I have just purchased a Toshiba Encore Tablet, so far I am quite impressed, this 8″ tablet device runs a full version of Windows 8.1 and comes with Office 2013 home version all for £180.
Update 21/07 – Please be aware that the licensing of the Tablets does not allow you to upgrade them to Windows 8 Enterprise without first buying a full Windows 8.1 professional boxed edition, the license supplied with the Tablet is referred to as Windows 8.1 “Core” edition.
The tablet uses the new (Q3 2013) Intel Bay Trail Atom Z3740 processor.
Out of the box you just get the device a USB power cable and UK power adaptor, additional equipment you might need are a Micro HDMI to HDMI cable to connect to a TV or a Micro HDMI to adaptor box to allow you to connect to a PC monitor, in addition a micro USB to female USB cable will allow you to easily connect any USB device you have around.
These are a few of the initial interesting links I have found:
Intel Bay Trail Atom Z3740 processor details
http://ark.intel.com/products/76759/Intel-Atom-Processor-Z3740-2M-Cache-up-to-1_86-GHz
Toshiba Forum showing a mix of drivers to enhance the current Toshiba set (from various notebook suppliers)
http://forums.toshiba.com/t5/Encore-Tablets/Most-recent-and-functional-driver-mix-for-Encore-tablet/td-p/522785
Techspot review of the Toshiba Encore, includes benchmarks.
http://www.techspot.com/review/784-toshiba-encore/page2.html
Toshiba Encore charging whilst using USB devices.
http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/toshiba/60229-charging-encore-whilst-using-usb-devices.html
Bay Trail article with some of the negatives.
http://www.cringely.com/2013/12/13/may-want-windows-bay-trail-tablet/
Toshiba Encore Tablets Forum
http://forums.toshiba.com/t5/Encore-Tablets/bd-p/brd_Encore
The tablet isn’t without it initial problems much of which have been discussed in the links above and can be resolved.
Hypervisor support
One other interesting area is that the processor supports a hypervisor so in theory you can run a virtual environment on this tablet ! (Bearing in mind the tablet only has 2 GB of RAM)
I wonder if we will see a hardware hack to mount an additional 2 GB (this is the maximum amount the processor can utilise according to the Intel specifications mentioned above).
Charging and using USB at the same time.
The following cable should allow you use other USB devices and charge or at least not lose charge of the Toshiba Encore.
Update 21/07 – I can confirm this cable will charge and allow you to use a USB device at the same time.
StarTech 3-Feet USB Y Cable for External Hard Drive – Dual USB A to Micro B (USB2HAUBY3)
