ViewSonic has been in the tablet game for a long time, but its recent efforts have gotten mixed results. The ViewSonic ViewPad 10pro ($599.99 direct) is a business-oriented tablet aimed at vertical markets, where Windows functionality and IT compatibility take precedence. Along the way, it has tweaked and upgraded the tablet, shedding a few of the flaws that held back its predecessor, the ViewSonic ViewPad 10 ($729 list, 2 stars).

Design
The ViewPad 10pro keeps the same form-factor that's now so familiar in the tablet space, consisting of little more than a 10.1-inch capacitive touch screen, with ports and buttons along the edges of the bezel. An integrated light sensor automatically adjusts the brightness of the screen, making it brighter when ambient light levels drop. Its 1,024-by-600 resolution falls behind competitors, like the Fujitsu Stylistic Q550 ($849 list, 4 stars) (1,280-by-800) and Motion Computing CL900 ($1,125 list, 3.5 stars) (1,366-by-768). What the ViewPad 10pro does have, however, is a full-sized HDMI port, as opposed to the mini-HDMI port found on the Motion CL900. The HDMI port allows you to output 1080p video to an external display, whereas the mini-HDMI port will require you to purchase a mini-HDMI to HDMI port to connect it. While the display is passable, the touch sensitivity isn't as responsive as it should be. I often ran into problems getting my fingers to register any sort of touches when they strayed near the edges of the screen—where all of the scroll bars and close buttons are found.

At 1.79 pounds, the ViewPad 10pro is lighter than its competitors, like the 2.07-pound Acer Iconia Tab W500-BZ467 ($549.99 direct, 3.5 stars), 2.1-pound Motion Computing CL900, and 1.87-pound Fujitsu Q550. The ViewPad 10pro is constructed of aluminum with a glass screen. The aluminum back has a black matte finish, which provides a bit of grip while holding the tablet in one or two hands. However, its thin body (6.7 by 10.7 by 0.58-inches, HWD) doesn't leave a lot of room for heat to escape, hitting temperatures of 97-degrees Fahrenheit (as measured with a Fluke IR thermometer). The warmth can quickly be enough to make you hands sweat, making it more difficult to hold.

The ViewPad 10pro also tweaks the physical controls. The Power, Home, and Back/Undo buttons on the face of the ViewPad have been replaced with four touch-sensitive controls, more typical of Android devices. The new controls include Home and Back/Undo, as well as a button to call up a Control Center utility and a Search button (which might be mistaken for Zoom, as it's labeled with a magnifying glass). Other controls on the ViewPad 10pro include a Power button, Hold button and Volume controls along the top edge of the tablet.

Features
The ViewPad 10pro has a couple of software tweaks worth noting. The first is the keyboard. ViewSonic has ditched the clunky Windows keyboard for Swype, which aims to speed up text entry by letting you zig and zag your finger from one letter to the next, entering entire words in one fluid motion. This function worked smoothly, but it was also tripped up on occasion by the spotty responsiveness of the touch screen.

The second significant software change is the presence of Android. Unlike the previous Viewsonic ViewPad 10, which had dual-boot functionality, the ViewPad 10pro does one better, providing you with Android in Windows 7 (32-bit) via BlueStacks. Instead of requiring you boot into one or the other, BlueStacks allows a virtualized Android 2.3 environment to run in Windows, providing access to the Android interface and apps. Unfortunately, you won't be able to access Android Market, limiting you to apps available through third-parties, such as Amazon.

As mentioned above, the ViewPad 10pro is equipped with a full-size HDMI port, as well as a single USB 2.0 port and a slot for a microSD card. A front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera allows video conferencing, but there is no rear-facing camera. Internally, you'll find 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1. On the bottom edge of the tablet is a docking port, but you'll need to purchase the dock separately ($65 street).

The ViewPad 10pro is equipped with a 16GB solid-state drive (SSD), which is fast, and physically small enough to be ideal for a tablet, but its capacity is frustratingly tiny. This is only made worse by the fact that it's running Windows 7, which doesn't leave much room for storage. You'll definitely want to supplement it with a microSD card. Thankfully, ViewSonic hasn't loaded the ViewPad 10pro down with a lot of bloatware. Instead, most of the programs are utilities necessitated by the touch interface, like a touch UI and Web browser from Thinix, and a touch-friendly PDF viewer from Corel, in addition to the BlueStacks and Swype utilities already mentioned. You'll also find a starter version of Microsoft Office 2010 preinstalled.

Performance
The ViewSonic ViewPad 10pro is equipped with a dual-core Intel Atom Z670 processor (1.5GHz). It's the same processor found in the Fujitsu Stytlistic Q550 and Motion Computing CL900. In our Cinebench R11.5 rendering test, which serves as our processor speed benchmark, the ViewPad 10pro scored 0.22 points, beating out the Fujitsu (0.18 points), matching the Motion Computing CL900 (0.22 points), but falling behind the Acer Iconia, which scored 0.39 points with an AMD C-50 processor.

The limited space on the ViewSonic's 16GB SSD left us unable to run either SysMark 2007, our general performance test, or MobileMark 2007, our battery benchmark test. However, testing battery life with a looped video file provides fairly accurate, if anecdotal, results. In our video rundown test, the ViewPad 10pro lasted 4 hours 27 minutes. It beat out the ViewPad 10 consumer model (4:03) and Acer Iconia (3:20), but fell behind the Motion CL900 (7:24) and Fujitsu Q550 (7:42). As with most tablets, the battery in the ViewPad 10pro is sealed inside the chassis and is not accessible to the user.

Though it does introduce a few improvements to the ViewPad line, like the use of Swype and BlueStacks, and a revamped physical control set, the ViewSonic ViewPad 10pro is still a bit of a disappointment. For the business user, the difficulties of an unresponsive touch screen and limited storage space will not only cause frustration, they may hurt the bottom line. A smarter buy would be the Fujitsu Stylistic Q550, which offers similar performance, but a better user experience, along with a swappable longer-lasting battery.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS:
Check out the test scores for the ViewSonic ViewPad 10pro

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the ViewSonic ViewPad 10pro with several other tablets side by side.

More tablet reviews: