Toshiba Encore 2 8-inch hands-on

A quiet, but still formidable player in the PC space, Toshiba showed off a few of its upcoming tablets at the most recent Pepcom Digital Experience event in New York City. Honestly, it’s been a long time since we’ve seen or heard anything remotely relevant from the PC maker. Nonetheless, we managed to grab a quick hands-on time with its affordably priced Toshiba Encore 2 tablet, the 8-inch model – albeit, they also will have a 10.1-inch model available as well.

Design

When you’re priced so low, there’s just so much you can do with a tablet’s design, which is apparently so here with the Toshiba Encore 2. Frankly, it screams conventionality with its contrasting white/silver plastic body. Unfortunately, while holding and grasping onto it, we notice that there’s a hollowness to the construction – though, the plastic build helps to give it a lightweight figure. Indeed, the visuals are usually the first to attract consumers, but sadly for this one, there wasn’t much thought put into this.

Display

Alright, we’re forgiving about the lower resolution on this display, which sizes up at 8-inches. Throwing in its 1280 x 800 resolution, which comes out to a pixel density count of 189 ppi, it’s far from being the sharpest thing in the block. Regardless of that, we don’t have too much of an issue trying to make out fine details or small text, but then again, it would’ve been nice for the resolution to be bumped up. Overall, the bland and dull tone of the display just washes away any hope of it being remotely usable outdoors.