When I look at the Surface Go, I see a missed opportunity. Microsoft’s more expensive 2-in-1 features a small and unobtrusive screen — not great for media consumption, which is a fiasco, as it’s not powerful enough to take on many other roles. But ASUS seems to have the right idea with $600 VivoBook 13 Slate, a Windows 11-style Surface tablet with a beautiful OLED display.
ASUS Vivobook 13 Slate features a 13.3-inch OLED display with 1080p resolution that covers the full DCI-P3 color gamut. It’s DisplayHDR True Black 500 certified, and has a killer 0.2ms response time. In other words, it’s a better screen than you’ll find on $1,000 tablets and laptops, and it might even be better than your TV.
Like the Surface tablets, the Vivobook 13 Slate has a detachable keyboard and a built-in kickstand (the keyboard comes with the device, thank goodness). It also has a nice little slot for the ASUS Pen 2.0 and features multiple inputs, including a microSD slot, a headphone jack, and two USB-C ports.
From a specs standpoint, the Vivobook 13 Slate’s slate is what we’d call “entry level”. The base model runs on a quad-core Intel Pentium Silver N6000 processor, and ASUS only offers up to 256GB of storage and 8GB of RAM. Those specs are comparable to what you get with the Surface Go – you won’t be playing any crazy AAA games or running demanding professional apps (although Windows 11 will support Android apps soon, so low-power devices like this are about to become more useful) .
I’m really excited about the December launch of the ASUS Vivobook 13 Slate, but I have some concerns about the screen. It has a maximum brightness of only 550 nits, so it can be difficult to see in direct sunlight (outdoors, near a window, in a car, etc.). Also, these fancy OLED screens tend to eat up battery life. ASUS claims you’ll get 9.5 hours of battery life on the Vivobook 13 Slate, so I may be wrong.
The ASUS Vivobook 13 Slate It launched in North America in December, starting at $600 (a much better price than the Surface Go, where the Vivobook 13 Slate comes with the keyboard). There’s currently no information on pricing or availability for other regions, and we don’t know if ASUS will place pre-orders for this device.
Source: ASUS
