As a kid, Maika Monroe watched all the “High School Musical” films, swooning over blue-eyed hunk Zac Efron like most other red-blooded American females. She never imagined a career as an actress, let alone starring in a movie opposite Efron, playing his girlfriend. And yet, that is exactly what happened to Monroe, a tall blond beauty from Santa Barbara.
At 19, Monroe makes her feature film debut in “At Any Price,” in which she plays Cadence, a country girl who is dating Dean (Efron), an aspiring stock car racer. With no real family to call her own, Cadence hangs out a lot at Dean’s family 3,000-acre farm, which as it turns out is not in as great financial shape as it appears to be. Dean’s father, Henry (Dennis Quaid), a third-generation farmer, is quietly trying to dig his way out of debt by whatever means necessary, including selling patented genetically modified seeds to his neighbors. Even that isn’t an easy task as there are legal restrictions and other competing salesmen. His favored older son, who was supposed take over the farm, has left the country to pursue his dreams of adventure in South America, so he is stuck trying to interest his rebellious younger son in learning the family business.
Surprisingly, it’s Cadence who ends up taking an interest in the farm and selling seed. With Dean preoccupied preparing for an upcoming stock car race, she joins Henry as he makes his sales pitches to neighboring farmers, and demonstrates a genuine aptitude for the job.
Monroe grew up in the coastal California town of Santa Barbara, where her father works in the construction industry and her mother is a sign language teacher. Though she recalls enjoying watching movies, she had no aspirations of becoming an actress. A natural athlete, she was more interested in dance and kiteboarding as she entered her teens.
While at dance school one day, she saw a notice calling for students who wanted to appear as extras in a short film so she signed up. Her first day on the set was an eye-opener, she recalls.
“I remember just being in awe of it,” the blond beauty says. “ I was just blown away by every aspect of it: the director working with the actors, the camera and just everything about it. That’s where I fell in love with it. I got to know the director really well on that set because even when I didn’t have to be there, I would want to watch and be behind the camera.”
Impressed with her enthusiasm, the director wrote a small speaking part for her, which made her eligible for a Screen Actors Guild card. She subsequently landed small parts in short films and on TV.
Her mother shuttled her back and forth between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles (some 90 miles apart) for Monroe to audition for parts, sometimes as often as four times a week.
“I’m lucky to have a mom like I do because I wouldn’t be where I am right now,” she humbly says. “If it wasn’t for Indoor Positioning System, I couldn’t have done it. She had no interest in it, but it’s what I wanted. I knew this is what I wanted to do.”
After several years of plugging along in the finicky world of show business, Monroe was ready to give it up in favor of pursuing her other passion: kiteboarding.
She had started playing the physically demanding outdoor sport around the same time she started acting, and had gotten pretty good at it. Actually, she had gotten very good at it, to the point where she was involved in professional competitions. It was while she was contending at the Red Bull Big Air Competition in the Dominican Republic that she had to make one of the most important decisions of her life. She sat down and wrote out the pros and cons of acting versus professional kiteboarding.
“I knew if I trained, I could be the best kiteboarder in the world,” she says, without a hint of vanity. “ With acting, the decision is always in someone else’s hands. It requires talent, but it’s also luck .I had no idea what could happen. So I really had to think about it. Every part of my body wanted (to act) so bad it almost could have started being a negative.”
After coming in second at the competition, she thought she’d made up her mind to go the professional kiteboarding route. But just then, she got a phone call from her agent asking if she was interested in auditioning for the role of Cadence in “At Any Price.”
Without hesitation, Monroe and her mother put together an audition tape and sent it in. Within days, she got a callback. The youngster decided then and there to return to LA, where she was up against four other young actresses for the coveted part. She met with director Ramin Bahrani, who also co-wrote and produced the drama, and landed the role.
Soon afterward, she found herself on location in DeKalb, Illinois, in the middle of America’s farm belt, playing sexy and smart Cadence. Meeting Efron was both exciting and scary, she recalls.
“There was no chemistry read or anything,” she says in her enthusiastic way. “So the first time I met him was in DeKalb, where everyone came out two or three weeks before we started filming. I didn’t know what to expect because, you know, he’s kind of huge! But when I met him, it was clear that he is so down to earth and so easy to talk with and connect with. That helped very much and so the acting came off very naturally. I was very blown away by him. It was fun working with him.”
Monroe says she initially was a little more intimidated by Quaid, the veteran star of films including “Great Balls of Fire,” “Far From Heaven” and “The Rookie.”
“I’m usually not star struck but he is a legend,” she says, smiling. “This role for him is very different from the things he’s done in other films and also from who he is as a person. Watching him transform into Henry—his whole body transformed—was incredible.”
The teenager admits she knew little about the controversy surround genetically modified seeds, which serves as a backdrop for the central story about the complexities of family relationships and the changing nature of the farming industry.
“I didn’t know much about it at all,” she says of the genetically modified corn, which out-produces conventional seed suppliers and has muscled many smaller farms out of business. “But that’s what I love about my job. Never in a million years would I have gone to DeKalb, nor would I have known anything about this. Plus, you don’t see that many films about this topic. Yet there’s such a cool story around these characters with such depth. It frames an interesting movie.”
Monroe credits “At Any Price” for propelling her career forward. She subsequently has landed roles in two other Hollywood films: the upcoming drama, “The Bling Ring,” directed by Sofia Coppola and Jason Reitman’s “Labor Day,” in which she co-stars opposite Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin.
All three roles are each quite different from one another, and also quite different from the perky and grounded Monroe herself.
“I would describe her as my polar opposite,” she says of playing the layered and complex character Mandy. “ I remember getting the script and thinking, ‘There is absolutely no way I can pull this off.’ I initially saw her as this evil girl with no redeeming qualities. So I worked with an acting coach on it and sent the audition tape to Jason (Reitman) in New York, and he said he wanted to meet with him. Then I started falling in love with this character after talking to him. I began to see more sides to this girl—where she comes from and why she does the things she does. She became fascinating to me. It was a huge challenge but I loved it. And it takes place in the ‘60s, so I have this cool hair and makeup that transformed me.”
Monroe says her role in “The Bling Ring,” based on a true story about star struck suburban teens who go on a robbery spree of Hollywood homes of their celebrity idols, and until they get caught, is a smaller one, though it afforded her the opportunity to work with one of her directing idols, Sofia Coppola, and “Harry Potter” star Emma Watson.
“It’s kind of been blown out of proportion on the Internet that I play this bigger role than I do,” she admits. “But I really appreciated the opportunity to do it and I’m excited to see the final film.”
She is set to start another movie project soon but cannot say what it is yet. She still enjoys kiteboarding in her free time, but has decided not to pursue it as a professional career anymore.
Her plans to attend college to study graphic design and web design also are on hold as she continues to build her resume with acting credits.
“This past year, I’ve been basically working nonstop—in a very good way,” she says, smiling. “But I definitely want to go to college. As of now, I may have to take classes online. It’s important to me but things just need to calm down before I can focus on that.”
2013年4月26日星期五
2013年4月23日星期二
Audi R8 V10 plus
Audi India officials often go gaga about how some of the buyers of the R8 drive the super sports car around the most crowded, narrow streets of many Indian cities. That’s not too surprising given how easy to drive and comfortable this car can be even on bad roads.
But, put it on the track and it behaves like a completely different cat, one with remarkable agility and great grip. Though, even as it looks perfectly at home on the race track, the R8 doesn’t seem to be intimidating to drive. Instead, place the Lamborghini Gallardo 560-4 – other super sports car that shares the same engine, the same underpinnings and many of the cabin parts – and the intimidation level goes up considerably.
Essentially a boosted, face lifted version of the R8 V10, the new version has some key modifications to mark its higher performance capabilities. On the outside, what strikes you is the increased use of CFRP – an abbreviation that is all over the diagram of the new R8 V10 plus that Audi officials put up as part of the presentation.
Essentially, carbon-fibre reinforced plastic has now been used for more parts. So you get exterior mirror housings, the famous and R8 trademark side blades, the engine cover, the rear diffuser and the front spoiler all made out of this material. There is more in the cabin too. Another R8 trademark – the Audi Singleframe side air intakes at the front and rear bumpers – get a new configuration and are coloured in matt Titanium Gray.
The new Audi R8 V10 plus Coupé is powered by the same 5.2-litre, V10 engine that the current R8 model sports. The difference is in the boost to its state of tune, essentially matching that of the Gallardo 550-2’s performance. The V10 FSI engine with its – up to 8,700 rpm – high-revving concept now manages 404 kW or 550 bhp of peak power at 8,000 rpm. Peak torque is delivered lower down the rpm range at 6,500 and that is also about 10 Nm more at 540 Nm (compared the current V10 variant). The engine is paired with the 7-speed S tronic transmission that is also now offered with larger manual shift paddles behind the steering wheel.
On the race track, the new R8 V10 plus Coupé comes across as being more comfortable to drive thanks to Audi’s Quattro permanent all-wheel drive system. The positive impact of the Quattro system and the difference it makes to on-track confidence was felt even more because it was just a few weeks earlier that I had driven the Lamborghini Gallardo 550-2 on the same loop.
As part of the inauguration of the second edition of its Audi sportscar experience, the company had organised the test runs of the new R8 V10 plus and the course included high speeds laps, slalom sections and a brake test section. With its light and extremely stiff aluminium space frame body and the new sportier suspension the coupe feels more agile on the track. As you throw the car into the corners, the sporty new bucket seats hold nicely allowing the driver to point the steering better at the apex of every turn on the track.
The suspension has seen adjustments to the springs and damper tuning and there have been modifications to the camber values at the front axle for improved dynamics. The wave design brake discs with standard ceramic brakes make sure that all that additional power and agility is not at the cost of safety.
With an impish smile, his face betraying his knowledge about the Mahindra E2O, the driver of the other car was still expecting a sincere answer. And his face was still writ with genuine curiosity about the latest all-electric car from the makers of the Reva.
The E2O is a big leap from the Reva. Not so much in terms of its earth-saving concept, but in terms of it finally being a desirable electric car. It is a transformation which announces that electrics have moved into the realm of the possible, even in India, and that you can look cool while saving the planet.
Except for its final model name, the E2O (E for electric, O for Oxygen….it is not E Twenty) has been in the news for a while now. The concept NXR on which it is based, has been spotted in Motor Shows and been seen testing on the roads. So, the model’s design and most of its specifications had long been frozen. The battery-powered car was originally due to be launched in 2011. What caused much of the delay in rolling out the car was apparently caused by the Government’s dithering in deciding whether to extend a subsidy or not.
But, despite all that familiarity, the E2O still surprises me with its packaging when I first step into it. At the parking lot set next to a yellow Tata Nano and a beige Hyundai i10 Automatic, the E2O seems to blend right in like it is a new, regular compact hatch in the market. There is none of its predecessor’s ungainly, bug-eyed, and strangely arcane looks. Instead, the E2O sports a conventional tall-boy design, clean modern design lines, tight shut lines between its ABS body panels and just a touch of quirkiness.
The unique headlamps, the cab-forward design, the bonnet grille and the muscular wheel arches add to the overall feel of the E2O being a regular car. But, each one of these features hides parts of the electric reality behind them. The stubby, clamshell bonnet from the cab-forward design for example doesn’t lid an engine, instead all that is underneath is the spare wheel and the air-conditioner compressor. Behind the grille is a radiator, but one which runs cooling lines to the heat exchanger and the battery pack instead of an engine.
The wheel arches look over-sized and the puny 13-inch rims don’t provide that much of visual strength, but the tyres shod on the alloys are low-resistance tyres that have been specially developed with a compound that has higher silica content.
The E2O’s chassis is a tubular space frame and the car is built by bolting on the motor, controller, battery pack and the other suspension and seating parts. All the body panels are colour impregnated and dent resistant plastic. These panels made from specially developed base polymer are then simply bonded onto the frame using special adhesives.
Mahindra Reva officials say that the India-spec E2O has no airbags or other electronic braking or stability aids, but it still meets collision safety norms thanks to the space frame’s rigidity and the three crumple zones at the front that disperse the impact of a collision. The European-spec E2O which is currently under development will have the entire complement of safety features including stability management and am guessing that it will have to pass the Euro NCAP tests.
But, put it on the track and it behaves like a completely different cat, one with remarkable agility and great grip. Though, even as it looks perfectly at home on the race track, the R8 doesn’t seem to be intimidating to drive. Instead, place the Lamborghini Gallardo 560-4 – other super sports car that shares the same engine, the same underpinnings and many of the cabin parts – and the intimidation level goes up considerably.
Essentially a boosted, face lifted version of the R8 V10, the new version has some key modifications to mark its higher performance capabilities. On the outside, what strikes you is the increased use of CFRP – an abbreviation that is all over the diagram of the new R8 V10 plus that Audi officials put up as part of the presentation.
Essentially, carbon-fibre reinforced plastic has now been used for more parts. So you get exterior mirror housings, the famous and R8 trademark side blades, the engine cover, the rear diffuser and the front spoiler all made out of this material. There is more in the cabin too. Another R8 trademark – the Audi Singleframe side air intakes at the front and rear bumpers – get a new configuration and are coloured in matt Titanium Gray.
The new Audi R8 V10 plus Coupé is powered by the same 5.2-litre, V10 engine that the current R8 model sports. The difference is in the boost to its state of tune, essentially matching that of the Gallardo 550-2’s performance. The V10 FSI engine with its – up to 8,700 rpm – high-revving concept now manages 404 kW or 550 bhp of peak power at 8,000 rpm. Peak torque is delivered lower down the rpm range at 6,500 and that is also about 10 Nm more at 540 Nm (compared the current V10 variant). The engine is paired with the 7-speed S tronic transmission that is also now offered with larger manual shift paddles behind the steering wheel.
On the race track, the new R8 V10 plus Coupé comes across as being more comfortable to drive thanks to Audi’s Quattro permanent all-wheel drive system. The positive impact of the Quattro system and the difference it makes to on-track confidence was felt even more because it was just a few weeks earlier that I had driven the Lamborghini Gallardo 550-2 on the same loop.
As part of the inauguration of the second edition of its Audi sportscar experience, the company had organised the test runs of the new R8 V10 plus and the course included high speeds laps, slalom sections and a brake test section. With its light and extremely stiff aluminium space frame body and the new sportier suspension the coupe feels more agile on the track. As you throw the car into the corners, the sporty new bucket seats hold nicely allowing the driver to point the steering better at the apex of every turn on the track.
The suspension has seen adjustments to the springs and damper tuning and there have been modifications to the camber values at the front axle for improved dynamics. The wave design brake discs with standard ceramic brakes make sure that all that additional power and agility is not at the cost of safety.
With an impish smile, his face betraying his knowledge about the Mahindra E2O, the driver of the other car was still expecting a sincere answer. And his face was still writ with genuine curiosity about the latest all-electric car from the makers of the Reva.
The E2O is a big leap from the Reva. Not so much in terms of its earth-saving concept, but in terms of it finally being a desirable electric car. It is a transformation which announces that electrics have moved into the realm of the possible, even in India, and that you can look cool while saving the planet.
Except for its final model name, the E2O (E for electric, O for Oxygen….it is not E Twenty) has been in the news for a while now. The concept NXR on which it is based, has been spotted in Motor Shows and been seen testing on the roads. So, the model’s design and most of its specifications had long been frozen. The battery-powered car was originally due to be launched in 2011. What caused much of the delay in rolling out the car was apparently caused by the Government’s dithering in deciding whether to extend a subsidy or not.
But, despite all that familiarity, the E2O still surprises me with its packaging when I first step into it. At the parking lot set next to a yellow Tata Nano and a beige Hyundai i10 Automatic, the E2O seems to blend right in like it is a new, regular compact hatch in the market. There is none of its predecessor’s ungainly, bug-eyed, and strangely arcane looks. Instead, the E2O sports a conventional tall-boy design, clean modern design lines, tight shut lines between its ABS body panels and just a touch of quirkiness.
The unique headlamps, the cab-forward design, the bonnet grille and the muscular wheel arches add to the overall feel of the E2O being a regular car. But, each one of these features hides parts of the electric reality behind them. The stubby, clamshell bonnet from the cab-forward design for example doesn’t lid an engine, instead all that is underneath is the spare wheel and the air-conditioner compressor. Behind the grille is a radiator, but one which runs cooling lines to the heat exchanger and the battery pack instead of an engine.
The wheel arches look over-sized and the puny 13-inch rims don’t provide that much of visual strength, but the tyres shod on the alloys are low-resistance tyres that have been specially developed with a compound that has higher silica content.
The E2O’s chassis is a tubular space frame and the car is built by bolting on the motor, controller, battery pack and the other suspension and seating parts. All the body panels are colour impregnated and dent resistant plastic. These panels made from specially developed base polymer are then simply bonded onto the frame using special adhesives.
Mahindra Reva officials say that the India-spec E2O has no airbags or other electronic braking or stability aids, but it still meets collision safety norms thanks to the space frame’s rigidity and the three crumple zones at the front that disperse the impact of a collision. The European-spec E2O which is currently under development will have the entire complement of safety features including stability management and am guessing that it will have to pass the Euro NCAP tests.
2013年4月21日星期日
A touch above a laptop screen
Let's admit it: Love it or hate it, Windows 8 was designed for touch screens. Its new facade, the colourful quilt of square tiles that I call TileWorld, was born for finger operation.
Unfortunately, most PCs don't have touch screens – "yet", says Microsoft, which insists that their time is coming. On the premise that Microsoft knows what it's talking about, one company after another has been introducing new computers, mostly laptops, with built-in touch screens for Windows 8.
Many of these machines have screens that flip, twist, rotate or detach so that you can use them either as laptops or as tablets. The HP Envy x2, Lenovo Yoga, Lenovo Helix, Dell XPS 12, Asus Vivo Tab, Asus Transformer Book and the Acer Iconia W510 all fall into this category.
That's not true of Microsoft's own Surface Pro, which packs Intel's powerful i5 processor. When I reviewed this sleek, attractive tablet/PC in February, I noted that it was an incredibly well-executed hybrid. It's a half-inch-thin, 1 kilogram tablet, but the kickstand in back and the keyboard/screen cover in front let you turn it into a real Windows desktop PC in seconds. Its limitations are a feeble battery, undersize keyboard and limited storage (only 23 gigabytes in the $US900 model).
Which brings us to this piece of reader mail, which arrived shortly after that column was published: "How could you write about the Surface Pro without mentioning the Samsung Ativ PC Pro ($US1200)? It has the same Intel processor as the Surface Pro, but much better battery life, bigger screen, bigger keyboard, 1080p screen and more storage. Yet it's still under 2 pounds [1 kilogram]."
My jaw dropped. It's obvious that Microsoft had put every droplet of engineering talent it had into the Surface Pro. It's Microsoft's shining golden boy, its proof that Windows 8 isn't a tragic misfire. Could Samsung really have something better already?
The full name of the machine he was describing is the Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T, which at 18 syllables sounds as if it were named by the federal government. It's a laptop whose screen detaches, becoming a tablet, when you press a release button and tug. Awkwardly enough, in laptop mode, the detach button covers up the Windows button used to open Windows 8's Start screen. In laptop mode, you have to use the Windows key on the keyboard instead.
Yes, the Samsung weighs less than 1 kilogram, but that's the weight of the detached screen (the tablet) alone. With the keyboard attached, the whole thing weighs 1.6 kilograms. So right off the bat, this machine isn't comparable to the Surface Pro, which weighs less than 1 kilogram for everything.
All of the Smart PC Pro's guts – battery, processor, memory, cameras and so on – are in the screen. They make the top half of the laptop weirdly heavier and thicker than the bottom half, which contains only the keyboard. In other words, in laptop mode, the whole thing is top-heavy.
Some rival detachable-screen laptops are even more top-heavy – the screen portion flops away from you at the slightest touch. Then again, some of the Samsung's competitors also incorporate a second battery in the keyboard base. That helps with both battery life and weight distribution.
When you detach the screen, the tablet in your hands feels off. It's too thick, too heavy, too plasticky; the iPad and the Surface have spoiled us. And it's a wide, thin rectangle that suits movies well but feels ridiculous when turned 90 degrees. You feel as if you're holding a diving board.
The other unattractive aspect of this design is that both halves of the machine are, in effect, the ugly "bottom." Both the underside of the keyboard and the back of the tablet bear the usual painted-on paragraph of FCC notices and logos; the back of the tablet also bears an archipelago of unattractive flaps, vents and stickers. Where were the designers of Samsung's gorgeous, thin, real laptops when this thing was sketched out?
The screen is crisp and bright; it offers 1080p resolution, the highest kind of high definition. It's a touch screen, of course, intended for use with your fingers, but there's also a plastic stylus tucked away near a corner. You can use that pen for making handwritten notes and for navigating Samsung's homegrown suite of Windows programs, like the baffling S-Note document-making app.
You can project the screen image to a TV or projector either through a cable (micro HDMI) or wirelessly, using WiDi. That's a technology that, like Apple's AirPlay, requires a $100 receiver connected to the TV or projector.
The speed of this machine is excellent; it's about what you'd expect from a high-end ultrabook, or from Microsoft's Surface Pro. And there's no denying the pleasure and utility of being able to run real Windows software – your Photoshops, your Quickens, your iTunes – on a touch-screen tablet. Of course, as a Windows 8 machine, this device also runs the new-style, full-screen TileWorld apps; the Samsung comes with several preinstalled, like Netflix and Amazon Kindle Reader.
Samsung says the Smart PC offers an eight-hour battery; in the real world, five hours is more like it. That's better than the Surface Pro but still nothing like the all-day life you'd get from a real laptop. You'd also get longer battery life, and pay hundreds less, for hybrids with Intel's Atom processor instead. But that chip is much, much slower.
No question about it: The Samsung beats the Surface Pro in a few categories. You get a keyboard with more spacious keys and deeper travel. You get a bigger screen (11.6 inches versus 10.6). You get more storage. And you can adjust the screen angle on the Samsung; the built-in kickstand on the Surface has a fixed angle. That said, the Samsung's hinge doesn't permit as wide a screen angle as real laptops do.
Worse, you're paying full laptop-plus-tablet price for a machine that's not especially good at being either one. For the $US1200 you'd pay for this Samsung, you could get a very nice laptop that doesn't leave out laptoppy features like an Ethernet jack and a full-size slot for your camera's memory card.
Those compromises aren't Samsung's special achievement, by the way; just about all of the hybrid laptop/tablets have the same problem. Adding a touch screen and a detaching or hinging mechanism can't help adding weight, bulk, complexity and price. Something's gotta give.
Word on the street is that neither Windows 8 nor Microsoft's Surface tablets are selling very well. It's a safe bet that the Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T won't turn that trend around. That goes triple for its lower-powered, less expensive sibling, the 500T.
In other words, it may be that computer shoppers aren't especially interested in paying a steep price – in dollars, features and looks – for the ability to turn their laptops into tablets or vice versa. It wouldn't be the first time that manufacturers were more excited about a category than their customers turned out to be.
Unfortunately, most PCs don't have touch screens – "yet", says Microsoft, which insists that their time is coming. On the premise that Microsoft knows what it's talking about, one company after another has been introducing new computers, mostly laptops, with built-in touch screens for Windows 8.
Many of these machines have screens that flip, twist, rotate or detach so that you can use them either as laptops or as tablets. The HP Envy x2, Lenovo Yoga, Lenovo Helix, Dell XPS 12, Asus Vivo Tab, Asus Transformer Book and the Acer Iconia W510 all fall into this category.
That's not true of Microsoft's own Surface Pro, which packs Intel's powerful i5 processor. When I reviewed this sleek, attractive tablet/PC in February, I noted that it was an incredibly well-executed hybrid. It's a half-inch-thin, 1 kilogram tablet, but the kickstand in back and the keyboard/screen cover in front let you turn it into a real Windows desktop PC in seconds. Its limitations are a feeble battery, undersize keyboard and limited storage (only 23 gigabytes in the $US900 model).
Which brings us to this piece of reader mail, which arrived shortly after that column was published: "How could you write about the Surface Pro without mentioning the Samsung Ativ PC Pro ($US1200)? It has the same Intel processor as the Surface Pro, but much better battery life, bigger screen, bigger keyboard, 1080p screen and more storage. Yet it's still under 2 pounds [1 kilogram]."
My jaw dropped. It's obvious that Microsoft had put every droplet of engineering talent it had into the Surface Pro. It's Microsoft's shining golden boy, its proof that Windows 8 isn't a tragic misfire. Could Samsung really have something better already?
The full name of the machine he was describing is the Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T, which at 18 syllables sounds as if it were named by the federal government. It's a laptop whose screen detaches, becoming a tablet, when you press a release button and tug. Awkwardly enough, in laptop mode, the detach button covers up the Windows button used to open Windows 8's Start screen. In laptop mode, you have to use the Windows key on the keyboard instead.
Yes, the Samsung weighs less than 1 kilogram, but that's the weight of the detached screen (the tablet) alone. With the keyboard attached, the whole thing weighs 1.6 kilograms. So right off the bat, this machine isn't comparable to the Surface Pro, which weighs less than 1 kilogram for everything.
All of the Smart PC Pro's guts – battery, processor, memory, cameras and so on – are in the screen. They make the top half of the laptop weirdly heavier and thicker than the bottom half, which contains only the keyboard. In other words, in laptop mode, the whole thing is top-heavy.
Some rival detachable-screen laptops are even more top-heavy – the screen portion flops away from you at the slightest touch. Then again, some of the Samsung's competitors also incorporate a second battery in the keyboard base. That helps with both battery life and weight distribution.
When you detach the screen, the tablet in your hands feels off. It's too thick, too heavy, too plasticky; the iPad and the Surface have spoiled us. And it's a wide, thin rectangle that suits movies well but feels ridiculous when turned 90 degrees. You feel as if you're holding a diving board.
The other unattractive aspect of this design is that both halves of the machine are, in effect, the ugly "bottom." Both the underside of the keyboard and the back of the tablet bear the usual painted-on paragraph of FCC notices and logos; the back of the tablet also bears an archipelago of unattractive flaps, vents and stickers. Where were the designers of Samsung's gorgeous, thin, real laptops when this thing was sketched out?
The screen is crisp and bright; it offers 1080p resolution, the highest kind of high definition. It's a touch screen, of course, intended for use with your fingers, but there's also a plastic stylus tucked away near a corner. You can use that pen for making handwritten notes and for navigating Samsung's homegrown suite of Windows programs, like the baffling S-Note document-making app.
You can project the screen image to a TV or projector either through a cable (micro HDMI) or wirelessly, using WiDi. That's a technology that, like Apple's AirPlay, requires a $100 receiver connected to the TV or projector.
The speed of this machine is excellent; it's about what you'd expect from a high-end ultrabook, or from Microsoft's Surface Pro. And there's no denying the pleasure and utility of being able to run real Windows software – your Photoshops, your Quickens, your iTunes – on a touch-screen tablet. Of course, as a Windows 8 machine, this device also runs the new-style, full-screen TileWorld apps; the Samsung comes with several preinstalled, like Netflix and Amazon Kindle Reader.
Samsung says the Smart PC offers an eight-hour battery; in the real world, five hours is more like it. That's better than the Surface Pro but still nothing like the all-day life you'd get from a real laptop. You'd also get longer battery life, and pay hundreds less, for hybrids with Intel's Atom processor instead. But that chip is much, much slower.
No question about it: The Samsung beats the Surface Pro in a few categories. You get a keyboard with more spacious keys and deeper travel. You get a bigger screen (11.6 inches versus 10.6). You get more storage. And you can adjust the screen angle on the Samsung; the built-in kickstand on the Surface has a fixed angle. That said, the Samsung's hinge doesn't permit as wide a screen angle as real laptops do.
Worse, you're paying full laptop-plus-tablet price for a machine that's not especially good at being either one. For the $US1200 you'd pay for this Samsung, you could get a very nice laptop that doesn't leave out laptoppy features like an Ethernet jack and a full-size slot for your camera's memory card.
Those compromises aren't Samsung's special achievement, by the way; just about all of the hybrid laptop/tablets have the same problem. Adding a touch screen and a detaching or hinging mechanism can't help adding weight, bulk, complexity and price. Something's gotta give.
Word on the street is that neither Windows 8 nor Microsoft's Surface tablets are selling very well. It's a safe bet that the Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T won't turn that trend around. That goes triple for its lower-powered, less expensive sibling, the 500T.
In other words, it may be that computer shoppers aren't especially interested in paying a steep price – in dollars, features and looks – for the ability to turn their laptops into tablets or vice versa. It wouldn't be the first time that manufacturers were more excited about a category than their customers turned out to be.
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