[jraph]

Sounds like a configuration issue somewhere. I've run KDE on several computers with no lags, and I am quite sensitive to lags.

I also run KDE on an under-powered (even at the time it was released) x86 tablet released in 2011 (the Airis Kira Slimpad - Intel Atom N450 1,66 GHz, 1 GB RAM DDR2 @ 800Mhz, Intel GMA 500). It was the only desktop environment that was kinda usable on a tablet at the time. It's slow (this tablet is exclusively used to play music by auto starting Clementine), but not slower than anything else.

A 5400rpm disk is tough though with today's distributions and maybe Xfce does fewer disc accesses than KDE. You probably should disable desktop search if you haven't.

[tintedfireglass]

I guess it's the hdd thats causing the problems. I guess your tablet has emmc flash storage causing it to be pretty responsive compared to my machine that's better spec and newer too........