The Lenovo IdeaTab Miix 2 is an 8 inch tablet with Windows 8.1 software and an Intel Atom Bay Trail processor. Priced at $300 and up, it’s one of the most affordable Windows tablets on the market, and it’s now available for purchase from Amazon.
For $300 you can pick up a model with 32GB of storage. A 64GB model runs $350.
Both models feature Intel Atom Z3740 quad-core processor, an 8 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel IPS display and 2GB of RAM.
The tablet measures 5.2″ x 8.5″ x 0.3″ and weighs 12.3 ounces. It features 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, a 5MP rear camera and 2MP front-facing camera, and stereo speakers. There’s a micro USB port, microSD card slot, and headset jack.
Like most new Windows tablets with 10 inch and smaller displays, the IdeaTab Miix 2 comes with a fully licensed version of Microsoft Office Home & Student 2013, and Lenovo also includes its own Cloud Storage app, Evernote, Amazon Kindle, and Zinio magazine apps.
Lenovo also plans to offer models with up to 128GB of storage and optional mobile broadband capabilities.
The Miix 2 isn’t the first 8 inch Windows tablet with a Bay Trail processor to hit the streets. The $300 Dell Venue 8 Pro and $330 Toshiba Encore are both available as well.
Dell’s tablet includes an active digitizer, which helps set it apart from the crowd. Lenovo’s tablet does not, but the company does plan to offer an optional $20 cover case that comes with a capacitive stylus.
I just bought this tablet. pure awesomeness. I got 64Gb version for $299. I would take this windows 8 tablet over any android tablets or ipad any day. much more versatile. it runs windows x86 and apps from the store. this is what tablet should be like. highly recommended
um… says item not released yet on Amazon link in article; pre-order only
Zero interest in Windows 8 but if the penguin makes an appearance and ALL of the hardware is supported I’d be interested. Being an Intel chipset there would even be a chance of fully supported blobfree video. I’d settle for seeing Ubuntu on it since if it runs blob free there would be good odds of Debian being possible. Besides, we all say Ubuntu and GNOME3 is geared towards tablets… well this would be a good opportunity to find out if that is true.
agreed, though there appears to be a number of problems with vendors supplying these devices with broken eufi bios’s that make it hard to install linux on them.
Will have to wait for the ThinkPad version to get a good
active digitizer. Hopefully Lenovo won’t charge an arm
and a leg.