Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I'll start with the biggest disappointment: even with a 6-cell battery, the T1005M is only good for about 4 hours. That's true even turning off all of the optional features (Bluetooth, USB 3.0, Wi-Fi, etc.), turning down the screen brightness, and setting the power plan to "Max Battery."
The second big disappointment is the lack of a stylus. The T1005M, unlike the majority of convertibles in its class, uses a capacitive touchscreen. That means that you have to touch it with the pad of your finger, rather than being able to use your fingernail as you could on the resistive screen of the T1000P. With the screen's high 1366x768 resolution, many of the targets on the screen are quite small and hard to hit. It's odd that they included a stylus with the T1000P where it was less important. Also, the screen is recessed from the bezel, meaning that it's impossible to tap with your finger at the very edges of the screen.
The first thing I did upon receiving my computer was to install Windows 7 Ultimate so I could have Bitlocker encryption. I therefore can't comment on the touchscreen app that Gigabyte includes to make up for the lack of touch support in Windows 7 Starter. Gigabyte nicely includes a CD with all of the drivers you need if you do a new Windows installation. (Hint: the F2 key gets you into the BIOS, and Alt+F12 gets you into a screen where you can choose an alternative boot device.)
There is only one button on the bezel, which brings up Gigabyte's "Smart Manager," which lets you turn off the battery hogs, change screen orientation, and adjust volume. The computer would have benefited from a couple of buttons that could be user-assigned to other tasks, as found on all "real" tablets. For example, I found myself desperately wishing for a button that I could program to mute my computer for when I need to answer a phone call quickly.
When using the machine in laptop mode, I was surprised at how useful the multi-touch touchpad is. It recognizes some of the same gestures as the screen (e.g. pinching to shrink text), and has several of its own. You can drag two fingers to scroll, pull down with three fingers to bring up Task Switcher, tap with multiple fingers to middle- or right-click, and many more. It takes a little while to remember them all, but it's a huge improvement over the standard single-finger touchpad.
It appears from looking at professional reviews that Gigabyte sent reviewers models with 2GB of RAM, a 320GB HD, and Windows 7 Home Premium, yet I couldn't find that configuration for sale anywhere. I know that Gigabyte was trying to hit a certain price point with this "CF1" configuration, but it makes the professional reviews misleading. I found that things often got bogged down with only 1GB of RAM, and I wound up upgrading it (using a Crucial CT25664BC1067 2GB 204-PIN PC3-8500 SODIMM DDR3 Memory Module). With 2GB, it was quite responsive with productivity apps such as Microsoft Office, browsing with Google Chrome, using Amazon's Kindle app, and watching full-screen DivX media. For some reason I was never able to get Netflix streaming to work in high definition, although Netflix looks acceptable in non-high definition mode, even in full-screen mode. The dual-core processor means that it rarely suffers the stuttering common on single-core systems.
I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of sound from the speakers. However, as you would expect from a netbook, the power is limited. I found that cranking the speakers up to maximum got me to a volume where it was comfortable to watch a show in a quiet room, but I had trouble hearing dialog over the murmur of hospital waiting room. The good news is that the headphone output provides plenty of power to make a set of earbuds louder than I could possible want.
The screen has a fairly limited viewing angle, but I've always managed to find a way to get the screen at an angle where it looks good. However, this unit may not be a good choice if you expect to be working on the screen with other people (i.e. having two people looking at it at the same time from different angles).
A couple of nice touches that aren't mentioned in the product description: the computer comes with a relatively nice case. It's not a carrying case (it has no handle), but it a nice-looking and lightweight way to protect the computer when you're carrying it around in a backpack or bag. It also comes with a microfiber cloth to clean the screen from the inevitable fingerprints that accumulate. (Fortunately fingerprints are not as obvious as I feared they would be for such a glossy screen, but it's still good to have.)
If you're the type who compares the "Windows Experience Index," here are the numbers that I got:
Processor: 3.1
Memory: 4.5 (that's with the original RAM, it improved to 4.6 after I upgraded)
Graphics: 2.6
Gaming Graphics: 3.0
Hard Disk: 5.5
Any netbook is a trade-off, and a convertible doubly so. As you can already guess, I can't give an unqualified endorsement to this unit, but it works reasonably well for what I use it for. I also have to say that I almost gave it three stars: a unit with Win7 Starter and 1GB is, frankly, underpowered, and it's disappointing that it's the only configuration Gigabyte seems to distribute in the U.S.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Gigabyte T1005M-CF1 N550 10.1-Inch Convertible Tablet Netbook (Latte Gold Finish)
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