Day 4 – A Super Tablet for Educators
Day 4 – A Super Tablet for Educators
A Windows 8 Tablet for Teaching and Learning - Day 4
Saturday, December 8, 2012
The Samsung Ativ 500T Smart PC tablet is a new class of device that is not yet fully appreciated. Maybe it should be called a “Super Tablet”. It can boot up from a cold start in 10 seconds. Once booted it acts more like a mobile phone than a PC as it is uses something called “connected standby” that allows the tablet to be put into a low power mode but still receive updates to conserve the battery. Battery life is approximately 10 hours but I have not come close to using all the battery-life in one day. Once on, it has instant on and instant off by pressing the on/off button located on the top of the tablet just like most modern mobile phones.
Features for educators include multi-user logins and a full-size USB port!!! The Ativ 500T comes standard with 64GB internal SSD storage and 2GB RAM. Other things to note include microHDMI output to connect to a HDTV or projector (adapter sold separately) and a microSD card slot for additional storage. I really appreciate expandable storage and it makes it easy for teachers and/or students to easily save and share work to USB thumb drives. The Ativ 500T also has a front-facing camera as well as a camera on the back. The cameras work very well with the new Windows 8 Skype app as you can easily switch from the front camera to the back camera when using Skype.
Most importantly for my decision to buy this particular tablet was that it comes with a digitizer that allows precise control and input with a Pen-type stylus. Throw in a free Skydrive account with 7GB of cloud storage along with the new Windows 8 operating system and you have a “Super Tablet” for educational use.
This tablet is definitely a production device, but is it a tablet or a PC? Is it a Tablet PC? Tablet PC’s are so 2002. After the bumps from updating the system drivers yesterday the tablet is running very well and I am getting more and more comfortable with all that this tablet has to offer.
There is an ongoing debate in the educational community of whether the iPad is a consumption or a production device. So, it is natural to ask the same question of the Samsung Ativ 500T. I can say hands-down that no question that this tablet is capable of both. Because the brain of this tablet uses the Clover Trail x86 processor you can run most programs that run on Windows 7. I am not sure that it is a full-fledged PC replacement but I have been pleasantly surprised that it has handled everything I have thrown at it to date. It may fall short for processor intensive applications but there are also the beefier Intel i3/i5/i7 processors coming to market in tablet and other form factors for those that need higher performance.
There is an ongoing debate in the educational community of whether the iPad is a consumption or a production device. So, it is natural to ask the same question of the Samsung Ativ 500T. I can say hands-down that no question that this tablet is capable of both. Because the brain of this tablet uses the Clover Trail x86 processor you can run most programs that run on Windows 7. I am not sure that it is a full-fledged PC replacement but I have been pleasantly surprised that it has handled everything I have thrown at it to date. It may fall short for processor intensive applications but there are also the beefier Intel i3/i5/i7 processors coming to market in tablet and other form factors for those that need higher performance.
There is something about this tablet and the new class of devices coming to market that I cannot quite put my finger on but it is different than anything that has come before and that is a good thing. I am not sure if this tablet will replace my regular PC but it could for users that do not do heavy, processor intensive applications. If you only browse the Internet, check your email, and logon to Facebook this tablet is more than adequate as your primary device when paired with a wireless keyboard.
The Samsung Ativ 500T also has an optional keyboard that snaps on to essentially make it a clamshell netbook/laptop. The keyboard was an extra $100 so I did not buy it (I may at a later date) but I do have Bluetooth and 2.4GHz keyboards available to use. I used a Bluetooth to pair a BT keyboard/mouse to the tablet and the tablet became a PC with keyboard and mouse input. The same was true with the Logitech K400 2.4GHz keyboard that I tried out, because the K400 comes with a USB radio receiver all I had to do was plug in the receiver to the full-size USB port on the top of the tablet and I was ready to go. Both the Bluetooth keyboard/mouse and the K400 keyboard had a range of about 30 feet making it possible to connect the tablet to a projector using either the microHDMI port to a HDMI port on a HDTV or by using a $40 microHDMI to VGA adapter sold separately. This allows a teacher to roam around the room and control the tablet from the wireless keyboard, or better yet hand it off to a student to control the tablet so that everyone in the room can see the screen on the projector.
Discovery of the Day
Today is Saturday, a bit more laid back, so I used the Windows 8 Kindle app to do some reading from my Amazon Library of ebooks. This tablet is 11.6 inches and is a bit wider than many other tablets on the market but I easily adapted to the long rectangle layout in the Kindle app. I almost always use this tablet in landscape orientation, I tried using the Kindle app in portrait mode but it seemed too tall to use this way. You can adjust from one column or two column reading in the Kindle app. I prefer one column so I set that as the default for reading my Kindle ebooks.
Keep on Learning,
Dr. Grissom
Dr. Grissom
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