Samsung ATIV 500T (Windows 8 x86 Tablet) for $499 at Newegg + V.me

Quote from petard : Heard of a USB hub? And what does he do with his desktop? A desktop nowadays is usually bought for their powerful components at good prices. This is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. It's an ATOM processor which sacrifices performance for power consumption and cost. It also has an extremely small 64GB SSD. If the desktop components are only used for web browsing and the like then yeah this could replace it with this. You mention a gamepad though. Is he only using it for old games and emulators? This won't run any new PC game.

Yes, I'm sorry, I should have clarified from the beginning what I meant. I do know what a USB hub is, I use several: one to charge 3D glasses, another couple in computers to connect multiple devices. I have a Dell Docking station that is mostly a port replicator, has like 5 USB 2.0 ports, etc.

The points I've seen are completely correct, and are the way I'd be setting it up, with a USB hub, of course. In fact maybe I'd put it on a cooling pad, the one I have comes with 4 USB 2.0 ports. And BT keyboard + mouse could work.

My point was solely to that I could not find information about the hdmi port. I know one can also connect a USB to DVI and get a screen plugged that way. I mean I work with computers all day long, and have my own jig on the side building custom desktops. Again, I just failed to find information regarding the uHDMI, and couldn't locate it on the pictures I had seen.

Regarding "what does your son do with his desktop?"

Absolutely NOTHING. He does not touch it, and has been like that since I built it. He's used it for maybe 20 hours total. It has a Core i5-2500k, 8GB RAM, 120gb SSD, no video card (figured I'd check if he needed it first, and I guess I saved myself some money!).

All in all, the only thing he'd need the tablet for is casual gaming (talking counter-strike tops, but mostly angry birds, some puzzles...), netflix, hulu, Office 2013, drawing (just for fun), and internet for researching and doing school work (Study Island). He needs flash.

Now, I put well over $1,000 on his machine, and is not that old, and barely used, and the parts haven't gone down much in price at all.

He's pretty much been grounded since beginning of January lol.

So yeah, this may give you a better perspective. I was looking into a Surface Pro for me. I have a Core i7 930 at 4.5GHz, 12GB DDR3, 3TB HDD, 256GB SSD, Geforce GTX460 1GB, Blu-Ray... but as it happens, it's always turned off. I love the machine and it's great, when it's on. But my daughter tends to find the power button and press it whenever she passes by. After a few reiterations, first it makes me want to pinch her booty, and second it makes the motherboard believe there was a bad OC, so it reverts to defaults. I've had it disconnected since September. All in all, the only thing stopping me from the Surface Pro, aside from price, is the awkward dual-screen combination (I should say triple screen including the tablet). I'd have to connect one through USB and don't know if that's what I want to do (it might do just fine). For the rest, I may need more ram. I want to use it as my BYOD at work and my personal computer at home, connecting it to a HUB with all my stuff ready at each place. I use Image editing software/creation, Visual Studio, Java, SQL Server management tools, Office...I tend to have over 40 things open at once, including several instances of each of the programs mentioned already.

I'd do, if any, more gaming than my step-son. Looking into checking out FFXIV, though to be honest, with 2 little girls my hands are pretty tight lol. My wife is always on her Kindle Fire HD. Wonderful machine it is. She also has an Acer 18.4" Core i7 laptop. Figured maybe I could switch her to a windows 8 tablet as well, but I'm not sure she'd give up on her Kindle Fire HD. I have a KFHD8.9 as well, and N7, and ... so many other things that don't matter right now.

In conclusion.

My step-son will be doing mostly Office, web browsing, light gaming (old games or flash games), and media. Personally, I was thinking about an RT tablet for him, but at same price point, why not go with full Windows 8? I personally think having a dock and an active pen would be of good use for him.