Most Popular Tablet PCs of June 2009

Welcome to the June 2009 Most Popular Tablet PCs list. This report is made using the total page-views each product page receives in one month; so each time someone clicks one of the product links, they are submitting a vote in our monthly rankings. This list doesn’t always show which models are the best selling, but instead the models that readers want to research the most.

This month the list stayed consistent with the previous month. There has been little change in the tablet market, but we hope with the release of the new ASUS Eee PC T91 that we see some shift in the market. We will also be receiving a Dell Latitude XT2 review unit soon, which should boost some traffic to that notebook and move it up the list.


1. HP Pavilion tx2500z (Still #1) - The HP Pavilion tx2500z tablet features an AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology processor, up to 4GB DDR2 system memory, ATI Mobile Radeon HD 3200 integrated graphics and a 12.1" WXGA touchscreen/active digitizer display. It still maintains the same solid design and features as its predecessor, the tx2000 as well. HP Pavilion tx2500 Reviews / HP Pavilion tx2500 Opinions
2. Lenovo ThinkPad X200 - The Lenovo X200 is a solid ThinkPad. It has the same plain black signature design and a solid keyboard and display. The ThinkPad X200 features an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, Windows Vista Business, 12.1" WideView Standard WXGA display and a 80GB hard drive. It's a business focused tablet, great for note-taking though. Lenovo ThinkPad X200 Reviews / Lenovo ThinkPad X200 Opinions
3. HP EliteBook 2730p - The HP EliteBook 2730p is an update to the 2710p tablet. It still has that great stainless steel look and solid design. The 2730p features Intel Core 2 Duo processors, up to 4GB of memory, up to 120GB 5400 rpm 1.8-inch SATA II hard drive and a 12.1-inch Illumi-Lite WXGA UWVA anti-glare display. A good travel companion tablet. HP EliteBook 2730p Reviews / HP EliteBook 2730p Opinions
4. Fujitsu LifeBook T5010 Tablet PC - The LifeBook T5010 Tablet PC features a 13.3" WXGA widescreen display with active digitizer, built-in modular bay, integrated wireless access and Intel Centrino 2 Processor Technology. This business focused tablet is great for taking notes and giving presentations. Fujitsu LifeBook T5010 Reviews / Fujitsu LifeBook T5010 Opinions

5. HP Pavilion tx2000 - The Pavilion tx2110us Entertainment Notebook has a touchscreen, it lets you capture hand-written notes, and it twists 180 degrees for easy viewing in cramped spaces. Want more? It has a webcam and even a fingerprint reader built-in! HP Pavilion tx2000 Reviews / HP Pavilion tx2000 Opinions


6. Dell Latitude XT2 - The Dell Latitude XT2 features a 12.1" display with multi-touch interface. Models will also feature up to 5GB of DDR3 system memory, full-sized keyboard and dual pointing devices, integrated fingerprint reader, and option of 4, 6 or 9-cell battery. Dell Latitude XT2 Reviews / Dell Latitude XT2 Opinions


7. HP TouchSmart tx2z - With a convertible, swiveling 12.1" touchscreen display, the TouchSmart tx2z functions as a notebook or a tablet PC. Digital pen is included and stored in the notebook's base for note-taking and slate functions. Base model is equipped with 3GB memory and can be customized up to 8GB. Also features webcam, AMD dual-core processor, wireless Internet card and DVD burner. HP TouchSmart tx2z Reviews / HP TouchSmart tx2z Opinions


8. Toshiba Portege M700 - The Portege M700 Tablet PC has a 12.1-inch diagonal widescreen LED Backlit Display with digital pen support, optional touch capability and anti-glare display for indoor/outdoor viewing. The Portege M700 offers a smooth transition from notebook to Tablet PC with powerful Intel Centrino Pro processor technology and support for wireless 802.11a/g/n, making it a highly mobile standard for productivity. Toshiba Portege M700 Reviews / Toshiba Portege M700 Opinions


9. Fujitsu LifeBook T2020 - The LifeBook T2020 weighs a slender 3.5 lbs but features a substantially sized 12.1" touchscreen display. It is also equipped with Windows Vista, integrated fingerprint sensor, embedded TPM, dedicated Smart Card slot, Fujitsu Security Application Panel, digital microphone and spill-resistant keyboard. Fujitsu LifeBook T2020 Reviews / Fujitsu LifeBook T2020 Opinions


10. Fujitsu LifeBook T1010 - The Lifebook T1010 Tablet PC features Intel Centrino 2 Processor Technology, 13.3-inch WXGA display, Genuine Windows Vista Business Service Pack 1, and
up to 2 GB DDR3-1066 SDRAM memory.
Fujitsu LifeBook T1010 Reviews / Fujitsu LifeBook T1010 Opinions


Below are the tablets that just missed the spot on the Top 10 list of June:



11. Fujitsu Lifebook P1620 - 1,172 unique views
12. Wacom Cintiq 12WX - 980 unique views
13. Samsung Q1UP-V - 948 unique views
14. HP Pavilion tx2600 - 683 unique views
15. Motion Computing F5 - 626 unique views
16. Toshiba Portege M750 - 606 unique views
17. Armor X10 - 575 unique views
18. Fujitsu Lifebook A6230 - 444 unique views
19. Armor C12 - 373 unique views
20. MobileDemand xTablet T8600 - 301 unique views

VAIO W Netbooks sony

Just when you gave up all hope that Sony would release a netbook that costs less than $900, Sony today launched its attractive new line of netbooks--the VAIO W Series. Featuring cool colors, 10-inch screens with high-resolution, as well as a comfortable keyboard and touchpad, the VAIO W promises to make a splash for just $499.

Like all the netbooks that have come before it, the new W Series should prove to be a nice secondary PC for browsing the web from any room in your home or while you're relaxing at a coffee shop. The VAIO W will only be offered in one hardware configuration at the time of launch but comes in your choice of three colors— berry pink, sugar white and cocoa brown.

The W Series offers more screen real estate than most netbooks thanks to a high-resolution, 1366 x 768, LED backlit 10.1-inch widescreen display, making it easier to view one or even two web pages without the need for side-to-side scrolling.

The VAIO W also features an isolated keyboard which should prove easier to type on compared to many of the keyboards found on 10-inch netbooks. The VAIO W likewise has a larger touchpad and mouse keys compared to typical netbooks, so the touchpad will likely be easy to control.

As an added bonus, the VAIO W comes with VAIO Media plus Multimedia Streaming software, a media sharing application that lets you wirelessly stream content across DLNA-enabled devices throughout your home network. In other words, you can wirelessly send video, music and pictures from the VAIO W to your compatible primary PC or PLAYSTATION3 and vice-versa.

The list of standard features also includes two USB ports, built-in Bluetooth for connecting to wireless peripherals, a built-in webcam and microphone for video chats, and a standard 160GB hard drive for storing all your photos, files and videos. The VAIO W comes Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition operating system, so this netbook should actually provide better performance than the more expensive Sony VAIO P running Windows Vista.

The VAIO W Series netbook will retail for about $500. It is available for pre-orders today online at the Sony Style website. It will also be sold at Sony Style stores and at other major retailers around the country starting in August.

Sony VAIO W Specifications:

* Processor: Intel Atom N280 (1.66GHz, 667MHz FSB)
* Memory: 1GB DDR2 SDRAM (533MHz)
* Hard Drive: 160GB 5400rpm hard drive (SATA)
* Display: 10.1" TFT LCD with LED backlighting (1366x768)
* Expansion: Memory Stick Duo with MagicGate card slot and SD card slot
* Graphics: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950
* Ports: 2 USB ports, VGA, headphone output, Ethernet, and DC-in
* Networking: Ethernet 10/100, 802.11b/g/n wireless, and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
* Battery: Standard 3-cell Lithium-ion (VGP-BPS18)
* Software: Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Works and 60-day trial version of Microsoft Office, VAIO Mulitmedia Suite, 30-day trial of Norton Internet Security 2009.
* Weight: 2.6 lbs with standard battery
* Dimensions: 1.28 x 10.5 x 7.1 inches (H x W x D)
* Warranty: 1 year limited warranty with 1 year toll-free technical telephone assistance
* MSRP: $499

ThinkPad T400

ThinkPad T400
From: $1,993.00 *
Sale price: *

Availability:
Ships within 9 bus. days**
Your system summary:
System components
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Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9400 ( 2.53GHz 1GHz 6MB )
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Genuine Windows Vista Business
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ATI Mobility Radeon 3470 power optimized 256MB
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2 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz
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14.1 " WXGA+ TFT 1440x900
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ThinkPad UltraNav

Acer Aspire One 10.1" Specifications:

Operating System Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition
Processor Intel® Atom™ Processor N270
(512KB L2 cache, 1.60GHz, 533MHz FSB)
Chipset Mobile Intel® 945GSE Express
Memory 1GB DDR2 533 SDRAM
Storage 160GB* hard drive
Multi-in-one card reader:
- Supports optional MultiMediaCard™, Reduced-Size MultiMediaCard™, Secure Digital, Memory Stick®, Memory Stick PRO™ or xD-Picture Card™
- With optional adapter supports optional Memory Stick Duo™, Memory Stick PRO Duo™, miniSD™, microSD™
Video 10.1" WSVGA (1024 x 600) TFT LCD, Acer® CrystalBrite Technology
Up to 262,000 colors
LED backlight
Integrated Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950
Integrated Acer® Crystal Eye webcam
VGA port
Audio Two integrated stereo speakers
Integrated digital microphone
Headphones/speakers/line-out and microphone ports
Optimized Dolby® Headphone technology
Microsoft® DirectSound® compatibility
Interface Ports DC-in
RJ-45 LAN
VGA
Headphones/speakers/line-out
Microphone
Three USB 2.0
Card Slot Multi-in-one card reader:
- Supports optional MultiMediaCard™, Reduced-Size MultiMediaCard™, Secure Digital, Memory Stick®, Memory Stick PRO™ or xD-Picture Card™
- With optional adapter supports optional Memory Stick Duo™, Memory Stick PRO Duo™, miniSD™, microSD™
Communications Acer® InviLink 802.11b/g wireless LAN, Acer® SignalUp technology for enhanced antenna efficiency, WI-FI CERTIFIED™
10/100 LAN
Integrated Acer® Crystal Eye webcam
Included Software Acer® eRecovery Management
Acer® Launch Manager
Adobe® Acrobat® Reader
McAfee® Internet Security Suite (trial version)
User Interface 84-key keyboard,89% of standard-size keyboard embedded numeric keypad, hotkey controls, 1.6mm minimum key travel, international language support
12 function, four cursor keys,One Windows® key
WLAN switch with LED
Power button with LED
Touchpad with two buttons
One Windows® key Multi-gesture touchpad with two buttons supporting circular-motion scrolling, pinch-action zoom, page flip
Dimensions & Weight 10.2" (258.5mm) W x 7.2" (184.0mm) D x 1.0” (25.4) H
2.9 lb. (1.3kg) with six-cell battery

Acer Aspire One

Product Description:

The easy-to-use Aspire One netbook with 10.1” display provides continuous access to the Internet and weighs just under three pounds.

The Aspire One comes with the Intel Atom processor, built with the world's smallest transistors and designed specifically for low power consumption while delivering the power and performance you need for full online freedom. The Acer Aspire One comes standard with a 6 cell battery pack offering an oustanding 7 hours to enjoy your Aspire One in complete freedom.

Measuring just 10.2 x 7.2 x 1.0 inches it's smaller than an average diary and at 2.9 lbs, it will slip so easily into a bag or backpack you'll hardly notice you have it with you. Make no mistake; this is one of the smallest, lightest, and most individual ways to carry freedom with you. Freedom to use WiFi to explore new ways to connect, communicate and interact with the world you care about.

The Aspire One has an 10.1" CrystalBrite LED backlit LCD display with a resolution of 1024x600 pixels which makes it a perfect fit for the most user-friendly interface available."

If you find you've run out of storage space, the Aspire One has another ingenious solution: Smart File Manager instantly and seamlessly merges extra storage capacity from any SD card inserted in the 2nd card slot into the main memory available to the user, so you're never short of storage space.

UNIFIED SHADERS

Windows Vista brought with it DirectX 10, and with DirectX 10 came a completely new approach to handling shaders. Gone are the distinct pixel and vertex shaders, replaced by unified shader technology that's much more flexible.

With each GPU I'll be noting the number of unified shaders in that part, but I want to make clear that Nvidia and ATI use completely different approaches to their shader designs. For example, Nvidia's top end part on the desktop has 240 unified shaders, while ATI's has a staggering 800. If you look at the raw numbers, the ATI part should be monumentally faster, but the designs of the shaders are actually radically different and as a result, Nvidia's top end outperforms ATI's. Thus, the number of shaders should only be used to compare same-branded parts and not ATI vs. Nvidia.

More is, of course, better, but will also draw more power and throw more heat.

MEMORY BUS WIDTH AND TYPE

One thing that hasn't really changed much in the time past is memory bus technology. In general, you will see three different memory bus widths on mobile parts: 64-bit, 128-bit, and 256-bit. Parts worth gaming on will generally never have a 64-bit memory bus, which is the thinnest and slowest. A 256-bit bus, on the other hand, is much more expensive to produce and so will only appear on absolute top end cards. The happy medium is often a 128-bit bus.

There are also four types of memory in circulation for mobile graphics. The first three differ generally in the top speed they can run at, while the fourth is newer and very different from its predecessors.

These first three are, in order of performance capacity, DDR2, DDR3, and GDDR3. Many manufacturers will mix up “DDR3” and “GDDR3,” and for the most part that's okay as they'll have pretty similar performance characteristics. DDR2 is the slowest by a mile and on most parts is going to be the second biggest performance bottleneck, next to the memory bus width. If you're going to be gaming, you'll really want to avoid DDR2 if possible.

The fourth and still somewhat rarefied memory technology is GDDR5. GDDR5 actually runs at a quadruple data rate instead of double like the other memory technologies, and can produce mountains of bandwidth. The use of GDDR5 almost effectively works as a jump in memory bus width. GDDR5 used on a 128-bit bus can produce memory bandwidth comparable to a 256-bit bus, and on a 256-bit bus can produce staggering bandwidth comparable to a 512-bit bus! As someone who actually has a desktop card using GDDR5, I can say it works pretty much as advertised; when tweaking the clock speeds on my graphics card, the memory speed is almost never the bottleneck.

COMPARABLE DESKTOP PART

Outside of the new G200 lineup that Nvidia has recently announced, mobile GPUs are always cherry-picked desktop GPUs. It's the exact same silicon with tweaked clock speeds. As a result, each mobile part has a desktop analogue that it can be compared to. Since reviews of mobile graphics are so rarefied (I try to do my share but it doesn't seem like enough of them ever pass through my hands), it can be helpful to be able to search for a desktop part and at least get a ballpark figure of how the mobile part you're looking at will run.

DIRECTX 10.1 vs. PHYSX/CUDA

One of the big differences between ATI and Nvidia right now are the technologies they're pushing to compete with one another. ATI has been the only vendor up until this point (the point of Nvidia's announced G200 parts) that produces DirectX 10.1 (as introduced in Windows Vista SP1) compatible parts. DirectX 10.1 support has been fairly rarefied, with the most notable introduction so far having been Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed. If you're looking to buy that particular game, do not buy the Steam version. Instead, buy a retail copy and do NOT patch it. Ubisoft removed DirectX 10.1 support they claimed was buggy (it wasn't) in a patch, and with that support in place, ATI cards have a massive performance advantage against the competition. Outside of this instance, DirectX 10.1 hasn't been terribly relevant.

But then again, neither has PhysX. On-chip PhysX is only usable on Nvidia's higher end parts, and can add additional detail to games that support it, like realistic cloth, breaking glass, etc. Unfortunately, like DirectX 10.1, PhysX hasn't proved remarkably compelling either, with the only notable title using PhysX hardware acceleration being the game Mirror's Edge.

Alongside PhysX in the Nvidia corner is CUDA, which is Nvidia's general purpose GPU computing platform. CUDA is seeing decent support and may be of interest to videophiles, where GPU-accelerated video encoding can produce healthy performance gains in CUDA-enabled applications. That said, I edit video on my desktop and have yet to have seen a need for a CUDA-enabled application. More than that, CUDA's shelf life may not be that long with the OpenCL standard beginning to surface. OpenCL is similar to CUDA, except that it's platform-independent. I can't imagine developers playing the vendor lock-in game and only using CUDA when OpenCL (and even Microsoft's upcoming DirectX 11 Compute Shaders) can run on either company's GPUs.

These are things to be aware of, but they shouldn't affect your decision.

MOBILE DRIVERS

This, on the other hand, probably should impact your decision process. As much as I have a stated preference for ATI's hardware, they're woefully behind on the front of providing unified mobile drivers. The Nvidia user is going to be able to update his or her video drivers with new releases (meaning new fixes and performance improvements) just by visiting Nvidia's site and downloading new ones. ATI users aren't so fortunate; if they want to update their drivers they have to either rely on the notebook manufacturer to update (good luck with that) or use third party software to modify desktop drivers (a chore).

I don't have too much of a problem doing the latter, but it can be a real headache for the more novice users, and for that reason I would tend toward recommending Nvidia's mobile hardware for the time being until ATI can pick up the slack and make mobile drivers available on the ATI website.

CROSSFIRE AND SLI

Both ATI and Nvidia have multi-GPU solutions for notebooks that will, with two exceptions, only appear in massive desktop replacement units. ATI's is called Crossfire; Nvidia's is called SLI. Please note that these solutions typically don't bring a linear performance improvement; two GeForce GTX 280Ms aren't going to run twice as fast as one, as latency and driver optimization come into play. With this technology, the aforementioned driver situation becomes more important ... because if a game isn't properly profiled by the vendor in question the game won't reap the benefits of SLI or Crossfire.

Now, those two exceptions: ATI and Nvidia both have integrated graphics parts that, when combined with a low-end discrete part, can be used in Crossfire/SLI and thus improve performance substantially. These solutions are still nowhere near as good as mid-range and higher options, but they're also economical and good for battery life. Nvidia's solution with the GeForce 9400M, in particular, can also swap between a mid or high-end discrete part to the IGP when the notebook is running on the battery, resulting in substantial power savings.

A BRIEF NOTE ON INTEL

Planning to play cutting edge 3D games? Excellent! Don't buy anything using Intel graphics. Intel's integrated graphics performance is historically poor and rife with compatibility issues. When you're looking between Intel parts, you're really only dealing with levels of unplayability.

A BRIEF NOTE ON VIDEO ACCELERATION

In addition to being miserable for gaming, Intel's parts outside of the 4500MHD are also the only ones in the lineup (excepting ATI's Radeon X1200 integrated graphics series) that don't support high definition video decoding and acceleration. All other parts are designed to offload high definition video playback from the main processor to the GPU.

COMPLAINT DEPARTMENT

Finally, I'd just like to thumb my nose at all three graphics vendors (ATI, Nvidia, and Intel) for their complete lack of consumer-oriented business practices. ATI's mobile graphics driver situation is a nightmare; miles behind Nvidia's driver support. ATI's marketing department isn't doing them any favors either; Nvidia routinely works with game developers to make sure games run well on their hardware, and their “The Way It's Meant to be Played” program is everywhere. Whether Nvidia pays developers to cripple games or not (see the Assassin's Creed controversy), ATI's not out there hustling.

Intel's driver situation is, if at all possible, substantially worse than ATI's. I'm fairly certain their graphics driver team is either one over-caffeinated teenager in a basement somewhere, or a bunch of programmers that weren't good enough to code for Creative (at least two readers should laugh at this one). Intel has basic compatibility issues with games, and they've made promises about basic performance in their hardware that they have failed to keep. Marketing lies, but Intel's integrated graphics are still essentially broken as far as I'm concerned.

Finally, whomever is responsible for Nvidia's mobile graphics branding needs to suffer at the hands of angry consumers ... or just be fired. It's not bad enough that the market is over-saturated with mobile parts that are essentially the same but named differently, but the brands of their mobile parts almost never line up with their desktop ones. The most egregious offenders are the GTX 280M and 260M, which are actually just G92 silicon -- in other words, these are not mobile versions of the desktop GTX 280M and 260M, which are worlds more powerful.

Laptop Graphics Guide 2009

And so it begins ... after the long hiatus, the Notebook Review Mobile GPU Guide's 2009 Edition is rushed out of the gates before Nvidia can make matters more complicated with more GPUs. I have to be honest, part of the reason you didn't see this article sooner is because, simply put, Nvidia created “brand spaghetti” in the marketplace. Despite their mobile parts only being based on a couple different chips, they have a full twenty-five (25!) parts in circulation right now, and that's not including the recently announced G200 line which I'll talk about in brief towards the end. ATI's not doing too much better at twenty variants circulating, but their parts are far easier to keep track of and much easier to describe.

Because of the radical changes to the graphics market since my last guide, I have to revamp my approach to notebook Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). Pipelines and all that garbage are past tense now, with almost all mobile parts now using the unified shaders that DirectX 10 mandated in Windows Vista. And because of the product flood in the notebook market, I'm going to take a different approach and instead organize mobile graphics cards by the chips that power them. Especially when you hang out in the Nvidia sections you'll see exactly how practical this approach is.

Finally, before you get into this guide you may want to have a look at my “How it Works” entry on mobile graphics.

NO YOU CAN'T UPGRADE YOUR NOTEBOOK GRAPHICS

You cannot. Stop posting in the forums. Stop asking about this. You just can't. Moving on.