Lenovo Ideapad Miix 300 is a very wallet-friendly Windows tablet (hands-on)
This new 8-inch Windows tablet is coming this summer for just $149.
Time to Miix things up a bit: the Lenovo Ideapad Miix 300 is a new 8-inch Windows tablet coming this summer, and it's not going to break the bank.
The Ideapad Miix 300 goes on sale in July. It will cost around $149 in the US, a very impressive price tag for a full Windows experience. It'll be out in Europe and around the world at the same time. Exact local prices will be revealed nearer the time, but you can get a sense of the budget-friendly pricing if you directly convert the US price, which works out to less than £100 or AU$190.
The 8-inch screen has a resolution of 1,280x800 pixels, giving you 188 pixels per inch. That's slightly sharper than rival tablet the iPad Mini's 163 ppi screen, so you have plenty of crisp detail when watching high definition movies and games.
Encased in plastic, a tablet at this price could feel cheap. It certainly doesn't have the premium feel of metal, but it's sturdy and sleekly designed. The glossy plastic back has a silver and black brushed effect that evokes the styling of more expensive slates.
Powered by an Intel Bay Trail processor with 2GB of RAM, the tablet has 64GB of internal memory with a microSD card slot for extra storage. Lenovo promises up to 7 hours of battery life.
The Miix 300 uses Microsoft's Windows software. Windows 8.1 is the latest version of Windows, designed with touchscreen tablets in mind. It's based around large colourful squares on the home screen, called live tiles. These tiles show you a preview of the information contained in your apps without having to actually open the app: the photo gallery app, for example, cycles through thumbnails of pictures stored on the device, while the weather app shows what it's like outside.
Built-in apps include Microsoft Office applications such as Word, with a one-year Office 365 subscription thrown in for free. Skype is built-in too, and there's a camera on both the front and back for regular snapping and video chat.
