(from left to right) Sumner Lemon, Country Manager for Intel Malaysia and Singapore, Daniel Chia, Principle, IPRO Mobile (M) Sdn Bhd and Darren Ryan, Director PC Category Management, APAC, Consumer Channels Group, Microsoft with the iPro Livepad 8.9 and it's demo truck
Intel is looking to really help local Malaysian tech companies into the limelight by providing Intel tech and expertise for mobile devices. This includes local device maker iPro and we were recently able to get some hands-on time with their latest iPro Livepad 8.9 tablet. Powered by a 64-bit Intel Atom Z3735F processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage and an 8000 mAh battery this surprisingly powerful tablet also sports an 8.9-inch full HD (1920 x 1200 pixels) display and Windows 8.1. The Livepad 8.9 was recently on promotion at Plaza Low Yat for just RM699 with a free bluetooth keyboard (complete with trackpad) and casing worth RM199 for 500 early-bird buyers. Unfortunately, all of these keyboard and casing promos have already been snapped up. The RM699 offer is still available for buyers at www.iclickz.com while stocks last (as of the time of writing, they still had stock) but after this the tablet is expected to retail at RM799. We managed to score some hands-on time with the iPro Livepad 8.9 tablet below.
A solid metal frame with tempered glass front and back gives the flat and thin iPro Livepad 8.9 a very premium and solid look and feel while the trackpad equipped keyboard casing turns it into a laptop on the go
Compared to the Joi 8, the Livepad 8.9 looks and feels much nicer despite being priced at just a few hundred ringgit more
Build quality for the iPro Livepad 8.9 is surprisingly solid. Featuring a metal frame and a flat and thin design, the Livepad 8.9 also comes with a layer tempered glass on the front and back for a very premium look and feel. In addition, it features a free Office 365 Personal subscription for a year and it also has a built-in recovery system, so you can use this if anything goes wrong. Darren Ryan, Director PC Category Management, APAC, Consumer Channels Group, Microsoft was on hand to confirm that the iPro Livepad 8.9 would be one of the devices to get a free upgrade to Windows 10 sometime in July 2015. We didn't manage to run any benchmarks on it but in a live demo, the Livepad 8.9 ran CounterStrike 1.6 with pretty smooth framerates. While the tablet is coming in white and black, only the white version is currently available with the black version and a 32GB version expected sometime in March. The 32GB version is expected to retail for a bit higher at RM899. Relating plans for the future, Daniel Chia, Principle, IPRO Mobile (M) Sdn Bhd, said that a larger and more premium version probably called the livepad 10.6 is expected in June with a 10.6-inch full HD display, 64GB of storage.
The iPro Livepad 8.9 was powerful enough to run CounterStrike 1.6 and display it on a full HD HDTV
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