IFA 2014 kicked off in Berlin this morning, and already we're seeing an interesting trend emerge: Those cheap-and-cheerful small-screen Windows 8 tablets that Microsoft promised back in April are finally arriving. Both Toshiba and Acer have announced their offerings (priced at $120 and $150 respectively), and the usual OEM suspects (Dell, HP, etc.) should unveil their offerings over the next couple of days. These tablets will all be fairly low-spec devices with either a 7- or 8-inch screen, and most of them will be powered by an Intel Atom (Bay Trail) SoC. This means you can now get a full Windows 8.1 device for just $120 - a proposition so juicy that Microsoft hopes it can entice customers away from cheap Android tablets and into the Windows camp.
Toshiba's Encore Mini was the first small-screen Windows 8 tablet announced at IFA. It sports a 7-inch (1024×600) screen, quad-core Bay Trail (Atom Z3735G) SoC, 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of storage. Early hands-on reports say the screen has bad viewing angles. Connectivity-wise, there's a micro SD slot, a micro USB 2.0 port, Bluetooth 4.0, 802.11n WiFi, and even front- and rear-facing cameras. Windows 8.1 comes pre-loaded, and you get a year of Office 365 Personal and 1TB of OneDrive storage thrown in. The thing is light (12.5 oz, 354 gr) and Toshiba says its battery is good for 7.3 hours of use. The Encore Mini is pretty darn barebones, but for $120 it's a very good deal. It's available to buy today, and should ship in the next couple of weeks.
Acer's Iconia Tab 8 W is basically exactly the same thing, but with an 8-inch 1280×800 display (it may also have 32GB of storage, but I haven't found any definitive specs yet). It will arrive in October and cost $150. HP is expected to announce the Stream 7 - a 7-inch (1280×800) Windows 8.1 tablet - at IFA in the next couple of days, probably priced around $150 as well. There will probably a 7- or 8-inch tablet from Dell, too, and perhaps Asus and Lenovo - though they may opt to stay out of this round of no-profit-margin Windows devices.
These sub-$200 Windows 8.1 devices are a very interesting proposition. Now that Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 are free for all devices rocking 8-inch-or-smaller screens, it's finally possible for Microsoft and its OEMs to match the price of Android devices, which have forever ruled the cheap tablet market. This doesn't instantly make Windows a better tablet OS than Android, but consumers will definitely take a closer look at cheap Windows tablets before automatically opting for a Galaxy Tab or other Android tablet. It's also important to note that this is a full-fat version of Windows 8, with the Desktop available if you wish to use it. Grab a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard, and perhaps an external hard drive, and the $120 Toshiba Encore Mini suddenly becomes a rather cheap productivity or media center PC.
I don't think cheap tablets are going to trigger some kind of Windows 8 reconnaissance, but they could be a good way to keep the engines running - and, perhaps more importantly, get a larger swath of the consumer base acclimated to the Metro interface - while Microsoft works on Windows 9.
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