14 DAY TRIAL // Cheap Android tablets are so yesterday. Since Microsoft decided to make an entry in the budget tablet market by offering Windows 8.1 with Bing free of charge to device manufacturers, we have seen important changes in the ecosystem.
The first really affordable tablets with Windows 8.1 onboard started emerging, and at IFA 2014 we even got to take a look at Toshiba’s new Encore Mini tablet, which takes tablet prices all the way to the $120 / €93 margin.
Windows 8.1 tablets are getting so cheap
Now the Chinese low-cost tablet maker is launching a tablet that goes below the $100 / €78 threshold. The slate boasts the name Pip Work W4 and will go on sale in the China for just $81 / €63, reports Asian industry watcher Mike Cane.
For the time being, we are not sure whether the company will launch it somewhere else other than the Asian continent, but the tablet will probably be picked up by third-party re-sellers in the US and other Western territories.
The tab is dubbed “Work” to draw attention to the fact that the slate runs Windows 8.1 out of the box. Hence customers will be able to get productive with the tab too, on top of using it for media consumption and gaming activities.
Anyway, you’re probably interested in finding out what the basic specs for the new tablet are. As you’d expect, they are pretty standard for a budget slate like this.
Pipo Work W4 will arrive in the wild with an 8-inch IPS display taking advantage of 1280 x 800 pixel resolution and an Intel Atom Z3735F quad-core Bay Trail processor under the hood, fitted with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage.
Apart from that, the tab supports Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and has two pretty unimpressive cameras (2MP on the back and 0.3MP up in front) plus a decent 4500 mAh battery which should be able to sustain life on the tablet enough.
Budget Windows 8.1 tablets come with certain disadvantages
Even as these tablets seem to be a great deal at first, in one of our earlier pieces we argued that Windows 8.1 with Bing slates might not be worth buying at the moment, because they come with some important limitations.
For starters, they offer only 1GB of RAM and just 16GB of internal storage, which will surely prove insufficient and you’ll find yourself forced to upgrade soon.
On top of that, these tabs come with a limited free subscription (1 year) for the cloud-based Office 365 Personal.
But at this price, the Pipo Work W4 is an absolute bargain and some users might not resist the urge to take advantage of it. Even with its limitations, the tab might be able to successfully fulfil the standard set of tasks.
