Cisco Cius review: First Look

Cisco Cius review: First Look

The vast majority of tablets released to date have been aimed at consumers. The RIM Blackberry Playbook is allegedly designed for businesses, but it's also clearly aimed at consumers too and, overall, we think it is a half-finished and half-hearted attempt at best. The Cius, on the other hand, feels very different. Built by networking colossus Cisco, this Android tablet has been built from the ground up for businesses.

Unlike almost all other tablets, the Cius will have a user replaceable battery.

Specs appeal

The Cius has a 7in screen with a very unusual resolution of 1,260x700 pixels. It feels a bit chunky in the hand, but the plastic case feels very robust and well-made – we couldn't make the case flex under pressure no matter how hard we tried. Unlike the vast majority of other tablets which use ARM-based processors, the Cius uses an Intel Atom chip although Cisco had yet to confirm whether this was a dual-core Atom or perhaps one of the new tablet-specific Oak Trail Atoms. At 530 grounds it's light for a tablet.

The Cisco Cius in hand.

Unlike almost all other tablets, the Cius will have a user replaceable battery. This should make up for what will probably be very short battery life – Cisco's official estimate of eight hours is well behind the battery runtimes of other, admittedly larger and heavier tablets.

WiFi is built-in with 3G/4G models coming later. Oddly for a tablet, the Cius can also be used as a phone for making voice calls as well as video calls. There is a method to Cisco's apparent madness though as we'll reveal later.