So today I decided to do a device review.
Since tablets are the new “big thing” in portable technology, I decided to pick up the new Windows tablet from Best Buy’s “house” brand Insignia. The Insignia Flex 8″ Windows Tablet (found at their website, here) is $99 and can be found on-line and in-store.
Let me start off by saying that I wasn’t expecting much out of his device when I purchased it. Something to surf the internet with when I didn’t want to get my laptop out but I wanted something larger than my phone, maybe play a few mobile games, and access my writing materials through Dropbox and the writing program Scrivener.
Having said that, I was thoroughly disappointed with this device. First off, it claims 16gb of storage but Windows 8.1 occupies nearly 6gb of that before you even turn the thing on.
Once you get basic programs installed and the necessary updates to the operating system done, you’re down to 3 or 4 gigs of storage. The Flex comes with a 16gb micro-SD card, but you can’t delegate any of the basic stuff or applications to it. It’s like an external hard drive for full sized computers: best used to move media around and little else.
The display was also of much lower quality than I expected. I didn’t go into this with high hopes, but the 1200 x 800 resolution was terrible on the eyes. When in the “Desktop” mode of Windows, everything was far too small to see and the touch input was extremely inaccurate.
Finally, the overall performance of the device left much to be desired. The processor wasn’t much of a problem as it is on-par with most mobile devices, with the measly 1GB of Ram was fully not up to the task of running both Windows 8.1 and anything more than the most rudimentary of programs.
Overall, I’d give this device a 1/5; even for less than a hundred dollars, you’d be best to spend your money elsewhere.
Tech For College 