Samsung ATIV Smart PC XE500T1C-A02CA
Mar 13th, 2013 | By SimonThe XE500T1C came in a reasonably sized box measuring 9″x13.5″x4″. On the front and back of the package are two pictures of the XE500T1C-A02CA. On the sides we have a tidbit of information – noting a few specifications in size 4 font and a big print of the Windows 8 operating system and HDMI connectivity.
Once the box is opened, the first thing you see is the tablet. Lifting the tablet out you find the keyboard and beneath that is the power cord and a few instruction pamphlets.
We’ll start our look at the tablet. The screen is protected with a thin plastic film. At the top above the Samsung name is the small 2MP camera. At the very bottom we see a Windows logo, this button will take you back to the homepage from any application you’re running. On the sides are two long thin speakers.
On the bottom edge there is a power plug and the keyboard dock contacts. To the left and right of the contacts are two covered hinge hooks. If you don’t plan on using the keyboard dock than these hooks can remain covered, however if you like the concept of the keyboard (why else would you buy the XE500T1C-A02CA) then you can pry the plastic covers off.
On one side edge of the tablet is nothing but on the other side we have the HDMI connection port as well as the volume up/down control button.
On the top edge of the tablet we see the most control options. In the photo below from left to right we have the MicroSD slot, an LED indicator for the microphone, a USB port, rotate screen button, power button and LED and microphone/headset port.
The backside of the tablet doesn’t have too much of interest, the 8MP webcam with LED flash is all there is to see.
We’ll take our attention away from the tablet and have look at the keyboard dock. The design is pretty simple and resembles many small netbooks with the exception of a detachable monitor. The body is made out of plastic making it fairly light. The keys are all a reasonable size and laid out pretty well except for one button that frustrated me dearly. The forward slash key is located directly beside the left shift key. I have a tendency to hit the shift key right where the forward slash is. This has caused me to retype case-sensitive passwords countless times and use the backspace key almost every time I start a new sentence. It would have made more sense to me for Samsung to remove the forward slash to where the elongated right shift key is! Apart from that one annoyance, the layout is still compact and comfortable enough to use for hours on end.
On the left side of the keyboard dock we have a power plug and a USB port. The power plug can be used to charge the tablet as the keyboard is in use. On the right side of the keyboard dock is a second USB port. This gives the XE500T1C-A02CA three USB ports in total which I think is more than enough for the average person. This would be perfect for someone with a high end DSLR looking to transfer pictures from their camera directly to a large external hard drive, a feature that cannot be done on any other standalone tablet in the market.
There is nothing to see on the front edge or back edge of the keyboard. The front has two LEDs for power and numpad indication but there are no input or output ports. The back edge is the hinge which we’ll talk about in a second.
The bottom of the keyboard has four rubber feet to prevent the keyboard from sliding across any surface, I found it to work reasonably well. There was enough friction that even if I tried to put the docked tablet at where the webcam is, I wasn’t able to slide or tip it over.
As I mentioned early, the tablet has two hidden hinge hooks that mount on to the hinge of the keyboard. Once you remove the hinge covers the docking assembly is ridiculously simple. All you need to so is line up the contacts and push the two together. To make it even easier, the Windows Home button on the tablet is located in-line with the contacts so you don’t have to look at the bottom edge to see where the contacts are. Simply grab the two pieces and push them together. At first I didn’t feel too comfortable carrying the assembly together by the screen and insisted on holding onto the bottom of the keyboard but after a while I would happily grab the assembly by the screen and walk up a flight of stairs to my office.
That wraps up this section of the review and we’ll move onto some basic testing before concluding the entire article.