock, so don’t expect the full laptop experience. The depth of each keystroke is noticeably shorter, which dampens the tactile experience. With that said, this is still one the closest things to a laptop keyboard available for any tablet, and is among the best tablet keyboards we’ve used.
The keyboard base also features a trackpad, which supports lots of gestures. There are also distinct left and right click zones to give you an experience which is similar to using a mouse.
You also get two additional full USB 2.0 ports with the keyboard base attached, one on the left, and one on the right. Which further enhances the usability of the device.
Windows 10
The Cube i7 Book ships with Windows 10 Home and a valid license. Thankfully, the tablet comes with no bloatware, and you don’t need to uninstall anything before using it.
You can install Office Mobile for free from Windows Store, but it is always a must to have the desktop version of Microsoft Office for more productivity, and the newer versions (Office 2013, Office 365 and Office 2016) all support touchscreen and stylus input very well.
There are a few other applications I strongly recommend for the i7 Book and all Windows tablets with stylus support. One Note for Windows, WRITEit, Squid, PAINT are all applications to make the best of your Wacom Pen.
Performance
The Cube i7 Book is powered by a Skylake Core M3-6Y30 processor, which isn’t as powerful as the i3, i5 or i7 processors used in high-end Windows tablets and ultrabooks, as it seeks to balance performance, efficiency and portability. There is also 4GB of RAM on board to take care of multi-tasking and 64GB of SSD for internal storage for apps and files.
Our Cinebench R10 scores show just how much this processor can do. The single core rating was 4,280, and the multi-core score was 8,424. The Cube i7 Book can keep up with most Windows 10 tablets on the market right now, and that includes the Surface Pro 4.
In the Cinebench R15 Open GL test, the i7 Book handily beat all the other tablets we compared it with, and in the CPU test, it also scored higher than the Huawei Matebook and Samsung Galaxy TabPro S, although still behind the i5 Powered Surface Pro 3.
In the Fritz Chess Benchmark, the i7 Book was also returned a very decent score of 4,030.
In the PCMark 8 Home Accelerated test, the Cube i7 scored 2,785, which is better than the other Core M powered tablets we have tested, including the entry model of Surface Pro 4 (2,750) and the Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Tablet (2,675).
In the cross-platform Geekbench 3 test, the Cube i7 Book scored 2,404 in single-core and 4,682 in Multi-core, better than the i3 version of Surface Pro 3 (1,566 & 3,235), the ivy-bridge i5 powered Acer W700 (2,064 & 4,378) and the Core M powered model of Surface Pro 4 (2,339 & 4,429).
We also ran other Benchmark tests on the i7 Book, and were returned some pretty decent scores. From the numbers, we can tell that the Core M3 in the Cube i7 Book is on par with the Haswell Core i3 in the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 and betters the ivy-bridge Core i5 in the Acer ICONIA W700, betters the Atom Cherry Trail processors in the Surface 3 and other budget Windows 2-in-1s, but not as powerful as the Haswell i5 and Skylake i5 used in the Surface Pro 3 and 4. Core M is built for efficiency but, in certain situations, it can perform very well.
The benchmark scores are reflected in day-to-day usage, the Cube i7 Book performs general productivity tasks easily. Performance was so good that we forgot this entire machine was crammed into a tablet form factor, thinking of it instead as a full-blown laptop. Browsing the web and writing were no problem, but neither were more processor intensive tasks such as unzipping a large compressed file. Atom based tablets, including the Surface 3 and ASUS T100HA, suffered a bit with this kind of tasks. But the Core M3 chip is competent, and the 4GB memory allows you to handle a decent amount of multi-tasking.
You shouldn’t really even consider running an intensive 3D game on the i7 Book, but it can chew through some basic 3D tasks, thanks to the improved Intel HD515 GPU.
As fast as the i7 Book could be in your everyday tasks, it is still a tablet, and can’t really replace a workstation desktop or laptop.
Storage
The Cube i7 Book offers a Foresee O1229B solid state drive, with 64GB of storage space. There is a Micro SD card slot to help expand the storage, but you can add no more than 128GB.
The Speed of the internal SSD is generally slower than the drives in other high-end Windows tablets, but much faster compared to the eMMc used in those Atom based Windows slates. Our AS SSD benchmark showed a read speed of 481.21 megabytes per second, and a write speed of 153.87MB/s. That’s significantly slower than the Surface Pro 4 (822.36mb/s & 347.34mb/s) and Surface Book (1,012.33mb/s and 498.74mb/s), but on par with and even betters most of the Windows tablets currently on sale.
Temperature
As with other Core M powered tablets, there are no fans in the Cube i7 Book, meaning you’ll never hear it no matter how hot it gets, and it will get hot occasionally.
After running a few benchmark tests, Ludashi reported a CPU temperature higher than 80 degrees centigrade, and the rear side of the tablet felt quite warm, and unpleasant for the my hands to hold.
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
The Cube i7 Book features an Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3165 chip to take care of internet connection, and it was pretty solid in our test. Even when there were two walls and 10 meters between the tablet and the router, it could still reach its top downloading and uploading speeds. Bluetooth 4.0 is also on board to establish easy connections to wireless speakers and input devices.
Battery life
The Cube i7 Book features an 8,600mAh battery, on par with the original i7 Stylus but slightly smaller than the battery inside the Huawei Matebook. I test battery life using a looped HD video, playing until the battery finally gives out. Here, the i7 Book performed slightly below average—still, at 6 hours, 50 minutes, it delivers pretty close to an all-work-day computing experience.
Cameras
There are two cameras on the Cube i7 Book, a 2MP front-facing camera and a 5MP rear-facing camera. The front camera naturally takes care of video chatting. I used to say that the rear-facing camera on tablets are not necessary, well, I was wrong. The Huawei Matebook doesn’t offer a rear camera, and once when I was chatting with a friends on Skype, and wanted to show him the things I was looking at, I needed to flip the tablet around and use the front-facing camera to do that, and I didn’t even know whether I framed what I needed to show because the screen is not facing towards me.
With that said, both cameras on the i7 Book are not good at all. Even when there is proper lighting, Photos can still have a lot of noises. Smartphones of even the lowest end could do a better job at taking pictures.
Verdict
The Cube i7 Book is not a perfect 2-in-1, but it is a very good one. It exceeds the Microsoft Surface 3 on almost every benchmark, and offers a much nicer keyboard. In some ways, the i7 Book even manages to compete with the entry level model of Surface Pro 4, with similar processing power and graphics capability. The display, while not perfect, is in line with the competition. And a unique docking system gives users the ability to use the tablet in many different modes, something very few competing Windows 10 tablet currently offers.
The Cube i7 Book offers all this, and is competitive on price. With a Core M processor and 4GB of RAM, it is priced at only $399, lower than the most basic version of Microsoft Surface 3, which sports a much weaker Atom Cherry Trail Z8700 processor and 2GB of RAM. Also, accessories of the i7 Book are much cheaper than those of the Surface. The Wacom Pen is only $39, and the keyboard base, which looks and feels much more premium than the Surface Type Cover, is also only priced at $59.
The main weaknesses of the i7 Book are the battery life and the temperature. The battery life is below average in the Windows tablets category, and the i7 Book can get unpleasantly hot during intense tasks. Also, it doesn’t look as modern as the Huawei Matebook and the Samsung Galaxy TabPro S, I personally consider those two as the best looking two-in-one Windows devices currently available.
Still, the Cube i7 is a great alternative to the Surface 3, and betters the latter and most of the similarly priced tablets in almost every aspect. It could also give the awkward iPad Pro and Jide REMIX Ultra tablet a run for their money, using iOS and Android for work is simply a joke, Windows can still do everything much better when it comes to productivity tasks.

Please watch our video review here: https://youtu.be/RW2wPfMsdhE

jupiter2012 said:
Please watch our video review here: https://youtu.be/RW2wPfMsdhE
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How hot does it get exactly, how much higher than 80C?

Is this tablet compatible with all Wacom stylus models or only specific ones? I've also heard some Samsung Galaxy Note Stylus's work too?

Hello, thank you for the review
I ordered mine on Sunday on aliexpress and I shall have to receive the tablet (with keyboard&stylus) in 3 weeks
About the problem of temp, there is mods to decrease it (you have to open the tablet).

I'd also like to know about the compatibility with other wacom stylus'
I found the answers to the other two questions at techtablet.com - http://techtablets.com/2016/07/cube...ck-first-impressions-hands-first-impressions/
The other question is regarding charging - can you charge the tablet through either of the USB port (micro 3.0 or Type C)? Yes, it can charge through this port
Is the storage an M2 SSD that is removable? I've been burned by EMMC on tablets that have died so want to transfer my storage to a new device in the event of a failure. Yes, this is an internal M2 SSD

Thirtybird said:
I'd also like to know about the compatibility with other wacom stylus'
I found the answers to the other two questions at techtablet.com - http://techtablets.com/2016/07/cube...ck-first-impressions-hands-first-impressions/
The other question is regarding charging - can you charge the tablet through either of the USB port (micro 3.0 or Type C)? Yes, it can charge through this port
Is the storage an M2 SSD that is removable? I've been burned by EMMC on tablets that have died so want to transfer my storage to a new device in the event of a failure. Yes, this is an internal M2 SSD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
According to Chris @tech Tablet's video review other Wacom stylus will work including Samsung Note stylus.
Also he confirms the SSD is replaceable as well.

Thanks for the nice write-up.
Can you please advise how bad is the sound quality and volume on this tablet? I know it's probably hard to describe and it's always subjective but from what I noticed all reviews mention this so it has to be quite bad. I know the sound is thin, lacks bass and is not very loud but is it possible to watch a movie during the day (with some background noise) without headphones or external speakers?
Also did you have a chance to test USB speed on this one? Tech Tablets mentioned it's only limited to USB 2.0 speed. Cheers.

Did anybody find a powerbank that allowed you to charge the tablet via the USB C port? From my own attempts and what I've read online it seems that even though quick charge should deliver the necessary 12V, I tried a Tronsmart powerbank and wasn't able to make it work either from the Quickcharge port or the USB C port. Other people seem to have similar experiences, so any hints to those that work would be welcome!

czajunia said:
Thanks for the nice write-up.
Can you please advise how bad is the sound quality and volume on this tablet? I know it's probably hard to describe and it's always subjective but from what I noticed all reviews mention this so it has to be quite bad. I know the sound is thin, lacks bass and is not very loud but is it possible to watch a movie during the day (with some background noise) without headphones or external speakers?
Also did you have a chance to test USB speed on this one? Tech Tablets mentioned it's only limited to USB 2.0 speed. Cheers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i just got my tablet and the speakers are terrible... But they work, i dont find them to quiet, they are loud enough to watch a movie. But the sound quality will make your ears bleed if you watch a full movie

heatfire said:
i just got my tablet and the speakers are terrible... But they work, i dont find them to quiet, they are loud enough to watch a movie. But the sound quality will make your ears bleed if you watch a full movie
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the confirmation. I decided to go for Cube iWork10. I guess I am gonna get comparable sound quality

IS it worth upgrading from i7 stylus to i7 book???! performance and gaming ??

Hi, can we install androidt to this tablet?

Regarding updating, it depends, as always. If you need the better WiFi card or the transformer style keyboard dock or the USB c port, or if you're after the last drop of performance, maybe. I haven't got the older model, but I think the performance difference is supposedly around 30%. I guess for me that wouldn't justify an upgrade, but if the other changes are appealing/important enough, it might be worth it.
As for android, you can definitely run remixOS on it and I suspect also other varieties of Android-x86. But notice that they are all running on kernel 4.4 or so, which doesn't make good use of the power saving of the skylake cpu, so it's running full power most of the time, which reduces battery life of course. Hopefully, there'll be a way to get a newer kernel (4.6 upwards) soon, that should help with that issue. Apart from that remix seems to be working OK, although I haven't tried a whole lot yet.

Windows 8.1 camera drivers
Does anyone have Windows 8.1 image/iso with full working drivers? Maybe mirror from official Cube baidu images?
Or just drivers themselves?
Can't find working drivers for both cameras. Please, help. Windows 8.1 x64.

Are there driver for the keyboard. More specifically the touchpad? Under settings there are no touchpad settings. I want to disable the win10 gestures. I am getting sick of the task view always popping up.

Regarding the touchpad, I think they mentioned some registry hack you need to do to disable touchpad gestures on techtablets.com, so maybe have a look there (I haven't been using windows enough to care about disabling it, although I also find it quite annoying when I'm on windows).
On a different note, since there was a question about Android above and I just mentioned remix os, there is a different project porting android to the x86 framework which is working relatively well. It's called Bliss-x86 and can be found here on xda (https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=3534657).
I've got a post there describing how it worked on the cube i7 book a month ago or so. Some things are still not ideal, there still seems to be some process forcing the CPU to run circles even when idle, so it probably wasn't just the kernel on remix as I suspected above. But overall quite worth trying out.

franzli said:
Regarding the touchpad, I think they mentioned some registry hack you need to do to disable touchpad gestures on techtablets.com, so maybe have a look there (I haven't been using windows enough to care about disabling it, although I also find it quite annoying when I'm on windows).
On a different note, since there was a question about Android above and I just mentioned remix os, there is a different project porting android to the x86 framework which is working relatively well. It's called Bliss-x86 and can be found here on xda (https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=3534657).
I've got a post there describing how it worked on the cube i7 book a month ago or so. Some things are still not ideal, there still seems to be some process forcing the CPU to run circles even when idle, so it probably wasn't just the kernel on remix as I suspected above. But overall quite worth trying out.
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Thanks! I tried asking this over there but I am unable to post. Not only that, but I cannot even send an email using the "Contact Us" link. I will try searching over there again.