As the year draws to a close I’m frantically trying to finish the full review of the Toshiba WT8. It’s taking longer than expected for a number of reasons, not least is the fact that there’s just so much to this tablet. So many usage scenarios, so much dynamic range and even a few surprises! For example, I didn’t realize that Bitlocker encryption is available.
In order to demonstrate a few of the unique features I’ve put together a couple of videos for you that I hope will keep you interested until the full review is available in a few days. You’ll see Miracast, a USB display setup, the Bitlocker encryption and a few other things. Below the videos I’ve also published a paragraph from the full review; A teaser!
Extract from the full review of the Toshiba Encore WT8 Windows tablet:
The performance advantage over previous, Clovertrail-generation tablets really shows up in web browsing. It’s much more of a desktop experience in terms of speed and quality. Program startup times are good too and after measuring the SSD, an eMMC-based soldered module, I was pleased to see an improvement over many Clovertrail-generation test results.
Cinebench tests results for CPU and OpenGL are as good as an Ultrabook I tested recently and, just for fun, the CrystalMark04 scores are 10 times the first netbook I ever had and about 4 times that of a good quality netbook from 2010.
..and a demo image from the 8MP auto-focus rear camera which I find surprisingly good in daylight usage. One more demo pic here.
A happy and healthy 2014 to everyone!
Great videos again, Chippy!
Love that positive, chaotic action-cam stuff from somebody who has clearly been desparately awaiting the age of maturity of truly useable Windows Tablets.
I really share your positive excitement.
I had been reading about Bitlocker before and I find it an interesting feature. This makes bringing along a tablet on vacation a bit more relaxing: if somebody steals your tablet, they can not view any of the contents. I still have not found out if this will work when you have switched off using connected standby or if this only works if you have completely shut down your tablet. Do you know?
Haven’t checked the video yet, but was Bitlocker turned on by default? it was on the Dell Venue 8 Pro which was zapping some disk performance which a normal user would have preferred to have.
It was on by default, BUT, I chose the option to install using a previous Windows 8.1 device as a template. It’s possible that it was enabled through that, or simply through the settings stored in my Windows Live account.
Well I never turned on Bitlocker in any of my previous devices so it’s still fact that the Dell Venue 8 Pro had it on by default.
Did you notice higher CPU usage? I’m pretty sure the Atom in the Dell doesn’t support AES-NI for hardware acceleration of encryption/decryption which Bitlocker can use. It might also be why disk speed is noticeably slower due too the Atom being a bottleneck. That’s just my speculation though since my only experience with full disk encryption is at work on a 6 core + HT Xeon with AES-NI support on a mechanical HDD.
Will this be fanless?
I prefer 13,3″ IPS LED displays like the new fanless HP Spectre x2, which will now be available with 8GB RAM: http://www8.hp.com/uk/en/products/laptops/product-detail.html?oid=5405609#!tab=features
This is fanless. The Y-Series Core i5 offer better memory speeds and, importantly, SATA interfaces for storage which can be much faster. (2-5X)
How much bandwidth does this wireless streaming take up? Does it vary based on screen content? Does the video over IP protocols support streaming over Ethernet or a mix of WiFi and Ethernet? I ask because the streaming could take up enough bandwidth to affect other users and even your own PC if you’re streaming internet video or doing other network related tasks.
On a separate topic, is there a way to force the taskbar to stay on the long edge when the tablet rotates?
Just a couple of days ago, I discovered a free utility that lets you do what you want with the taskbar. Download Taskbar Shuffler 1.1 from
http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/software/56322-apps-tablet-pc.html
Make sure to run as administrator. You can also set it to auto-start if you’re willing to do some fiddling with Task Scheduler. Works great on my Venue 8 Pro.
Bookmarked! I don’t have a Windows 8 UMPC yet but when I get one (around April), I’ll check this out.
On bandwidth: It’s WiFi only (there are no Miracast or WiDi devices with wired Ethernet AFAIK) and the bandwidth varies based on how much the screen is changing. I’ve seen 7Mb/s (7 mega-bit/s) on full screen video. I suspect it’s a common video compression algorithm and something supported by Intel Quick Sync.
Good question on the taskbar. I see why you might want that but I don’t know if it’s possible right now. I’ll keep it in mind.
Thanks. That’s too bad. It would have been nice to have both or one of the transmitter or receiver to have an Ethernet connection to a router/switch.
I’m not that familiar with these video over WiFi protocols but they seem to use direct WIFi connections between devices. I guess that would alleviate the bandwidth through a router. However, it also adds constant WiFi interference while in use. There’d be the direct WiDi signal and the already existing router WiFi signal. It’ll probably be worse in a 2.4 GHz environment. I know for my 2.4 GHz only devices, during an active WiFi download/upload, my 2.4 GHz wireless mouse would lag quite a bit. Is the frequency range selectable on WiDi through the software?
Too bad about the taskbar thing. Maybe in 8.2!
Can you confirm the mouse lag you’re experiencing isn’t due to wireless interference between your mouse and WiDi signal as guy alluded to? Do you experience the same lag with the USB keyboard or with a wired mouse? What frequency is the WiDi signal using? I assume you’re using a Bluetooth mouse which operates in the 2.4 GHz range.