TOSHIBA ENCORE 8

Toshiba’s first entry in the 8” tablet market, the Encore 8 is a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Item by item, the Toshiba Encore 8 specs list isn’t impressive per se, but the overall package is solid enough to appeal – particular with its reasonable price and Windows 8.1 operating system.

The backside textured pattern notwithstanding, the appearance of the Toshiba Encore 8 is pretty damn innocuous, i.e. this tablet is another mostly plastic black-bezel job. Thusly nearly indistinguishable from any generic 8” tablet, the specifications too lie mostly squarely along standard lines – one can easily imagine Toshiba designers blueprinting this tablet, some sort of clipboard checklist app running on another manufacturer’s device. And they begin ticking boxes:

The display itself hits the lower end of the scale, with just 1280 x 800-pixel resolution; a few makeup points here, though, for the nice soft backlighting. Above average, meanwhile, is the 32 GB in storage space offered in the Encore 8 tablet, with a 64 GB model also available. Also aboard are a micro SD card slot (just in case the user needs even *more* storage space), micro USB 2.0 and micro HDMI ports.

As for cameras in the Encore 8 tablet, you guessed it: Two of ‘em, 2 MP in the front, 8 MP in the back, each of the expected quality. Naturally, Toshiba ticked off the WiFi-compatible box on the checklist, and a nice up-to-date perk is included with the Bluetooth 4.0 inclusion.

See what we mean? The Toshiba Encore 8 sure doesn’t look like much on paper; it’s essentially the average in tablets, with some pluses and minuses … but then there’s the price. Starting at around $300 for the 32 GB version, the Encore 8 is already an attention-grabber – and $400 or so for 64 GB? That ascends this tablet into consideration for anyone seeking an affordable Windows-based 8” device.