This tablet/laptop still lacks dedicated Ethernet or an SD card slot, even though there was clearly room for both in the keyboard base. The keyboard base adds a few USB 2.0 ports. Matched up against the Microsoft Surface Pro, the ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T has very similar features, from Bluetooth 4.0 to a single USB 3.0 port in the tablet itself to a Micro SD card slot. Stereo speakers, headphone/microphone jacksġ USB 3.0, 2 USB 2.0 (in keyboard), Micro SDĮthernet (via dongle), 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Stereo speakers, headphone/microphone jack S Player handles photos, music, and videos, S Camera is a basic camera app, and there's also S Gallery (a photo-album app) and AllShare connectivity for media sharing between Samsung phones/tablets/TVs. SW Update is a one-stop driver-updating tool. S-Note is a nice note-taking app and a good demo platform for the S-Pen. Samsung includes some pre-installed software, including a few useful apps. Your average smartphone camera would fare a lot better.

This Samsung is far better than most laptops, however, and I appreciated the extra pixel density for both reading and desktop real estate.įront and rear cameras offer better resolution than the Surface Pro's 720p offerings, at 2MP for the front-facing shooter and 5MP for the rear one, but neither was especially speedy, and both exhibited a lot of noise. The 11.6-inch 1920x1080 display has excellent off-axis viewing and bright, clear colors, but it wasn't as overall impressive to my eyes as the Surface Pro's display, which transcended the average laptop display and entered iPad Retina territory. Windows 8 has several of those gestures - or, you could simply reach up and touch the screen. It didn't feel stellar, but off-edge gestures worked, like the right-to-left swipe to bring up the Charms bar. The little multi-touch clickpad worked well enough, no more or less so than that of your average mid-level Netbook. I found the Surface Pro Type Cover, on the whole, to be a little more cozy and comfy, even though the ATIV's keyboard feels a lot more like an actual laptop. A software update seemed to fix the problem, but it's something to keep an eye on. The keyboard is the critical part that makes this tablet into a semi-laptop, and any failure - even if isolated to this unit - affects my opinion of it as a killer tool.

On our review unit, I found the mechanical connector was prone to little connect-disconnect hiccups.I wasn't sure if it was a loose connector, but it bears noting.

Samsung ativ 700t brightness issue