My Lenovo Miix 2 8" Review -- A good alternative to the DVP8??

[1_legged_sheep]

After more research than any person has any business doing, I pulled the trigger yesterday and purchased a 64gb version of the Lenovo Miix 2 8.

Here's an Amazon link if anyone is interested

Base Specs:
Intel Atom Z3740 -- NOT the Z3740D like the DVP8. The non-D 3740 supposedly has a better boost speed and supports dual channel memory.
IPS Panel, 5 point-touch, 1280 x 800 -- Same specs as the DVP8 different panel manufacturers though. According to various reviews the colors are more vivid on the Miix but the DVP8 has better blacks and is calibrated more correctly out of the box.
GPS -- The Miix 2 DOES have GPS as can be confirmed by the service manual HERE . The DVP8 does not have a turn by turn GPS unit in it although the software to use one on Windows 8.1 is still scarce currently.
2GB of DDR3 Memory -- Same as on the DVP8, it is indeed DDR3 despite what the haters say. I'm pretty sure it's a single chip even though the CPU supports dual channel but I was unable to really confirm or deny this from the service manual.
WiFi -- The Miix only does 802.11b/g/n while the DVP8 does dual band, not much of an issue for me since my router isn't dual band N.
Cameras -- I think both have 2.0 MP Front camera / 8.0 MP Rear Camera but seriously, who takes pictures with their tablet? I have a G2 if I want to snap some photos.

I probably left something off, if so I'll edit this later.

Price: $269.99 shipped which is almost identical for the 64gb version of the DVP8.

Benchmarks I plan on running: 3DMark and World of Warcraft (using fraps). If anyone would like some others ran just ask and I'll see what I can do.

Unboxing pics and benchmark results will be posted tomorrow.

 

[heatlesssun]

Thanks for the info. The V8P has ten touch points according to the System applet and the rear camera is only 5 MP. The cameras aren't very good especially in lower lighting but one thing I do use cameras for is note taking. Take a picture of something, import it into OneNote and use it for capturing information and markup.

And that's where the big difference lies between the Mix 2 8 and V8P, the digital pen, that's why I got the V8P and fortunately I got a pretty good pen and it works great for my note taking purposes.

 

[1_legged_sheep]

And that's where the big difference lies between the Mix 2 8 and V8P, the digital pen, that's why I got the V8P and fortunately I got a pretty good pen and it works great for my note taking purposes.

Wow, you are the first person I've seen write anything positive about the Dell active stylus I wasn't too interested in the pen, I lose styluses like there's no tomorrow (seriously I buy them in 5 packs I'm so bad). I would go bankrupt replacing the $50 dell active one unless it had a hidey hole like the Surface Pro.

 

[CEpeep]

Considering that you've been able to get the Venue 8 Pro for $160 "open box" direct from Dell for awhile now, I just don't see the Miix as being a good deal. It doesn't seem different enough on paper to justify the added cost, plus it's missing the pen. It would be more attractive to me if it at least had a HDMI port.

Anyway, let us know what sets it apart for you once it gets here. I want more products in this space, but I'm somewhat worried after how quickly the price on the Venue 8 Pro has dropped.

 

[heatlesssun]

Wow, you are the first person I've seen write anything positive about the Dell active stylus I wasn't too interested in the pen, I lose styluses like there's no tomorrow (seriously I buy them in 5 packs I'm so bad). I would go bankrupt replacing the $50 dell active one unless it had a hidey hole like the Surface Pro.

It was the luck of the with the initial pens but a couple of firmware updates dict help many folks. A user here just got one of the new pens and he's reported a good experience with the exception of pressure sensitivity: http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1040703209&postcount=234. I'm using to the pen with now to write post with the handwriting to text conversion input panel and for this purpose it works about as well as my Wacom devices. As always YMMV.

 

[mngl1500]

My A01 Pen works pretty good. I can have a problem with the first word then it is fine. As far as keeping track of the pen it all depends on which case you get.

 

[Kueller]

We all know the V8P has issues with charging and displaying to an external monitor at the same time.
With no HDMI and a single USB port, does the Miix 8 suffer the same limitation, or does it have a dedicated charging port?

 

[Trimlock]

When I was in the market for one of these I eventually decided on the V8pro, Lenovo has a good product just that the Dell was much cheaper.

 

[1_legged_sheep]

So the tablet arrive yesterday. The box is much smaller than I was expecting:

For some odd reason it wouldn't power up until I plugged it in even though it came with an 80% charge. I've since powered it on and off both plugged and unplugged a dozen or so times with no issues, so maybe this is just a first boot thing?

The tablet arrived with 42gb available out of the possible 64gb. A full 7gb is being used up as the recovery partition according to Windows Disk Manager. I'm actually considering wiping it and reloading it fresh so I can free up that recovery partition space. I need to make certain I can get all the drivers before I try that though.

Here's a pic of it loading World of Warcraft:

It took several hours to download and install the game, which is pretty typical even on high-end gaming computers. After it got done installing I ran WoW and everything went smoothly. The colors really pop on this tablet. Even thought the resolution and settings are pretty low, WoW still looks pretty nice. I wasn't able to get a FPS reading as I didn't have my BT mouse in yet but I was able to run around for quite a while and kill a few things with no issues. My lag bar stayed green the entire time.

I'm in the process currently of trying to move Office over to the memory card so that I can install Hearthstone also, I think the touch-screen will work nicely in Hearthstone so I'm eager to try that out.

I'll be getting a BT keyboard and mouse later today so I'll post some actual benchmarks then. If anyone has a particular benchmark they would like ran just yell.

 

[Kueller]

It may not be necessary to do a full wipe/clean install to get the recovery partition space back, depending on how they have the partitions ordered. Could probably make a USB key recovery backup and then wipe the recovery partition as long as it's the last volume on the disk. I did it that way on my Surface, just had to use diskpart rather than the disk management GUI because one of the recovery partitions was locked.

 

[1_legged_sheep]

It may not be necessary to do a full wipe/clean install to get the recovery partition space back, depending on how they have the partitions ordered. Could probably make a USB key recovery backup and then wipe the recovery partition as long as it's the last volume on the disk. I did it that way on my Surface, just had to use diskpart rather than the disk management GUI because one of the recovery partitions was locked.

Good to know thanks! The 7gb partition is locked, the only option I get for it in Disk Management is "Help". I'll give diskpart a go and post the results.

 

[mngl1500]

I'm in the process currently of trying to move Office over to the memory card so that I can install Hearthstone also, I think the touch-screen will work nicely in Hearthstone so I'm eager to try that out.

Hearthstone runs fine from the microsd card. That is where I have it installed on my Dell.

 

[1_legged_sheep]

Update: I uninstalled Office and did the reg key edit to make my default "program files" to be located on the D: drive. I then reinstalled office and it's now happily sitting on my SD card. I have WoW and Hearthstone installed on C: and still have 12.4GB available

Anyone tried Neverwinter Nights 2 on these? I think the click to move style of NWN2 would work well on the tablet.

 

[mngl1500]

Update: I uninstalled Office and did the reg key edit to make my default "program files" to be located on the D: drive. I then reinstalled office and it's now happily sitting on my SD card. I have WoW and Hearthstone installed on C: and still have 12.4GB available

Anyone tried Neverwinter Nights 2 on these? I think the click to move style of NWN2 would work well on the tablet.

My thread on [H] in gaming on touch only games

A nice long list and Google Docs spreadsheet of tested games

 

[Nexvid]

I alsi have a Miix2 and i love it. It was cheaper on this side of the world than the dvp8 but came with win8.1 chinese edition. I added a pro key and changed the language, uninstalled the stupid antivirus too. I ran cpu z on it and it seems to be detecting dual channel memory. And by the way it supports 5ghz wireless and i does have 2 antennas. So full 300m speeds. I bought a cheap pen for it and it does makes it easier to use. Im just waiting for the matching keyboard and a Bluetooth mouse.
I like this new tablest a lot they are making my note3 pretty useless (when i have the space to carry the tablet), since it can play h264 hi10p (without madvr) and it appears that this new atoms do have quicksync enabled(at least for playback).

I do wish it had at least 4g of ram (although i hardly notice the lack of ram). And that it wasnt too bright at night. But i guess that for 2300rmb (330usd) thats as good as it gets. I cant wait for the newer atoms, higher clock speeds (not that you really need them) and better screens (i have a lightboost monitor and theres some sort of screen ghosting but again the monitor was more that the tablet.)

 

[HisSvt76]

I've had this tablet for a while now absolutely love it have a 64 Gb SD card with most of my programs including steam plays source games real well and has been far better than all my previous tablets including both nexus 7's