Windows 8.1;
8-megapixel rear-facing camera;
64GB internal memory
Manufacturer: Toshiba
The Toshiba Encore is a £250 8-inch tablet that runs on
Microsoft’s Windows 8.1 Pro operating system, giving you access to Microsoft
Office, the Windows Store and the more familiar Desktop version with Start
button now reinstated.
Joining the Dell Venue Pro 8, the Acer Iconia W4 and Lenovo
Miix2, the Encore runs on Intel’s Bay Atom processor, which means it's capable
of handling a the full version of Windows, not the RT version seen in the likes
of the Surface 2. But having spent time with a buggy pre-production model
earlier this year, and two review units, it's clear Toshiba has still not
ironed out all of its niggling issues.
Toshiba Encore: Design
Bigger than the 7.9-inch iPad Mini 2 Retina and the 7-inch
Nexus 7 2, the Encore is a pretty uninspiring thing to behold. Its
predominantly plastic body lacks the same slim and sleek feel of Apple's
smaller tablet and lacks the more comfortable soft touch back of the Nexus. The
Encore measures in at 10.68mm thick, so it’s not as slim as the iPad mini 2
Retina (7.5mm) or the Nexus 7 2 (8.65mm) and at 450g it's heavier than both,
too.
A single capacitive Windows Home button sits alone below the
screen to flip between desktop and tablet mod,
with stereo speakers situated on the bottom edge of the tablet. The volume
rocker and on/off button sit on the right edge of the device. and up top is a
micro HDMI, micro USB port and headphone/mic jack. Over on the left, there’s a
Micro SD card slot to expand storage beyond the 32GB on board.
The dimpled grey plastic back houses the 8-megapixel camera
and to make the most of Microsoft’s Skype integration, Toshiba has also
included a 'Skype certified' 2-megapixel front-facing web camera with dual mics
to help audio in video calls to come out nice and clear.
Despite its size, the Encore's chunkiness makes it a little
uncomfortable to hold in one hand in portrait mode -- it's much better in two
hands. In landscape mode, meanwhile, it’s all too easy to hit the on/off button
instead of the volume rocker as well. Both these facts make the Toshiba Encore
a cumbersome tablet, which it really shouldn't be given its size. It feels
sturdy and well-made, but it's not that nice to handle.
Toshiba Encore: Screen Quality
The Encore features a reasonably bright 1,280 x 800 LED
display, effectively matching the original Nexus 7 and the Dell Venue 8 Pro (full
review coming soon) for resolution and detail. This is fairly underwhelming in
comparison to the second generation Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HDX 7, both of
which feature 1,920 x 1,200 IPS displays. Both are cheaper, though smaller
screen tablets, but for an extra £50 it's not unreasonable to expect a little
more.
Still, it’acceptable for reading web pages and video
streaming. Video is sharp and viewing angles are decent, but it lacks the
vibrancy, colour accuracy and ability to capture more natural tones the way
similarly priced tablets are able to. The 189ppi pixel density means you
shouldn’t expect exceptional clarity, either. It’s suitable for the tiled,
tablet-optimized user interface and reading web pages, but the desktop mode
isn't quite so forgiving.
But the real problem with the Toshiba Encore's screen if its
responsiveness, or lack thereof. At times just selecting apps or trying to skip
back a web page proves problematic. Even the lock screen struggles to register
screen presses at times. It's a tablet that will test your patience and by this
point our patience was already running thin.
Toshiba Encore: Software
So the design and screen look and feel a little below what
you might expect of a £250 tablet. But you begin to claw back some value given
the Encore runs a full version of Windows 8.1 and not the flop of an operating
system, Windows 8 RT. This means you can actually install applications like
Adobe Photoshop and Spotify to make up for the still disappointing showing in
the Windows Store, and even plug the tablet into a large screen to use it like
a desktop PC.
Consequently the Encore will feel familiar to anyone who has
used any Windows 8 laptop or tablet. The core tablet apps like Skype, Xbox and
Bing powered hubs for sport, weather and health are all here, as is the charm
bar when you swipe inwards from the right side of the screen and the ability to
have apps 'snap' to one side of the screen so you can browse the web and have a
Skype conversation at the same time.
All this sounds promising and unlike most Windows 8 laptops
and tablets, the Toshiba Encore comes with a full version of Microsoft Office
Home and Student 2013. This makes it a potential desirable tablet if you are
student and looking for something portable to carry around to lectures,
especially as you can connect to a monitor, mouse and keyboard when you get
home.
Indeed, this is a necessity really as using Office with the
virtual keyboard and touchscreen controls on the tablet this size is very
awkward -- a Bluetooth keyboard is a must if you want to type on the move. This
is the same in other desktop-based applications. You can run and use desktop
apps on the move, but you probably won't want to.
While Windows 8.1 works a treat on larger hybrids like the
Asus Transformer Book T100, it's a very different story on an 8-inch tablet
like this. We'd add that Microsoft could do with making Windows easier to setup
for first time users as there's an awful lot of faffing about obtaining
authorisation codes that means it takes longer than it ought to.
Toshiba Encore: Performance
The Encore is powered by an Intel Atom Bay Trail, a
quad-core chip clocked at 1.7GHz with 2GB of RAM to help. The Intel chips are
designed specifically for Android and Windows tablets and hybrid devices to
provide better performance and battery life than its Clover Trail predecessor,
and to help keep the tablets prices low.
Bay Trail is a serious step forward for the Atom processor
range and it copes fine with everyday use, but there are still times when it
seems like it struggles. Swiping through the tiled interface is fluid enough
and it handles snap to multitasking running YouTube and Rayman Fiesta Run on
the same screen, but launching apps and web page loading times can be painfully
slow at times -- it even hangs on occasion.
Performance in games is mediocre, too. There’s some
noticeable framerate drops in more demanding games that suggests that the GPU
on board falls short of the GPUs in the best phones and tablets. In 3D Mark's
Ice Storm Extreme gaming benchmark it racks up a 14,024 score, putting it
someway behind the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 powered Nokia Lumia 2520 (16,123),
although it outperforms the Microsoft Surface Pro 2 (13,557). It will handle
much of what the Windows Store has to offer, it just won’t blow you away for
speed and smoothness in every corner.
It's also worth noting we've come across more than a few
bugs in our time with the Encore, so much so we had to request a second sample
and perform a complete refresh on one occasion due to the screen becoming
totally unresponsive.
Toshiba Encore: Camera
To take care of picture-taking duties, there's a 2-megapixel
front-facing Skype-certified camera and an 8-megapixel main camera with 1080p
Full HD shooting abilities to play with. The camera UI itself is on the basic
side, leaving you take your pick of still or video shooting and swiping up from
the bottom of the screen to add some extra options like changing exposure,
setting the timer and picking front or the rear-facing camera.
Up front, the 2-megapixel camera captures images with a good
level of detail compared to smaller tablets like the Nexus 7 2 and the Amazon
Kindle Fire HDX 7. Colours are not as vibrant as we would like, but crucially
it's more than adequate for making Skype video calls and that's going to be the
best use for it.
Despite the limitations of the UI, the main camera manages
to produce suprisingly sharp, colourful images. Photos taken up close in
well-lit surroundings are the most rewarding because as soon as you attempt
something a little further back the drop in quality begins to show and image
noise is more noticeable. There's no flash on board, which makes night-time
shots a tall order, although in dimly lit conditions images are reasonably
detailed even if the colour accuracy is a lacking.
Likewise with shooting video, detail is very good until you
try to get more adventurous and the lack of any kind of image stabilization
means video can struggle for smoothness.
Toshiba Encore: Speaker quality
Don't be fooled by talk of Dolby Digital Plus and any of the
other audio-enchancing features mentioned with the Encore as it does a good but
not amazing job churning out sound for watching films or playing games. The
pair of stereo speakers at the bottom of the tablet are distinctly average for
listening to music and lack the power, detail or richness to make good use of
that six month free Xbox Music subscription. It’s the same for gaming and
watching video, it’s loud but an underwhelming performance.
Toshiba Encore: Battery Life
Where the Encore doesn’t disappoint is battery life. Packing
a 2-cell Lithium-ion you can expect up to seven hours on a full charge and we
actually got closer to eight hours running a TV series continuously on Netflix.
In more intensive daily use, you will need to charge it up, but it will
definitely make it through the day. If you've forgotten to charge it overnight
and it's on critical battery life it doesn't have tremendous recovery ability.
In our numerous tests from a 5% battery level it jumped up by around 4% over
half an hour connected to the USB charger supplied with the Encore.
Should I buy the Toshiba Encore?
In theory, the Encore at £250 has much to offer. It’s an
affordable 8-inch tablet with all-day battery life and has access to a full
version of Windows 8 including Microsoft Office. In reality, certain aspects of
Microsoft’s operating system just don’t work on such a small device. Trying to
use it in a traditional Windows way is far too frustrating and buying a
Bluetooth keyboard is the only way you will get great use of having Office
access. The buggy, unresponsive performance we endured did not disappear even
with our second review model, so it makes it difficult to recommend.
For less than £250 you can buy a Nexus 7 2, albeit without
Microsoft Office, yet it’s still the best 7-inch Android tablet out there. You
can download the Office Mobile for Office 365 app, but you will need to have an
Office 365 subscription to use it on the tablet. The iPad mini 2 Retina costs
£319 so there’s a £70 difference. For the extra spend you will get an easy to
use tablet with access to Office in the same way you can with the Nexus 7.
The real and obvious alternative, however, is the Asus
Transformer Book T100. It's larger and more like a laptop-tablet hybrid, but
that also makes it great deal more practical and useful. The Toshiba Encore
feels like a product looking for a problem to solve, and whatever that is it
doesn't achieve its goal.
Verdict
The Toshiba Encore is a Windows 8.1 tablet with more bad
points than good so the search for a great small, standalone Windows tablet
goes on.
No comments:
Post a Comment
All comments will be posted after moderation. Please do not post links in your comments, otherwise they will not be published.
Thank you.