Samsung ATIV Smart PC: Revisiting Clover Trail Convertibles
by Vivek Gowri on March 18, 2013 12:00 AM ESTSamsung ATIV Smart PC: Display
The ATIV Smart PC uses an 11.6” 1366x768 PLS capacitive multitouch display, with a Wacom digitizer. On paper, this is perfectly good, but there’s a problem here—like many of the older tablet PCs, there’s a grainy quality to the panel. When I say grainy, I’m referring to a slight sparkle or shimmer to the display, almost as though there are a number of specks in the panel. It’s not due to the active digitizer—Wacom’s EMR (electromagnetic resonance) system sits behind the display, as opposed to N-Trig digitizers which sit in front of the panel, so this is likely due to the Atmel capacitive touch digitizer.
The Smart PC Pro has a similar problem with screen grain (though to a lesser degree), but interestingly enough the Microsoft Surface Pro, which also has a Samsung-sourced PLS 1080p panel and an Atmel capacitive touch digitizer, has almost no digitizer grain. It’s really distracting, and I’m not sure why it isn’t mentioned more often. It’s actually really rare to see panels with digitizer grain now that the days of passive digitizers are over, and I seem to be seeing it more and more often with Samsung products (the Series 7 All-In-One is another one with noticeable grain). It’s a somewhat concerning trend, because it’s been a legitimately long time since this has been an issue on devices with capacitive touchscreens.
It’s a shame, because the performance is actually not bad—regardless of how the graphs look, the panel is pleasantly contrasty, with good color accuracy and a solid if not blinding maximum brightness. Every high end tablet these days has to come with a fantastic display, and even a tablet with a comparatively mediocre display like this one would still be one of the single best notebook/ultrabook panels out there. But yes, with a resolution of 1366x768 on an 11.6" panel, it does lag behind in terms of pixel density as well as performance compared to the cream of the crop of the tablet class.
Because this is Samsung, it’s a Super PLS (Plane-to-Line Switching) panel instead of IPS (In-Plane Switching). PLS was developed by Samsung and derived from IPS and supposedly offers a number of incremental improvements, including lower panel cost and higher brightness, but it’s quite hard to tell the difference between the two display technologies in day-to-day use. I do like that with the merging of small ultraportables and tablets, it’s getting much more common to find small and inexpensive mobile computers containing wide angle display technologies.
The Wacom digitizer is also a great feature to have, and I’m glad to see a resurgence in the number of Wacom-enabled devices hitting the market since the launch of Windows 8. Obviously, the most prominent of the lot is Surface Pro, but many of the other Intel-based tablets (ATIV Smart PC and Pro, VivoTab, ThinkPad Tablet 2, etc.) are coming with active pen support as well. I can’t remember the last time we had so many consumer focused active-digitizer tablets on the market, to be honest. For Samsung, this clearly ties in with their inking efforts with the Galaxy Note lineup on the Android side of things, and so we see digital inking applications like S-Note bundled in with the ATIV. And if you rely on OneNote for, say, notetaking in class, it’s a pretty wonderful inclusion.
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Snotling - Tuesday, March 19, 2013 - link
I don't know... what's the battery life on a Samsung GS4?Snotling - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
On a 11.6" display... Samsung! They have more pixels on their 5" smartphones.(GS4)MrSpadge - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
Yeah, at that resolution and size you don't even have to fiddle with font sizing to read stuff. How dare they offer this!powerarmour - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
That is definitely a competitive problem, I saw the screen on a Nexus 10 the other day... Wow!ab_aditya - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
A small correction - the iPad storage now goes up to 128 GBVivekGowri - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
Thanks for catching that - copied out of an old table and missed to update. Fixed.augustofretes - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
Will you review the Chromebook Pixel? It looks beautiful. And for a Linux user as myself it seems like a perfect device.PC Perv - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
Nexus 10 is $399+. I don't know why AT keeps getting it wrong while going extra miles to find the cheapest prices for Atom-based tablets.And while this may be somewhat of a moot point, Nexus 10 drives 2560x1600 while these Atom tablets are 1366x768, and they use similar sized batteries. Considering that screen time is probably responsible for 80~90% of battery life of these mobile devices, don't you think a bit more explanation is warranted in your battery tests?
evonitzer - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
Indeed. I clicked on the link provided in the price comparison and it took me to Amazon where it is priced as indicated. Buy it directly from Google! Their price is always at $399 for the 16 GB version.I'm not sure Microsoft deserves the blame you assign them for their naming scheme. Windows Surface with RT and Windows Surface with Windows 8 Pro are names that exactly describe what they are. Once you get the distinction between RT and 8 Pro, it's very straightforward. It's better that they don't try to come up with a catchy name that rolls off the tongue but instead name their products exactly as they are. If Samsung followed the Microsoft example, they would call them Samsung Ativ 10.1 Windows RT and Samsung Ativ 11.6 Windows 8 Pro. Hideous names yes, but very clear.
VivekGowri - Monday, March 18, 2013 - link
That's odd, I didn't realize it said $462+, it should definitely be $399 on the Nexus 10. Fixed.