One of the first things that we want to point out is that the New iPad is pushing 2k resolution. This is going to put the processor and GPUs under more stress. So realistically the New iPad is doing very well considering the resolution that it is trying to churn out (something we talked about in relation to Apple’s 4x claim on the GPU).  No the almost identical score is not what gets us and makes the threat of Windows 8 to Apple and Google more real is the listing at the top of the screen.  This is the Acer Icona W500 tablet running Windows 8.

The Acera Icona will set you back about $550 without the keyboard dock. It has an AMD C-50 CPU under the hood with an AMD 6250 GPU pushing out the graphics 1280x800. This puts this tablet in the same price range as the New iPad but on a platform that can run a full version of Windows (which means more flexibility and more options for backwards compatibility. It is things like this that really push home what a successful Windows 8 launch for ARM and x86 will do to the tablet market. We might even see that lead that Arm has in this space begin to dwindle as newer and more power efficient CPUs are released from AMD and Intel.

Apple and others can crow all they want about how well Android and iOS are doing, but the simple fact is that a working Windows 8 platform could put a stop to all of that. Just look at the score we picked up running IE 10 on out EEE Slate EP121..

We hope that Apple, Google and ARM are up to the competition that will be coming in Q4.

Discuss this in our Forum