Built on 14 nm process technology, "Kaby Lake" is the first high-end Intel processor line that no longer officially supports any OS prior to Windows 10. This allowed Intel to fully optimize the chips for current software technology, including advanced inherent high-res video capability, mostly in the hardware encoding/decoding areas.

A new implementation of Speed Shift lets the CPU control turbo frequency instead of the operating system, which means the chip can speed up much faster.

MobileDemand xTablet T1270 CPUs (see full specs)	Intel Celeron	Intel Core	Intel Core
Model	3965U	i5-7200U	i7-7500U
Code Name	Kaby Lake	Kaby Lake	Kaby Lake
Availability	Option	Standard	Option
Lithography	14nm	14nm	14nm
Cores/Threads	2/2	2/4	2/4
Base Clock Speed	2.20 GHz	2.50 GHz	2.70 GHz
Turbo Speed	no turbo	3.10 GHz	3.50 GHz
Thermal Design Power (TDP)	15 watts	15 watts	15 watts
Smart Cache	2MB	3MB	4MB
Instruction set	64-bit	64-bit	64-bit
Integrated graphics	HD Graphics 610	HD Graphics 620	HD Graphics 620
Graphics base speed	300 MHz	300 MHz	300 MHz
Graphics max speed	900 MHz	1,000 MHz	1,050 MHz
Graphics EUs	12	24	24
Intel vPro	No	No	No
Intel Virtualization	Yes	Yes	Yes
Intel SIPP	No	No	No
Intel Trusted Execution	No	No	No

While mobile computing products often come with a selection of processors that are very close in terms of performance, MobileDemand chose to space its trio of CPUs available for the T1270 fairly wide.

The "low-end" 3965U, while marketed under the Celeron brand, is still a Kaby Lake Core processor, albeit one with less Smart Cache and lacking hyper-threading, turbo boost, as well as a number of instructions. Its graphics subsystem is also less powerful, with only half the number of graphics execution units as the other two chips. This chip is plenty competent, but won't provide the peak performance bursts of the other two CPU options.

The Core i5-7200U is sort of a low end of Intel's mid-range Core processors. It's a modern dual-core, quad-thread chip running at a base frequency of 2.50GHz and a maximum turbo speed of 3.10GHz. This chip should provide nearly twice the computing power of the Celeron (4,640 vs 2,470 v9 CPU Mark, according to cpubenchmark.net).

On the high end, the Core i7-7500U is in essence an even quicker version of the i5-7200U, but the difference is much smaller than that between the i5 and the Celeron. Expect perhaps a 10-12% increased in CPU performance of the 7500U over the 7200U.

The processor, however, is only one part of the performance story. True, Intel some time ago began calling the short-term overclocking of its high-end processors "turbo boost," but there's another kind of turbo boost that's at least as important to overall bottomline system performance as the turbo boost, and it's not time-limited. And that's memory and disk performance.

On the memory side, it's not just RAM speed that matters. It's also the data transfer rate between the memory controller and memory itself. Usually, it's just a single channel, but dual and even quad-channel configurations are possible for a substantial increase of the data transfer rate. MobileDemand uses a dual-channel configuration to optimize performance.

Then there's mass storage. The simple story here is this: in mobile systems, rotating hard disks have largely been replaced with much faster solid state "disks" (they are chips and not disks at all). Now those original SSDs that used a SATA interface are slowly being replaced with much faster PCIe-based SSDs. We got the first taste of PCIe-based disk performance a year ago, Summer 2017, when Xplore sent us their top-of-the-line XSLATE R12 with an Intel PCIe SSD. That tablet scored by far the highest score of any tablet we had ever run through our benchmarks. The performance advantage was so dramatic that we're quite surprised that almost no one quickly switched to PCIe as well.

But now MobileDemand has, with the xTablet T1270. And with an additional year of PCIe-based storage progress and MobileDemand's use of dual channel memory, just how fast would the T1270 be?

To provide an idea of the kind of performance the xTablet T1270 offers, we ran our standard benchmark suite, Passmark Software's PerformanceTest versions 6.1 and 9.0, that run about 30 tests covering CPU, 2D graphics, 3D graphics, memory, and disk and then computes scores for each category and an overall PassMark score. Since it's almost unfair to compare PCIe storage tablets with those with older SATA SSDs, we just included the only other two PCIe-equipped tablets we've tested, Xplore's R12 and the new Xplore XSLATE L10.

That begins with the Lithium-Ion battery that is recessed flush into the backside of the tablet so it can quickly and easily be replaced; the internal, non-replaceable batteries used in most consumer tablets would be unacceptable to most business users. A friction lever with a push button activator securely holds the battery in place, making it unlikely that it'll come loose accidentally.

Since there is no battery compartment cover, the battery contact area has a rubber seal that presses against the magnesium frame to make a watertight seal. Whenever replacing the battery, make sure the seal is fully intact.

The battery itself is rated at 7.6 Volt, 6,200 mAH, for a total of 47 watt-hours. That's not an awful lot for such a powerful machine. Better get a spare or two for work in the field (MobileDemand offers "toaster style" battery chargers to charge the spare batteries in bulk, up to four at a time).

Like many mobile devices, the xTablet T1270 has individual access doors in the back to get to RAM, wireless, mass storage, and other areas. Each of the thin, tough plastic covers is secured with a number of small Philips screws. Note that one of the two covers also include the fingerprint scanner and Smart Card reader, so there are two ribbon cables that connect to the motherboard.

The housing of the xTablet T1270 consists of a frontal box and then a back cover, held together by about 20 small Philips screws. To separate the halves, first remove the back parts of the four protective bumpers, then remove all the screws. The halves come apart fairly easily. Sealing between the halves is of a tongue-and-groove design, with a very thin white silicon seal sitting in the groove around the perimeter of the back plate. Make sure that is sitting properly and is undamaged when reassembling the tablet.

Below you can see the xTablet T1270 taken apart, with its top and bottom parts sitting side by side.

As is plainly obvious, this is no consumer tablet with a tiny hyper-miniaturized circuitboard that with all functionality integrated. Instead, there is a large, complex motherboard that fills the entire real estate inside, much like in a high-performance laptop. There are numerous modules, add-ons, and a good number of wires, many of which will likely be out of sight in final production units. The tablet is built around a strong and very rigid magnesium chassis with cutouts for access to replaceable standard and optional modules.

Proper thermal management and engineering are crucial in a high-performance tablet, and so it's no surprise that there's plenty of visible copper tubing and heatsinking, all designed to collect heat and guide it to the heat exchanger next to the unit's small fan. The fan is sitting in its own enclave compartment inside the tablet, so that it's technically on the outside of the tablet. Liquids won't hurt the fan.

To the right, another look at the speedy Samsung NVMe solid state disk. It's mindboggling that a module about the size of a stick of chewing gum can provide a half a terabyte of super-fast mass storage.

Just to put that in perspective, back in 1983 the first IBM PC XT stunned the world with a big, hulking 10MB hard disk. The little stick of gum inside the xTablet T1270 can accommodate 500,000 times as much data.

Our eval unit came with an unbuffered 8GB Hynix DDR4 PC4-2400 SDRAM DIMM in the tablet's visible RAM slot, securely held in place with a padded bracket. A second RAM slot sits behind it, and was equipped with a second 8GB module. There also was a Sierra Wireless AirPrime EM7455 Qualcomm 4G WWAN module.

Also present was the optional Honeywell N3680 high-performance 2D barcode scanner (see here) with Adaptus 6.0 technology. The N3680 supports a wide set of 1D and 2D barcode symbologies, along with advanced imaging capabilities such as reading poorly printed bar codes and reading barcodes directly off smartphone screens.

Below is a closer look at some details. On the left the small waterproof fan that removes heat from the processor and ancillary electronics, enabling the T1270 to perform at a high level even under extreme operating conditions. In the middle the Sierra Wireless AirPrime WWAN module, and on the right a closer look at the silicone seal inside the tongue-and-grove channel on the back plate.

We've always felt that each type of mobile computing devices has an optimal display size that, for a variety of reasons, works best for the kind of use the class was created for. Interestingly, that's only true to a certain extent. Prevailing screen sizes for phones, tablets and notebooks have been going up and down quite dramatically over the years, often without easily discernible reason. Fashion contributed, but perhaps even more so the never-ending quest to differentiate products from one another. With devices that are often very much the same, what better way to stand out than to make them either ever smaller or ever larger?

Technology certainly comes into play. Windows, designed for desktop monitors, definitely benefits from as much screen real estate as possible. Having a screen that's large enough to comfortably use Windows is a welcome option for many users.

And with a diagonal screen size of 12.2 inches, the xTablet T1270 indeed offers a generous amount of display real estate. It's a good third more area than on a 10-inch class tablet. In an era where many smartphones have full 4k displays, 1,920 x 1,200 is no longer at the leading edge, but it still well suited for this size display.

The T1270 display offers about 800 nits brightness. That is significantly more than your average consumer tablet, and bright enough for most outdoors applications. Since strong backlights draw a lot of power, the T1270 uses its light sensor to automatically adjust screen brightness.

Overall, like most tablets with glossy multi-touch displays, the T1270 has some reflection issues in high-contrast environments, perhaps a bit more than we like. On the plus side, it is very bright, has very good contrast, and remains viewable from any angle, without the dreaded color shifting of lesser displays. There is a slight degradation in brightness when the screen is viewed from extreme angles, likely the result of the slight anti-glare component of the display surface, but not to an extent where it becomes an issue.

Cameras, conventional and depth-sensing

All of this is a work and technology in progress, but it's very easy to see how spatial awareness can be used for an emerging range of productivity-enhancing 3D measuring applications. And having it available in a high-performance rugged tablet such as the xTablet T1270 is a natural.

Ruggedness