Gigabyte T1005 review

Gigabyte T1005 looks a lot like the T1028 that was released last year, but it packs a lot more power than the latter. The T1005 has a 10.1-inch screen and a 1366×768 pixel resolution that you can flip and fold so you can use it as a slate tablet. It also comes with 2GB of RAM, 320GB hard drive, and runs Windows 7 Home Premium.

Compared to previous Gigabyte tablets, the hinge feels much sturdier and should last 3-4 years without a problem. Gigabyte has told me that they have done a lot of testing on its durability and build quality. The tablet has a USB 3.0 port, Express card slot, and eSATA ports, something you don’t usually find on 10-inch tablets.

In my testing, I found that only one USB port is 3.0, the rest two are only USB 2.0 ports. The keyboard is chiclet style that has little flex. They should be good enough to write emails and some blog posts.

I found the screen a bit slow accepting my answers. The battery life is excellent. I got 5.5 hours while surfing the web wirelessly, which is great for Atom N550 processor (dual-core) tablets. Performance is on par with netbooks like Asus Eee PC 1015PEM and Acer Aspire One D255, both of which come with Intel Atom N550 CPU and GMA 3150 for graphics.

I must give credit to Gigabyte for using the Windows 7 Home Premium operating system on this machine instead of using Windows 7 Starter, which does not come with touch utilities. It sells for $ 600. It may sound a bit harsh, but for this netbook to be successful, they need to drop the price to around $ 450.