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Home > Windows Tablet Reviews > Toshiba Encore 2 8 inch Tablet (WT8-B32CN)
Toshiba Encore 2 8"
What's Hot: Very low price, sharp and colorful IPS display, good stereo speakers.
What's Not: Just 1 gig of RAM means multitasking can be painful.
Reviewed December 9, 2014 by Lisa Gade, Editor
in Chief (twitter: @lisagade)
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Toshiba's Encore 2 8 inch tablet is one of the most affordable Windows 8.1 tablets on the market. These days, it seems that manufacturers are in a race to the bottom with low end Windows tablets, and their prices undercut Android tablets as well as the pricey iPad. The 32 gig Encore 2 sells for just $149 at many stores, and the elusive 64 gig model is $199. Given that Windows program sizes tend to be considerably larger than their mobile OS counterparts (Android and iOS), 32 gigs is very little space since Windows 8.1 itself takes up about half, leaving 16 gigs free after installing Office 365 (one year free included) and Windows updates. The tablet runs Windows 8.1 with Bing, which is a new name for the same old Windows 8.1 32 bit that we've seen on most Intel Atom Windows tablets. Bing is set as the default search engine, which is also true of the non-Bing versions of Windows, but you can set the search engine to whatever you like. The Encore 2 is a Windows machine that can run programs designed for Windows 7 and Windows 8.
This is a budget tablet, so expect a plastic casing and large bezels. That said, the Encore 2 is a wonderful redesign that looks sleek and slim compared to the last gen Toshiba Encore. We're not fans of the gold color (more like washed-out champagne) that extends even to the front bezel, but it does stand out from the sea of black tablets. The tablet feels reasonably sturdy and all seams meet cleanly; build quality is good given the price.
The Encore 2 has a sharp and colorful 1280 x 800 IPS display, and we're fine with that resolution on an 8" panel. The crisp display is one of the tablet's strongest features, in fact. This is a touch screen with no support for active digitizers or pens, so you can use a capacitive stylus but nothing fancier. It runs on the 1.3GHz Intel Atom Z3537G with just 1 gig of RAM. The 2 gigs we saw in older Intel Atom Windows tablets felt pretty sparse, and with only 1 gig, multi-tasking is rough--expect slowdowns. Still, it's fine for using IE with 5 tabs open and email running in the background. It can handle HD and 1080p video playback, just make sure you don't have several other programs running in the background.
Speaking of full HD video playback, if you want to play content back on a larger screen, there's Miracast wireless display but no HDMI port (most Windows 8" tablets lack HDMI). The tablet has a micro USB port used for charging (5v 2 amp like Android tablets and the iPad). That port does double duty as a USB port, but you'll need to get a micro USB host cable, also called an OTG cable, to use hard drives, 4G dongles, printers and any other USB device supported by Windows. Since this runs full Windows, the same devices and drivers that work on your Windows laptop and desktop will work with the Toshiba. The Encore 2 has a 3.5mm combo audio jack and a microSD card slot where you can store music, movies and your files. Windows 8.1 doesn't support installing programs to SD cards. Single band WiFi 802.11n and Bluetooth 4.0 provide wireless connectivity, and there's no 3G/4G option (though you can use a USB dongle, MiFi or your smartphone's mobile hotspot feature with the tablet).
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