Very much to Motion's credit, and likely also due to their long experience in the tablet market, the company didn't simply copy. Instead, they seemed to analyze the iPad, learn from it, and then merge some, but not all, of the concepts into their own new product. So while the iPad's runaway success pretty much defined what a modern tablet ought to look like (sleek, black, simple), Motion only followed that recipe to some extent. The CL910 does look like a wide-screen iPad — a sleek, glossy tablet with a glass surface and minimal controls. It's a bit thicker than the iPad, but not by much. And though it's in an entirely different dimension as far as ruggedness goes, it doesn't weigh much more, tipping the scale at just a little bit over two pounds. Yet, Motion also stuck to their guns. For all the sleek look, the CL910 remains a mobility solutions for vertical markets, one that tries to do what Motion tablets have always sought to do, bring the convenience of the tablet form factor to the Microsoft world.

But they sure had an amazingly competent crystal ball. The original CL900 was introduced almost two years ago, long before the public knew of Windows 8, and long before Microsoft's Surface tablet concepts, and yet Motion's CL tablet nailed Microsoft's specs before they even existed.

Below you can see the Motion CL910 from the front and all four sides:

Yes, it looks just like a 2012 Surface tablet. While at the time a lot of the newly announced tablets had smallish 7-inch screens, Motion gave the CL a nice, big 10.1-inch LCD with 1366 x 768 pixel resolution. That was more than the original iPad, and more than all of the early iPad copies. And, incidentally, it's what Microsoft decreed for Windows RT tablets.

What's a bit different is the processor situation. While Microsoft decided that it would make ARM-based tablets that run Windows RT and Windows 8-based tablets with Intel Core processors, as well as third party tablets with a variety of Intel chips, including the recently announced Atom Z2760, Motion started with what Intel was pushing at the time, the "Oak Trail" Atom Z670 (the Z670 was supposed to establish Intel as a force in the emerging tablet market). When we benchmarked the original CL900, it was no slug, beating the performance of devices based on first generation Atoms by 30-50%. But it wasn't a barnburner either.

So what has changed in the CL910 is the processor. The so-so single-core Atom Z670 chip gave way to a much more potent dual-core Atom N2600. Frankly, while Intel's idea of selling simpler, less complex and less expensive processors under the "Atom" family name was not a bad one, the performance limits imposed on the economical Atom chips so they would not overlap with the more profitable Core processors has been quite frustrating on many levels. The dual-core N2600 should go a long way in fixing that. And with this chip come much better integrated graphics, more and faster RAM (2GB of 1333MHz DDR3 instead of just a gig of 800MHz DDR2), a doubling of SSD storage (64-128GB instead of 32-64GB), and the latest version of Bluetooth, 4.0.

Now that said, Intel has already moved on yet again, and a whole roster of recently introduced Windows 8 tablets from the likes of Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. now use the even newer quad core Atom Z2760. We have not yet benchmarked any Z2760-based devices, but data found on the web suggests that Z2760 is not significantly ahead of the N2600.

Standard storage is via a 64GB solid state drive, with an optional 128GB version also available. Our review unit came with the 128GB version.

What did Motion use for touch? After all, a good part of the iPhone/iPad's overwhelming success is that light touch and the way you can use two fingers to effortlessly zoom in and out. Multi-touch is clearly a resounding success for media tablets, as evidenced by the fact that virtually all smartphones and competing consumer tablets are now using procap as well. Motion implemented multi-touch on its high-end J3500 tablet, and that worked quite well (see my video demonstration on YouTube). So Motion has experience in making multi-touch work. The CL900 and CL910 use n-Trig's DuoSense (see DuoSense page) technology that combines pen and multi-touch into a single sensor. It works quite well on the CL910 although, of course, Windows 7 was never designed to be a touch-friendly operating environment.

Wired connectivity isn't generally a strong side of small tablets, mostly because there's not enough space to include a bunch of standard-size connectors. With the CL900/910, Motion actually offers more connectivity than most. There's a USB port, a micro-HDMI video port, an SD Card slot and also a heavy duty dock, something that Motion has been fine-tuning for many years now. There's 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi and BlueTooth, of course. And if you need mobile broadband, there's the optional Gobi 3000 module that can connect and communicate with whatever carrier you choose. Also worth mentioning is that the CL910 offers additional expansion potential via snap-on peripheral modules such as the one shown in the picture to the right.

The picture below shows the primary interface block on the left side of the CL910, with the protective rubber cover held open. There is the SDHC card slot, a SIM card slot, a micro-HDMI port, a 3.5mm audio in/out jack, and a standard USB 2.0 port. To the right of that is the covered power jack. To the left of the I/O block are three push buttons, one for power, one for the standard Windows Alt-Ctl-Del, and one to show battery charge via five tiny green LEDs on the front of the tablet.

The Atom Z670 processor of the original Motion CL900 performed quite well. Compared to systems based on earlier Intel Atom Z-Series processors, that is. But even the stellar performance of its speedy Toshiba solid state disk and the Z670 processor's remarkable ability to handle OGL graphics didn't make the CL900 more than "quick enough." It was clearly hindered by what has been described as early Atom processors' "targeted performance," i.e. just enough for the job at hand. That can work just fine for embedded systems with clearly defined, limited jobs. In a general purpose tablet such as the initial CL900, we found that "reaction isn't always instant."

And that's why the biggest improvement in the new CL910 is its significantly more powerful dual-core Atom N2600 processor. As stated earlier, when we first heard the news of the CL910, we estimated that the CL910 model would offer twice the processor performance, significantly improved graphics performance, and a 30-35% overall performance improvement compared to the original CL900 model.

To see how the Motion CL910 display fares outdoors, we compared it to a 3rd gen iPad. While the iPad display is just about as good as it currently gets indoors, it has received much criticism for its (lack of) outdoor performance. That's not entirely fair as the iPad is bright enough for most outdoor lighting conditions. The problem is that iPad screens are so glossy that reflections often make it impossible to see what's on the display. Even indoors that can be a problem (see picture to the right). Business-oriented devices like the CL910 must do much better if they are to fulfill their purpose as mobile business tablets suitable for work anytime and anyplace.

Did Motion succeed? They did. While the iPad display has that currently fashionable "black mirror" look with a super-glossy finish, the Motion display surface is a muted semi-matte. This doesn't totally eliminate reflections, but to cuts them way down.

To examine how the semi-matte CL910 screen works outside and in the sun, we took a series of outdoor comparison pictures between the Motion tablet and the iPad on a bright California fall morning. The first picture below shows the tablets in partial shade. Both are bright enough outdoors to be easily viewable, but the glossy iPad display is far less readable due to distracting reflections.

The second picture below shows the tablets in the same partial shade spot, but from an angle. The iPad still has reflections, meaning users have to angle their iPad just right to avoid them. The CL910 doesn't show reflections here, but semi-matte displays tend to diffuse light and take on a slightly milky look from certain angles. This was a big problem with older fully matte displays, but it's mostly been resolved now. As is, from this angle the CL910 display looks darker, but remains quite readable.

A look from the other side pretty much shows the same. The iPad reflects its surroundings and those reflections can quickly render the display unreadable. The CL910 again has a slight milkiness to it, but the screen remains readable.

The picture below presents the tablets at an extreme angle. Motion early on recognized the importance of a display that remains viewable from all angles, without any color shifts or chromatic aberrations at all. In their F5t and J3500 models they achieve that by using the superior Hydis AFFS+ technology. The CL910 display is not quite in that class. It has a perfect viewing angle without aberrations rotating around its long axis. The viewing angle is also almost perfect when rotating the display around its short axis, but there are color shifts.

The hardest test for any outdoor-viewable display is exposure to direct sunlight. Even the strongest backlight is no match for the sun, and so it falls to the display technology and the various applied optical coatings to eliminate as much reflection as possible while combining with a reasonably strong backlight to still generate enough contrast to retain a degree of viewability. Here again, Motion's decision to pass on a glossy display surface pays off: though it doesn't appear brighter than the uPad, the lack of mirror-like reflection makes the CL910 much easier to see and use in sunlight.

When we reviewed the original Motion CL900, it came with the EXO (see here) software platform, a touch-oriented user interface where each screen may contain as many as 77 circular icons. Each icon would either trigger an action or bring up another page. The round icons could be dragged around. And there even was an EXO store with a surprising number of very decent apps. Motion had also included ExTOUCH (see here), another piece of software to make using Windows 7 easier on a tablet. ExTOUCH (see here) isa helper application that makes it easier to launch applications, switch between apps and perform basic Windows operations such as cut and paste, etc.

Finally, while our review CL910 no longer had EXO and ExTouch, it did come with the usual Windows Tablet apps. Over the years Microsoft quietly improved handwriting recognition and the Input Panel, and the recognition engine included in Windows 7 works quite well. The CL900 had Microsoft Journal, a handy electronic inking notepad that, depending on your style of work, can be a very useful productivity tool. Journal let you write notes in electronic ink, do drawings, convert handwritten notes to text, email your notes, and so on. There are different size and color pens, highlighters and also an eraser. See the screen snap to the right for an example. It wasn't on the CL910 tester, but should still be available.

Still there was the latest implementation of the clever Snipping Tool is much quicker and less intrusive than prior versions and lets you quickly snag part of a page, screen or window and then annotate it with ink before saving it as a PNG, GIF or JPG file or emailing it somewhere. I am not going to include all the examples and illustrations we ran with the original CL900 review (which is here).

What it all means is that running Windows 7 on a tablet like the CL910 is different from using an iPad or an Android tablet. There is no easy way to make Windows 7 act like a touch-friendly OS. But you do have the full power and leverage of full Windows 7 available to you, and that includes huge customization potential. It's easy to see custom applications that both take full advantage of the CL910's now much quicker tablet hardware as well as of the fact that this is still standard Windows 7 with all of the advantages that entails.

So the Motion CL910, while not a tank, is quite tough and rugged, much more so than consumer tablets. And I am sure Motion thought about the many trade-offs between size, cost, weight and ruggedness long and hard before deciding on the CL910's specs. They have a decade's worth of experience listening to their customers to back up their decisions.

Docks and accessories

Motion offers a variety of docks and accessories for the CL900 tablet. They are designed to provide protection and extra functionality. Available are (among other):

• The CL-Series Docking Station lets you position the CL910 at a convenient (but non-adjustable) angle for use in office situations. The dock has an RJ45 Ethernet port, three USB 2.0 ports, and power. As the picture to the right shows, the dock can make the CL910 the centerpiece of an office/desktop computer (we often use our netbooks this way).

• A form-fitting silicone slip cover, similar to the sleeves people use for their smartphones.

• A portfolio carrying case that serves as a tablet stand; also comes in a swivel version.

• A Carry Sleeve with shoulder strap or a CL-Series X-strap that secures the tablet to the hand.

What can you expect from the Windows 7-based Motion CL910

The starting price has gone up to US$1,259 (the CL900 began at US$899). That is still a bargain for a ruggedized device that runs full Windows 7 and will almost certainly have a much lower total cost of ownership than consumer tablets. – Conrad H. Blickenstorfer, December 3, 2012