Posted on 05/27/2014 11:15:43 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
If you think Windows tablets are too darn expensive, Toshiba wants a word with you. The company's latest tablets, called Encore 2, run full Windows 8.1 and start at just $199.
For that price, you get an 8-inch tablet with 1,280 x 800 resolution and a quad-core processor. It's powered by a quad-core Atom chip with 1GB of RAM, and there's 32GB of storage, which you can augment with a microSD card. Battery life is rated at up to 10 hours, and Toshiba offers a 10-inch version with almost exactly the same specs for $269.
To hit those price points, Toshiba is preloading the tablets with Windows 8.1 With Bing. The new variant of Windows, which leaked in February, is Microsoft's latest move to enable Windows tablets to go toe-to-toe with cheap Android models — like the 7-inch $110 Excite Go tablet Toshiba also just announced.
To the consumer, Windows 8.1 With Bing isn't much different from Windows 8.1. In a blog post, Microsoft claims Bing will be the default search engine for Internet Explorer on those devices, but that's true of any Windows tablet. The OS is installed by the OEM; consumers won't be able to buy or download Windows 8.1 With Bing directly. More importantly, the tablets include a one-year subscription to Office 365. More importantly, the tablets include a one-year subscription to Office 365.
The inclusion of Office is important because it was previously the differentiator for Windows RT devices. It appears, now that support for Windows RT has all but disappeared, Microsoft has created a new way to package Office with Windows by offering this new flavor of Windows.
Toshiba's Encore 2 tablets are the first ones to run Windows 8.1 With Bing, but they certainly won't be the last. Look for several more models to appear over the next couple of weeks in the lead up to the big Computex trade show in Taiwan, which begins June 3.
So 8 Gb free after Windows and a 1GB ram that is full all the time. It’s not a tablet; it’s a brick.
Could be interested - it’s mostly a toy, but what the heck. Interesting is that Microsoft still hasn’t released Touch Office for anything but the Mac. I’m wondering how this one will deal with that. Thanks for posting and BTT.
1 GB RAM? So, I can’t really run FileMaker Pro or Adobe Creative Suite 4 on it. Heck I doubt I can run WordPerfect X6, Microsoft Excel 2013 and Waterfox at the same time. The previous poster who said “brick” was right.
No thanks....It’s got that win 8 crap on it
Can you wipe it and load Android or Linux?
in before the mac snobs.
bottom line prices are dropping.
Better yet when they fail to sell, the price will come down even more. Supply and Demand works with computers as well.
Dell has a decent Windows tablet for $ 280 or so, I think. I like Android tablets, but I looked at the Windows tablets when making my choice.
I didn’t think they allowed advertising on FR........
Great. Now if they offer a discount by subtracting the 129 dollars it costs for ‘doze 8.1 from the price, I might be interested. I would install the DSL distro or Puppy Linux on it at the very least and then run some benchmark tests and publish the results.
My main question would be about built-in obsolescence, like iPads, which must be returned for a “new” iPad once the battery goes to crap.
I don’t appreciate ongoing implied contracts like that.
I won’t buy anything Toshiba. Why? Remember or maybe you don’t, Toshiba sold the USSR computer software that could be used to mill silent propellers for submarines. Back during Ronald Reagan admin.
Props that wouldn’t cavitate and make noise underway.
Made tracking Russian subs much harder.
I’m not sure who the good guys or bad guys are anymore either in the geopolitical world or the tech world. Maybe there just aren’t any more good guys period.
This isn’t designed to be a full-blown PC. This is designed to compete against the Kindle Fire HD (which my wife loves) that is a web surfing, facebook updating, app games playing toy.
They claim they're reinventing the laptop with this tablet.
Surface Pro 3 comes with a 12" display, Windows 8.1 Pro, an Intel i5 processor, 8Gb RAM, and 256 Gb HDD. There's a slightly enhanced model for $1799.00 that doubles the drive space.
I'm unsure who in their right mind would choose to buy one of these Surface Pro 3s at that price point over a MacBook Air for almost $600 less for almost identical features, or a MacBook Pro against the high-end Surface Pro 3.
What you'd be getting is an i5-based Windows 8.1 pen/touch tablet that costs $1500.00+ and has less power/performance/features than a larger screen full featured Windows 8.1 budget laptop that costs half the price. And for the money you're shelling out for the high end Surface Pro 3, you can almost get the top of the line MacBook Pro.
Before anyone spends a plug nickel on the new Microsoft Surface tablet, they better go look and see what happened to the early adopters of last year's Surface RT tablet.
Seems that industry onlookers are dubious in the extreme.
$1200 buys you a very capable laptop.
I guess what this form-factor is selling is primarily light weight and secondly, depending on model and specs, battery life.
Personally, I’d rather tote the heavier laptop and pocket the savings, but I guess opinions vary...
1gb RAM? Will that even run Windows 8.1?
probably true
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