Toshiba Encore 2 (10-inch) re-examine

Toshiba isn't different to the Windows 8 tablet marketplace -- the company debuted the 8-inch Encore behind schedule carry on time -- but the Encore 2 is the Batteria portatile company's basic 10-inch exemplary. This svelte slate sports a quad-core Intel Atom computer, Windows 8.1 and a one-year subscription to administrative center 365 on behalf of righteous $269. That's the lowest value yet we've seen on behalf of a Windows tablet this size. A $299 exemplary includes a baby grand having the status of well. Ought to the Encore 2 stay your basic catalog?

The Encore 2 10 shuffle sports a slim and elegant faux-aluminum bodywork with the aim of belies its plan value. On the front, a glossy silver bezel frames the 10.1-inch make an exhibition of, with a 1.2-megapixel front-facing camera centered by the side of the top. A tiny chrome Toshiba logo is located by the side of the substructure gone corner. The rear panel skin texture a Satin gold dull kill that's nicely tough to fingerprint smudges. A 5-megapixel camera is located by the side of the top true corner, with an embossed Toshiba logo by the side of the substructure gone.

The speakers are positioned on both area of the tablet, along with a 3.5mm headphone/microphone combo jack, microSD tag slot (expandable up to 128GB), micro HDMI docks and microUSB 2.0 docks on the gone. The power button and volume rocker can stay found on the top side.

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Toshiba Encore 2 (10-inch)Oddly, Toshiba additionally placed the Start button on the top side, more readily than beneath the make an exhibition of having the status of we've seen on nearly everyone Windows medicine. Unfortunately, the button's tiny size and peculiar placement made it inconvenient to consumption.

By the side of 10.19 x 6.89 x 0.35 inches and 1.4 pounds, the Encore 2 is marginally heavier than other 10-inch Windows slates such having the status of the $379 Acer Aspire Switch 10 (10.3 x 7 x 0.3 inches, 1.2 pounds) and $349 ASUS Transformer paperback T100 (10.4 x 6.7 x 0.41 inches, 1.2 pounds). The 8-inch $299 Acer Iconia W4, an alternative reasonable Windows tablet, measures 8.6 x 5.3 x 0.38~0.42 inches and weighs righteous 14.6 ounces (0.91 pound).

Cook
Unfortunately, the Encore 2 runs strong in minder consumption. Later than streaming capture on tape on Hulu on behalf of 15 minutes by the side of chock-full screen, the front of the tablet averaged 102 degrees Fahrenheit and the rear panel 104 degrees. We consider no matter which beyond 95 degrees uncomfortable.

Make an exhibition of
Toshiba Encore 2 (10-inch)The Batteria portatile Encore 2's 10.1-inch, 1280 x 800 hint screen boasts vivid ensign and spacious viewing angles. Whilst we watched a high-definition promo on behalf of "Transformers: Age of Extinction," the robots' armor looked rich and bubbly, and the details appeared suitably crispy. The picture didn't degrade even whilst we rotated the tablet approximately 30 degrees both horizontally and vertically.

Whilst we measured the brightness with our light indicator, the Encore 2 averaged 323 lux (296 nits). This outshines the Transformer paperback T100 (204 lux) and the kind common (265 lux), though it's dimmer than the Aspire Switch 10 (365 lux) and the Iconia W4 (343 lux). Whilst we took the tablet outside, we had attention viewing it in the sphere of express sunlight, even with the brightness by the side of 100 percent.

According to our colorimeter, the Encore 2 is just skillful of displaying 63.5 percent of the sRGB color array. This is to some extent supplementary than the Aspire Switch 10, which can make an exhibition of 63.5 percent of the array, but under the tablet common of 68 percent. A significance closer to (or above) 100 percent is better.

The tablet fared much worse on the Delta-E yardstick, which measures color accuracy. The Encore 2 registered a rating of 10.1, significantly top than the kind common of 5.4 and the Aspire Switch 10's near-perfect rating of 1. A Delta-E keep a tally of 0 reflects just the thing color accuracy.

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The multitouch make an exhibition of responded quickly and accurately to our input. We had rebuff quandary, on behalf of instance, executing gestures such having the status of scrolling, pinch-to-zoom and side swiping.

Audio
The twin speakers on the Encore 2 delivered rather loud and bright sound, but audio by the side of the low conclusion is tremendously weak. Whilst we listened to Alice in the sphere of Chains' "Would," the treble drowned unfashionable the changeable low line. Even by the side of highest volume, however, the guitar and vocals didn't suffer from tininess.

The Dolby Digital Plus audio suite skin texture presets on behalf of movies, melody, games and voice, having the status of well having the status of custom presets. You can additionally enable a surround virtualizer, volume leveler and graphic equalizer. However, unlike supplementary robust audio software, the encode doesn't accede to you fine-tune being settings like the low.

On the Laptop Audio Test, in the sphere of which we gauge the volume of a single tone from a distance of 23 inches, the Encore 2 registered 83 decibels. This is louder than the Aspire Switch 10 (82 dB), the Iconia W4 (78 dB) and the tablet common (82 dB).

Interface and Software
Toshiba Encore 2 (10-inch)The Encore 2 ships with Windows 8.1, the hottest iteration of Microsoft's touch-friendly OS. The revise skin texture a amount of upgrades to the Windows 8 interface, plus the capability to close tile applicationswithout swiping down, display all apps whilst opening the Start menu and to turn straight to the desktop whilst you sign in the sphere of.

The tablet additionally ships with a one-year subscription to Microsoft administrative center 365, giving you access to Word, Excel and other administrative center applications. A year-long subscription to administrative center 365 mother country is worth $119, which makes the slate's $269 value tag an even better significance.

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Furthermore the subscription to administrative center 365, near are very a small amount of preinstalled applications on the Encore 2. The just Toshiba-branded programs are Service Station, which lets you stumble on and install software updates, and Function means, which allows you to enable special functions on behalf of precise keys whilst the tablet is paired with the Batteria portatile baby grand. Using the Function means single-mindedness, you can additionally reverse the function keys on the baby grand, which allows you to consumption the function keys with no needing to influence down the Fn means.

Toshiba Encore 2 (10-inch)There's additionally Fresh Paint, an painting single-mindedness with the aim of lets you go for from a variety of brush types, ensign and other settings. TruCapture is an single-mindedness designed to convalesce the readability of text in the sphere of pictures captured with the camera. TruCapture is a rather powerful tool -- using a variety of cropping techniques, on behalf of instance, it can roll out text taken on a curved object or else in the sphere of a paperback. Although we found the single-mindedness intuitive to consumption, its everyday effectiveness isn't bright.

Performance
Toshiba Encore 2 (10-inch)Packing a 1.33-GHz quad-core Intel Atom Z3735G computer and 1GB of RAM, the Encore 2 has a sufficient amount horsepower to tackle everyday tasks like browsing the a tangled web, streaming movies and in performance chief games like "Angry Birds Star Wars." Anecdotally, we practiced very not very slowdown whilst we browsed the a tangled web in the sphere of Chrome with a dozen tabs direct while streaming melody via Spotify and running a chock-full arrangement look at in the sphere of Windows Defender.

On behalf of our objective yardstick tests, we compared the Encore 2 with two other 10-inch Windows medicine, the Acer Aspire Switch 10 (1.33-GHz Intel Atom Z3745 computer with 2GB of RAM) and the ASUS Transformer paperback T100 (1.3-GHz Intel Atom Z3740 computer with 2GB of RAM). On behalf of foster comparison, we used the Acer Iconia W4 (same specs having the status of the T100).

On PCMark 7, a man-made yardstick with the aim of measures overall performance, the Encore 2 jagged a keep a tally of 2,154. This spray behind the Transformer paperback T100 (2,338), Aspire Switch 10 (2,447), Iconia W4 (2,499) and the tablet common (2,777).

The Encore 2's 32GB SSD banal 4.97GB of mixed-media library in the sphere of 2 minutes and 9 seconds, on behalf of a rate of 39.5 MBps. This is earlier than the Aspire Switch 10 (23 MBps), Transformer paperback T100 (25.3 MBps) and the kind common (27.7 MBps).

The tablet's Atom computer showed its limitations on the OpenOffice worksheet Test, taking a whopping 22 minutes and 33 seconds to match 20,000 names and addresses. The other slates performed marginally better, completing the test in the sphere of 21:03 (Aspire Switch 10), 20:48 (Transformer paperback T100) and 21:34 (Iconia W4). The tablet common is 16:34.

On the 3DMark Ice Storm Batteria portatile yardstick, which measures overall graphics performance, the Encore 2 achieved a keep a tally of 12,500. That's top than the Iconia W4 (8,910) but well under the Aspire Switch 10 (17,836), Transformer paperback T100 (15,879) and the kind common (15,725).