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Linx 10V64 Review – the budget Windows 10 tablet on a new playing field?

Rating: ★★★★

PROS:

  • Improved Atom processor and 4GB RAM for the first time in the Linx range
  • Windows 10 performance better than ever
  • New kickstand definitely a welcome design improvement

CONS:

  • Low resolution 720p screen (still!)
  • Touchpad leaves something to be desired
  • Slow to charge

Buy now from Amazon – £219

Linx are stepping up to the challenge of improving performance on their portable, lightweight tablet range this year and the latest product to reach the high street is this – the Linx 10V64. It packs a punch for the pricetag with a brand new Intel Atom processor and an impressive upgrade to the memory with it now boasting 4GB of RAM – but are the new features enough to make it the best budget Windows tablet around right now? Let’s find out!

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Introduction

The Linx 10V64 is far from the first Windows tablet they’ve ever made, and Linx now have a growing range of options to suit a wide variety of needs. They’ve come a long way from the Linx 10 they first released back in 2014 with a wide range of designs now available all with different accessories and specifications.

The current generation of Linx tablets for 2016 includes the Linx 820 for those who prefer the smaller screen size, the Linx 1020 which looks remarkably similar to last year’s 1010 and this – the Linx 10V64, which is a new specification baseline for 2016.

Where does this one stand? I’d say the 10V64 is aimed at slightly more power hungry users who are looking for more of a casual laptop substitute as opposed to a travel tool or toy. Don’t get me wrong – it’s never going to give the Microsoft Surface Pro a run for it’s money, but you’ll certainly be able to multitask more practically with it and possibly even handle light gaming (emphasis on the light, though!).

Design

The Linx 10V64 shares more design similarities with its distant ancestor, the Linx 10, than with its more recent predecesssors. With this model, you’ll notice the reintroduction of the fold-over material cover design, but with several improvements. Most signficantly, you now have a physical kickstand, and it’s fair to say this is world’s apart from the oragami style stand we had with the Linx 10. You have the capability to stand the tablet at two decent viewing angles – one that’s aimed at close up usage and the other that’s more aimed at film viewing. The kickstand is sturdy and while a little thinner than I’d like, it does have a reassuring level of strength that suggests it should withstand day to day usage happily.

Other design changes include the clip on keyboard cover, which makes a satisfying click when docking it to the tablet itself. Additionally, they’ve made a couple of connectivity changes which might be seen as better or worse depending on the angle from which you’re standing. You now only have a single USB 3.0 Type-A port (instead of two on the 1010), but you do get a microUSB OTG cable in the box to provide you with that extra port should you need it. The charger is now a hardwired microUSB plug which provides 2A of power – I’m not entirely sure why Linx decided to go down this route instead of providing a power brick with a USB port. Cost savings, maybe?

Hardware

Under the hood is where you’re going to notice the vast majority of improvements. The Linx 10V64 sports an Intel Atom x5-z8300 quad core processor which has a higher general clock speed and a lower SDP, resulting in greater performance with less battery drain. In addition, you now get 4GB of DDR3 RAM instead of 2GB. As a result, the device is much more capable of multitasking and will quite happily juggle 3 or 4 applications at the same time without any signifant slowdown.

64GB of eMMC storage is fitted by default (around 20GB of which is used by the device itself) – this isn’t a gargantuan amount but will happily store your office software and a small multimedia collection. For those that need more, there’s a MicroSD card slot which supposedly will allow you to add up to 200GB more storage with the right card.

Network connectivity is little improved since the last model with the device still supporting 802.11b/g/n. Sadly there’s still no 5GHz support which is a shame, but most day-to-day users probably won’t notice the difference.

The only real area of disappointment is the screen, which still only operates at a resolution of 1280×800 (720p). I’d have happily paid a little more to see this reach 1080p, but Linx clearly have a few old display units they need to use up!

Battery life

Battery life is one area where the Linx 10V64 carries the baton from the last generation. Under normal use (web browsing and music playback), I was able to achieve around 6 hours of usage which is more than usable. Dim the display a little and you might even squeeze out another hour of juice.

Unfortunately, the same level of enthusiasm isn’t felt when it comes to charging the tablet. From flat to full, it took almost as long to charge as it took to discharge. This is largely down to the poor 2A power input which really should have been improved since the last model.

Display, keyboard and mouse

I used the tablet as my daily driver for a few days just to get an idea of the user experience, and for the most part I was pretty impressed.

Typing isn’t a problem at all with this tablet – the soft keys took a little while for me to get used to but I found myself typing at a decent speed in no time. Key travel is average and the keys sometimes feel a little stubborn, but it’s more than acceptable for a device of this size with a decent amount of space between each key.

The touchpad is, as usual for this kind of device, fairly disappointing. In fairness, moving the mouse and clicking with the touchpad is pretty comfortable – however, it has a huge tendancy to be over-confident with the pinch to zoom function, meaning it’s all too easy to zoom in and out while browsing a webpage in error. If you’re going to be using this tablet a lot at a desk, I’d strongly consider investing in a Bluetooth or USB mouse.

Thankfully, the usability of the device is redeemed as soon as you start working with the touchscreen. It’s incredibly precise and has no input lag whatsoever – this is really great to see. Colours are a little washed out when viewing photos, but the brightness of the device makes it easy to work with it a well-lit environment.

Worth the upgrade?

If you’re still using a Linx 10 or any other old Windows 8 tablet, I think there’s definitely a fair argument in favour of upgrading. Linx have made the effort to improve the raw performance, and this does show when using the device for extended periods. Apps launch much more quickly than on older models and the boot up from cold speed is a matter of seconds – something that puts devices like the iPad to shame considering the size of the Windows operating system. You’re going to struggle to get better value for the specifications – when you consider you’re getting a specification equivelent to a mid-range small laptop, it’s hard to beat for a little over £200.

For those using the Linx 1010, it’s a more difficult set of scales to balance. The form factor is very different compared to the 1010, and those who want a solid keyboard/touchpad cover will be disappointed. However, if you’re looking for a power boost and you’re not too worried about the loss of one of your USB ports, this could still easily be soon as good value for money.

For the first time Windows tablet buyers…

This is a steal. If you’re in the market for a Windows 10 tablet and you haven’t got the cash to go for a Microsoft Surface, this is the one to go for in my view. You’ll want to look elsewhere if you’re going to be using this for professional video editing or gaming (although older, less demanding pre-2013 games will probably run just fine), but if you’re considering this as a university computer or a Netflix streamer this will be more than capable.

Buy now from Amazon – £239

FREE Microsoft Office for UK university students!

If you’re a current university student in the UK, you could well have access to full free desktop versions of Microsoft Office through Office 365.

Microsoft says over 99% of UK universities are signed up to the subscription plan so for the length of your studies you can get free access to the entire suite of Microsoft Office suite.

Simply click here to go to Microsoft’s site and enter your university email address. Check your email for a confirmation link, and voila free Office!

You can use the software on up to 5 PCs and/or Macs and the subscription is valid until your studies end. There are also a certain number of colleges that are signed up for the service, so it’s worth checking with your academic email address.

Drop us a comment if you grabbed free Office!

Why I’ll hold off with Windows 8; Windows 8 won’t have Media Center or DVD playback built in

Quick note: Really sorry I haven’t blogged for a while – been busy with other things! Will try and keep a vague schedule for posts going.

I read in the news recently that Microsoft are stripping back some of the built in features that will be included in Windows 8. Windows 8 is Microsoft’s new flagship operating system that is expected to reach computer screens in the last quarter of 2012.

Two things came to my attention as I read these two (one & two) blog posts by Microsoft.

  • First of all, Windows Media Center is going to be an extra add-on to Windows 8. This means, unlike Windows 7, you’ll have to pay for it on top of the price of the core OS if you want – no matter whether you have the home or pro version of Windows 8. Whilst this won’t bother most people, for anyone using TV tuners on their computer (ie me), this could be a huge downfall. Media Center has a fantastic interface for TV and the EPG is great too – so I’ll be rather peeved if I have to pay for Media Center.
  • Secondly, Windows 8 will not be able to natively play DVDs or Blu-Ray discs. Why, you ask? Well, I’m not sure, but it does make some kind of sense to an extent. The key idea of Windows 8 is that it will be usable on tablets – which, in most (if not all)  cases, won’t have a DVD or Blu-Ray drive – so Microsoft are probably thinking they don’t need to waste money on licensing codecs to decode the discs. However, this is no good for anybody who is planning to use Windows 8 on a laptop or a desktop.

I fear that Microsoft are going to fall into the same trap with Windows 8 as they did with Windows Vista/7. Windows 8 will be fantastic on new devices that have it preinstalled, but Microsoft will face the backlog of people using their existing machines with Windows 7. Then, years after Windows 8 has launched, there will still be a vast majority of people on older operating systems that are still supported.

At the moment, I can’t see any huge reason to upgrade to Windows 8. There’s nothing in it for me that stands out and makes me think “I really want that”.

Ah well, Windows 7 is going to be supported until 2020, so I think I’ll stick with that for now.

Microsoft buys Skype–what happens next?

As you may have been reading in the news, Microsoft has recently agreed to purchase the popular VoIP service Skype. After a couple of previous acquisitions in the past, Microsoft has made it’s biggest purchase – this time worth well over $8 billion.

Before I even start, I think it’s fair to say that this is either going to be a monumental win or a catastrophic fail – one or the other.

The question is, what will Microsoft do with Skype? Obviously, Skype certainly hasn’t been in the green lately – it’s debts have definitely been on the rise. So, Microsoft have evidently got to make a few considerable changes – otherwise the rather large purchase will become rather a large waste of money – even on Microsoft’s terms!

I can imagine Microsoft will probably implement increased charges for the paid services. However, I do hope that Microsoft will lower the charges for features in Skype that could potentially become very popular – such as group video calling. I happen to think that group video calling was a very well implemented feature into Skype – but unfortunately Skype started charging ridiculous amounts of money for it. If Microsoft lowered charges to £1-2 per month, I would probably consider purchasing it.

The other big question is whether they will continue to support all of the operating systems that Skype currently supports. Microsoft has never really supported Linux and people are starting to ask if Microsoft will drop support for it. Personally, it wouldn’t surprise me hugely if they did – but it would be a real shame.

The sale probably won’t finalise for another few months at least, so we’ll just have to wait and see what changes Microsoft will inevitably implement. In the mean time, enjoy Skype in it’s current form while you can!

Internet Explorer 9 goes live – nothing that much new…

Internet Explorer 9 went live in the early hours of today after a year of development. You can grab the new version from http://www.microsoft.com/ie9.

After a relatively quick installation, you are presented with the new interface (see below).

Google - Windows Internet Explorer

There are several issues with IE9 that I haven’t really liked since the Platform Preview. For example, I’m really not sure why Microsoft bothered to make it so that tabs appear on the same row as the web address. On a low resolution display such as a netbook, this becomes extremely frustrating when you can’t see the titles of your open tabs. This can be fixed by right clicking on the title bar and selecting ‘Show tabs on a separate row’ but I’d rather it did this by default.

On the plus side, launch time definitely seems to have improved and seems to be relatively comparable to Google Chrome.

Doing an acid3 test on IE9 will give you a result of 93/100, which isn’t perfect – but isn’t awful. The latest version of Chrome will give an acid3 result of 100/100.

Whilst it still is no comparison to Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox (and probably won’t ever be), it has to be said that there have been several improvements. Sadly, Internet Explorer’s rendering system has always been a let-down to me as it just isn’t half as good as Webkit or Gecko.