Gigabyte S1185 review

The Gigabyte S1185 is a Windows 8 tablet with a 10-point touchscreen and a keyboard dock that’s powered by an Intel Core i5 processor. Even better, it’s running the full version of Windows 8, not the restrictive RT version. At first glance, you could almost mistake the S1185 for the Microsoft Surface Pro 2 were it not for the S1185’s brown exterior. We’re not fans of the S1185’s colour, but its glossy black bezel looks smart thanks to edge-to-edge glass and silver trim.

We were particularly impressed with the S1185’s 11.6in 10-point touchscreen. It’s by far one of the best screens we’ve seen from this manufacturer, as its Full HD display was bright and free from any type of grainy finish. The S1185 uses an IPS panel to provide wide viewing angles, and we had no problem seeing the S1185 anywhere on our desk.

It had the picture quality to match, too. Blacks could have been a little deeper, but whites were true and reds, greens and blues were all deep and vibrant. The screen’s glossy finish helped colours look lively, and it wasn’t too reflective under bright overhead lights. Contrast levels were equally superb. Darker areas of shadow were rich with detail and colours remained rich in all of our high contrast test photos.

Our only concern was that the S1185’s touchscreen occasionally froze and wouldn’t respond for short periods of time. Each time wouldn’t last long, but it happened often enough to make using it frustrating, which rather defeats using it as a tablet.

If you’d rather use it as a laptop, the S1185 has a kickback stand on the rear of the tablet so you can prop it up on a table. Unlike the Surface Pro, it’s height-adjustable thanks to two rubbery strips at either end to help it grip your work surface. In theory, this makes it a far more flexible device, but in practice it’s not particularly sturdy and its plastic flap has a tendency to fall completely shut if you pull the screen toward you, making it fiddly to change the angle. It would have greatly benefitted from a stronger, more robust hinge, and even relatively mild jabs on the touchscreen made it rock rather precariously.

This is a shame, as its underlying components make the S1185 one of the most capable Windows 8 tablets we’ve seen. It’s powered by a 1.8GHz Intel Core i5-3337U processor, the same processor used in many Core i5-based Ultrabooks. The S1185’s overall score of 39 in our multimedia benchmarks is lower than we expect from this processor, and the score is eight points behind that of the Microsoft Surface Pro 2. However, the S1185 is considerably more powerful than Atom-based tablets such as the Dell Latitude 10, and the S1185 more than capable of everyday office tasks and web browsing.

Sadly, the Intel HD Graphics 4000 graphics processor built into the S1185’s CPU chip isn’t suited to playing 3D games, and the S1185 failed to produce an average frame rate of 15fps in our Dirt Showdown laptop graphics test. We had to set quality settings to Low and disable anti-aliasing to produce an average frame rate of 24.8fps at a resolution of 1,280×720, but even that isn’t high enough for truly smooth play. However, you should have no problem playing 2D games from the Windows 8 Store.

The S1185’s main advantage over other Windows 8 tablets is its wide range of ports and connections. It has one USB3 port, one USB2 port, HDMI and VGA display outputs, a microSD card slot, and a combined headphone and microphone jack. The S1185 even has a SIM card slot, which means you can stay connected to the internet when travelling.

Unfortunately, the S1185 was a lot less pleasant to type on than either the Surface Pro 2 or the Acer Aspire P3. Aside from its flimsy, rubbery dock, the flat keys didn’t produce nearly enough tactile feedback as we’d have liked. There wasn’t much travel between the keys and keyboard tray, either, which made it feel as if we weren’t hitting the keys correctly.

We were also disappointed with the touchpad. The smooth surface was reasonably accurate and responsive when we were navigating the desktop, and we had no trouble performing multitouch gestures. However, we’d prefer larger buttons, as the touchpad’s small size made it feel cramped and fiddly to use.

As for battery life, the S1185 lasted 4 hours and 39 minutes in our light use test with the screen set to half brightness. We expect Windows 8 tablets to last at least five hours.

The Gigabyte S1185 is a competent Windows 8 tablet, and the included keyboard dock means you can, to a certain extent, use it as a laptop, but we suspect its price and divisive looks will deter potential customers. At £876, the S1185 is also expensive. The Microsoft Surface Pro 2 is the superior tablet in almost every way, even when you factor in the additional cost of a keyboard, and is a better buy.