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(More customer reviews)Quick Summary.There are no perfect mobile devices, rather its all about trade-offs. The Gigabyte T1000P is no different. You look for features that add value that differentiates one product from another product based on price, less any deal breakers or nasty surprises. I looked carefully for the presence of deal breakers before buying and afterwards I didn't find any nasty surprises. Battery--ok, screen brightness--ok, sound--'not crappy' (superior for a netbook), keyboard--nice, mouse--ok, screen resolution--superior, tablet mode--ok, video ok (superior for a netbook), connectors--superior, upgrade potential--superior. I liked the 1366x768 screen more than I thought I would. Ditto the GigabyteT1000P as an entertainment device due to the superior video and audio. The GigabyteT1000P is not a powerhouse but it'll do more than most netbooks and mostly everything that you'll want it to do within reason. Windows 7 starter is easier and cheaper to upgrade out of than xp and upgrading out of starter is something that you'll want to do right off. The Gigabyte smartmanager is really dumb and in general Gigabyte could use some software love. However, all in all I'm really enjoying the T1000P and I give it 5 stars as a best in class as it excels in enough areas to deserve 5 stars in my opinion. Frankly I think its worth the extra money for the other features even if you are ambivalent about multitouch/convertible. Read on for more details.
Battery power. Heavy use--surfing the web and watching movies with the screen set on high,with wifi constantly on, and driving a small USB flash drive--the battery lasted 5 hrs. Light use--with the screen set at the lowest setting (which is bright enough for indoors), with wifi off, I was able to get just over 9 hrs.
Screen brightness. In a shady spot, or for an overcast day, the brightest screen setting is faded but acceptable which doesn't dazzle but was good news. On the other end of the spectrum, the lowest brightness setting or one or two notches above will work just fine in most low-light (non-fluorescent) indoor situations, which is to say in my opinion the setting doesn't go low enough, if you are like me and you surf the web or write late at night. Neither is there any kind of keyboard light or book light. The first is a bit disappointing in a mobile device though it might get taken care of rather easily by a software update sometime in the future. The lack of a keyboard light, or backlight or booklight are features that as far as I know no one else has to offer either.
Sound. The sound on the Gigabyte T1000P isn't spectacular--I want to say that right off--however for a netbook I have to say its pretty good. Though tinny, the Gigabyte T1000P demonstrates stereo separation, the speakers are on the front of the device and the volume is just loud enough to hear from the other side of the room when you have it turned up all the way.I actually had to turn the sound down a notch when listening to Hulu.
Additionally there are quite a few controls built in to help with the audio situation. For example, right out of the box I was picking up an annoying echo which was corrected by resetting the Realtek High Def Audio from 'auditorium' to 'carpeted room'. An audiophile will still hate the sound--on this or any other netbook--but for an ordinary person listening to a movie in a quiet room without the hassle of headphones or external speakers, the internal speakers on the Gigabyte T1000P, while not up to the quality of even the most basic of home computer systems, but they are nice for netbook speakers. Bluntly.Most netbook speakers are crappy and these internal speakers aren't crappy.
Keyboard. The chicklet style keyboard has very responsive keys which I liked a lot. They feel great. About the only minor complaint I have is the small right shift key. Other than that, the keyboard would be perfect. In fact, I rather like the feel of these keys over those of my full-size keyboard.
Mouse. The arrangement of the mouse keys takes some getting used to. All you have to do is look at their separation by the mouse 'smart pad' and you can see why that is. Its an odd right and left-click key position. While I quickly got used to using the mouse buttons with two hands, it took me longer to get used to using using the mouse one-handed. And I still struggle with clicking the mouse in the dark. I can see why Gigabyte did it the way they did it--to save space. However, again a little software update might make the hardware more palatable. The way the mouse keys are now, they are right below the alt keys and to either side of the space bar. Many of us use the space bar to scroll down, why not give us more programmable mouse options using the alt + mouse keys? A middle/scroll wheel emulator would be particularly welcome. I wouldn't mind trying an alt+ right-click for the left-click button too.
Screen resolution. The 1366x768 is very very nice. The higher resolution makes everything more crisp and gives you the potential to have more screen real estate. If you like bigger icons for instance you can always reset them but the crispness remains. 1366x768 is an HD resolution. To me this is one of the key features of this netbook. If someone doesn't like 1366×768 resolution, they can always turn it down. But to me the 1366x768 is nice.
Tablet mode. Yes it does that (switch to tablet mode I mean). And tablet mode is a nice feature. However the Gigabyte is more a production device than a tablet device in my opinion. If you have smaller icons, (so as to have more real estate), that means that the device becomes less touch friendly so its a trade off. There isn't any special mode-switching software to help with the production to touch transition. There isn't a mouse available in tablet mode on the T1000P frame to help with navigation. There isn't an accelerometer available to help switch positions from landscape to portrait mode and back. There isn't any software bundled with the device like a book reader or gps/maps that are designed for multi-touch (with one exception, the ritepen). The GigabyteT1000P in tablet mode works fine for what it is, but if you are comparing it to a stand-alone android or apple tablet device, the Gigabyte T1000P will come up short as the Gigabyte is not a dedicated tablet device. So if your of that mind, don't bother buying a netvertible.
With that said, the touchscreen seems responsive. You can switch orientation using a keyboard shortcut or the smart manager. Smart manager orientation switching is painful. Using the keyboard shortcut while easy is not intuitive and maybe I missed it but it doesn't seem to be in the literature. With some experimentation I found that ctr+alt+[your arrow keys] will change your orientation. So "ctr+alt+pgup/uparrow" for normal landscape from any orientation; ctr+alt+home/leftarrow will switch to portrait mode from any orientation. I would suggest to Gigabyte that they put a sticker on the unit showing the shortcut key orientation (just a small transparent one like their multi-touch sticker) as they already have been panned in some reviews for their 'smart manager'. It might also be a good idea to make it (the smart manager button) programmable or even have a single press switch orientation and a double press call up the smart manager. Or perhaps just the single press and do without the smart manager altogether.
Video. I'm not a big video person. However, without any upgrade in ram, I was able to play all the videos that I wanted to play and just as importantly hear what was going on. Hulu, msnbc, etc. all seemed to play very well. Both inside the browser and in full screen mode I didn't experience any difficulties. For me this was another big selling point.
Connectors and upgrade potentials. There's a mini express slot, a mini interna1 pci-e (the internal slot that the Amazon specs call it the 3G phone slot.) These are multi- purpose slots that aren't often found in netbooks. If you want to get a sim card for 3G or 4G, then you can do that with the mini pci-e and built in antenna. But many people will put an additional flash drive in that slot instead. You can do both of these on the external mini-express card slot also or you can buy other third-pary add-ons such as a usb 3 adapter for the mini-express slot.
Then there's the vga connector that allows you to connect to projectors or external monitors. There's a separate headphone and microphone jack. There's (2) usb-2 ports and (1) usb-2/esata port (esata lets you connect to hard drives 3x faster than usb-2). There's an ethernet port that lets you connect to printers and anything that is ethernet ready. When you turn the Gigabyte T1000P over, Gigabyte has made the underside of the unit very accessible for upgrading the ram, getting to the pci-e slot, etc. In short this is one of the most upgradeable, versatile netvertible/netbooks on the market.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Gigabyte T1000P 10.1 inch Multi-Touch Tablet PC - N470 1.83Ghz / 1366x768 / 1G SDRAM / 250GB HDD / 6 Cell / Windows 7 Starter
CPU: Intel® AtomTM Processor N470 1.83GHz, Operation System: Microsoft® Windows® 7 Starter, Chipset: Mobile Intel® NM10 Express Chipset, System Memory (optional): 1GB DDRII SO-DIMM*1 (Max 2 GB), Video Chip: Intel® GMA3150, LCD: 10.1" Multi Touch TFT-LCD WXGA, 1366x768 with LED backlit, HDD (optional): 2.5" 9.5mm SATA HDD 5400rpm, 250 GB, I/O Port: USB(2.0)*3(eSATA/USB Combo*1), D-Sub, RJ45, Mic-in, Earphone-out, 4-in-1 card reader(SD/MMC/MS/MS Pro), Express card Slot, DC-in Jack, Webcam: 1.3M pixels webcam, LAN: Ethernet 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet BASE-T, Wireless LAN: 802.11b/g/n, 3.5G Module: HSDPA support, 3.5G Antenna build-in (3.5G Module Optional), Battery: Li-ion 6 cells, ~7650mAh Battery
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