Andrew Heinzman
When I look at the Surface Go, I see a missed opportunity. Microsoft’s most affordable 2-in-1 has a small and unimpressive display—it just isn’t great for media consumption, and that’s a bummer, because it’s not powerful enough to fill many other roles. But ASUS seems to have the right idea with its $600 Vivobook 13 Slate, a Surface-styled Windows 11 tablet with a beautiful OLED display.
The ASUS Vivobook 13 Slate features a 13.3-inch 1080p OLED display that covers the full DCI-P3 color gamut. It’s DisplayHDR True Black 500 certified, and it has a killer 0.2ms response time. In other words, it’s a better screen than what you’ll find on some $1,000 tablets and laptops, and it may be better than your TV.
Like Surface tablets, the Vivobook 13 Slate has a detachable keyboard and an integrated 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.
Spec-wise, the Vivobook 13 Slate is what we’d call “entry level.” The base model runs on an Intel Pentium Silver N6000 quad-core processor, and ASUS only offers up to 256GB of storage and 8GB of RAM. These specs are comparable to what you get with a Surface Go—you won’t be playing any crazy AAA games or running demanding professional apps (though Windows 11 will soon support Android apps, so low-powered devices like this are about to become a lot more useful).
I’m pretty excited for the ASUS Vivobook 13 Slate to launch this December, but I do have a few concerns about the display. It has a peak brightness of just 550 nits, so it may be hard to see in direct sunlight (outdoors, near a window, in the car, etc). Also, these fancy OLED screens tend to eat through battery life. ASUS claims that you’ll get 9.5 hours out of the Vivobook 13 Slate’s battery, though, so maybe I’m wrong.
The ASUS Vivobook 13 Slate launches in North America this December ,starting at $600 (a much better price than the Surface Go, as the Vivobook 13 Slate actually comes with its keyboard). There’s currently no word on pricing or availability for other regions, and we don’t know if ASUS will offer pre-orders for this device.
Source: ASUS
