The black plastic casing attempts a light texture to mimic brushed metal, but we doubt anyone will be fooled. But it's sturdy and functional and happily not super-slippery like the Samsung ATIV Smart PC 500T 11.6' Windows 8 Intel Atom tablet. It's nice to hold for extended periods of time, albeit a little heavy at 1.89 pounds when compared to the iPad or Android 10.1' tablets (repeat after me, this isn't a mobile OS tablet, it's a full Windows Ultrabook in tablet form). While the last generation Series 7 Slate had straight sides, the ATIV's are rounded, particularly on the left and right sides (when held in landscape mode). It's darned comfy to hold, though the elongated 11.6', 16:9 aspect ratio may feel a little weird to those of you who've grown fond of the 4:3 aspect ratio iPad or older ThinkPad Tablet PCs. If you hate the metal and right angle edges on the Surface Pro and Acer Iconia W700, you'll love the soft and rounded corners on the ATIV 700T. It's 0.5 inches thick and it has a black plastic casing, as does the companion keyboard.

The tablet weighs just under 2 pounds, which is a tenth of an ounce heavier than our late 2011 Samsung Series 7 Slate and a tenth of an ounce lighter than Surface Pro. The Samsung has a full HD 1920 x 1080 display with wide viewing angles, 400 nits brightness and 10 point multi-touch. It has a single USB 3.0 port, micro HDMI, a microSD card slot and a 3.5mm audio jack. It has dual band Intel WiFi with WiDi wireless display, Bluetooth 4.0, a front 2MP camera and rear 5MP camera. The Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T runs on a 1.7GHz Intel Core i5-3317U with 4 gigs of DDR3 RAM and ours has a Samsung-made 128 gig SSD. Snap on the included transformer style keyboard and it could pass for an 11.6' Ultrabook. The ATIV 700T has the same basic specs as the Surface Pro, and that means it's a capable Ultrabook in terms of performance, though housed in an 11.6' tablet casing. Samsung's ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T actually hit the market first, though it's not exactly peppering every retailer's shelf and is more readily found online. In Chief (twitter: Microsoft Surface Pro isn't the only Windows 8 Intel Core i5 tablet on the block. Bland and plasticky design for an expensive product. What's not: Keyboard disconnects far too easily on ours, and doesn't have a secondary battery or ports beyond two USB 2.0 ports. Pleasing full HD display, useful software utilities bundled. What's hot: Very functional transformer design, Wacom digitizer with pen and WinTab drivers pre-installed.

Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T Editor's rating (1-5): Home > Notebook Reviews & Tablet Reviews > Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T

Samsung ativ 700t brightness issue