The Linx tablets
pfgpowell
Posts: 5,347 Forum Member
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Just out of curiosity I was looking at tablets on eBay running Windows and came across the Linx at a very good price. (I don't actually want one as I have both an iPad Air and an iPad Mini.) Usual cheap shit, I thought, as they are going for between £49 and £70, but looked up reviews, and bugger me they are thought not to be at all bad. I've never heard of them before, but has anyone here any eperience of them. Here's a link to one review.
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They are full fledged pcs and I am using mine right now . I hardly ever use my android tablet at 4x cost.
Obviously will not be a good for power game but for netflix, youtube etc are perfect. I have upgraded to Windows 10, but they are now on sale with windows 10 installed.
There is a great support forum if you get problems.
http://www.linxtablet.co.uk/index.php
its a good little tablet in all fairness, i think the only issues as with so many tablets is battery - you would get about 3-4 hours continued use before recharge which is on par with laptops more or less
included office 365 for 1 year + 1 extra device so that worth about 59 quid
you can use the device while charging but it can get quite hot, but not caused issue
it does take quite a while to charge up
overall its fairly good for the money even with the 1g of ram
it ok for normal standard video playback, with little issue its not a game machine but you can do most basic tasks plus a little more
it has been upgraded to windows 10 - although there was some minor issues they where soon fixed by windows
some people prefer the 10 inch model, but i seen one and it does not have the same build quality - stay clear of the 7 inch as with windows 10 there is no desktop support now,
you could do at lot worse for the money - argos do a similar device, least u have a store to go back to for issues
cheers
I did the free upgrade to Windows 10 but then went back to 8.1. I love 10 on my PC but on a tablet I think 8.1 works far better, with all the swipe gestures. It's great for playing video or watching iPlayer. It has micro SD card slot for more memory and a micro USB, which is a slight drawback as a full size USB would be more convenient, but they supply an adaptor. The speakers aren't the most powerful and they're close together on the back so they're not fantastic but they do the job.
Quality wise it actually feels very solid and well made, it has a slight rubbery matt finish compared to the Surface which is shiny metal. You can get keyboard/case accessory on ebay for £10 but I haven't tried one so can't really comment. Linx do their own keyboard for about £20.
One feature I love is that you have the full Windows Control Panel, Windows Explorer, file system etc in the desktop. With my Android phone, which I love, I always found it a pain to manage files, move things, find things and so on. With this it's Windows, so it's exactly the same as your home PC.
Going off topic slightly - the big advantage of 10 over 8.1 on Linx tablets (and all 8.1+Bing equivalents) is that 10 uses about 5GB less memory than 8.1.
A secondary advantage is that it uses the standard Windows 10 iso, so it is easy to reinstall (with the 8.1+Bing, yo need to ensure you have a recovery drive, as the OS is not standard and is not available to public - although you can get images from Linx forum)
Also, the next official release of windows 10 is (according to the famous Windows 10 leaker WOZR who is rarely wrong) will allow installation of apps to an sd card which is a MAJOR improvement, as biggest limits on these small 32GB tablets is the amount of programs you can install.
The Linx oficiallyonly supports a 32GB SD card, but many have put in 64/128 and even 356 GB cards with no issue. Obviously backing up card is recommended as SD cards are not the most reliable beasties in the world.
Finally, the experience of all these tablets (imo) is much enhanced by installation of a great (free) program called touchmousepointer where you can use the full screen as a giant mouse touchpad (like normally found on a laptop). This enables precision control over fiddly menus - so much that I rarely use tablet mode, and stick to the more flexible desktop mode.
Another cool thing you can do is installed Teamviewer (or use RDP or similar) and take full remote control of the tablet from a PC even from other side of the world. Great when configuring it.
Imagine your other half having problems when you are away, and you just take over control and sort it. I do it all the time as my wife's technical abilities are limited (her opinion is that is what I am for).
Actually, you can take remote control of android phones/tablets if rooted, and some non-rooted tables (Samsung especially), but the time lag is very noticeable eg. 2-3 seconds, whereas on windows tablets response is almost instantaneous.
Another feature I love about the Linx (and any windows tablet in fact) is that I can set it up as as a wifi hoptspot, so when in a hotel, you can connect a chromecast device to it and stream video over hotel internet to hotel TV. Try doing that with any other tablet!
The only thing you need to be careful is to check if the new Linx 8 (Linx810 with 10 preinstalled) will work in desktop mode and run desktop apps. Old ones upgraded can, but MS said new tablets with less than 9" screens would not have desktop mode. I do not know if this is the actual case now as I upgraded. You can still buy the original Linx 8 and upgrade at least at the moment?
£70 using the "very" deal. Worth every penny ! I use it way more than my android tablets now.
poor resolution
Just change the default from settings, system, tablet mode.
It's 1280 by 800 on a ten inch screen. Not once have I ever thought the resolution was not good enough. It has higher resolution than the 720p HDTV standard. I'd choose better speakers over higher resolution if I had the choice, and the speakers aren't even that bad.
And you need better processor/graphics to use HD which puts the price up.
Overall, the Linx 7 isn’t half bad and for a price less than I spend on filling the car with petrol for my weekly commute from Cornwall to London. It is small enough to slip into a jacket or coat and I intend to use it on the move to watch TV in the pub, that sort of thing.
There are some good apps, like Prime Tube which will download and save Youtube videos, and cut the ads, which works better than the official YT app on my Android phone, which won't play videos without a network connection and shows adverts.
But being Windows 8 I have installed full programs like Chrome, but it's not optimised for touch so using it on a ten inch tablet is a bit fiddle so I'd imagine a seven inch would be unusable.
If you install touchmousepointer, you can use the screen as a giant mouse trackpad like a trackpad on a laptop but much bigger. You get precise control over fiddly menus.
I never use tablet mode - just desktop mode on a Linx8.
With the trackpad, I can hold tablet and and navigate one handledly, using my thumb to control 'mouse'.
Ergonomically, it is more restful than touch mode which basically requires two hand a lot of the time.
You can toggle the trackpad on and off with a single 'click'.
Also, you can attach a usb mouse anyway and get best of worlds.
First of all, I am still surprised at how responsive and zippy this Linx7 is, especially for a tablet which I only paid £57 for. That is really astounding. As for drawbacks, well, I shall install Touchmouspointer and see what's what, but I'm having m doubts about Windows 8 being a tablet OS. But what is beginning to irritate me is continutally being informed I have 'connection problems' when there is nothing wrong with the connections (fibre optic broadband). Still can't work out why. Still, for £57 this tablet really is a steal, though the lack of apps really would be a drawback for some.
visit lookagain website they have them their 180 and 199 with keyboard
Also got to say that not everything is running smoothly - trying to download that app someone mentioned was taking and age and I finally had to re-install the OS to make sure everything is working properly. But still it is miles ahead of other sub-£100 tablets I have seen, which were without exception complete crap.
The sound output quality on the headphone socket wasnt all that good either, and it did have issues with Wi fi. But it was fast and I found picture quality excellent.
If youre not going to use it for intensive long term processing, its great.
But when you consider the price paid, that becomes of lesser relevance.
I run Norton 360 and it hardly uses any resources at all. I have used AVG and Avira, and no problems whatsoever.
This is interesting - can you provide a link re PRO. I wonder if this is just a mistake.
Official specs say Home
http://www.cclonline.com/content/pdfs/xaGTRg2o2cgwH5QAc-2bD2og-3d-3d.pdf
re. 32bit afaik, it will be 32bit as all Linx tablets use a 32bit loader even though chip is 64bit unless this has been changed. I have heard nothing on the Linx forums to sughest a change.
Thanks guys, just curious if it was 32 bit OS.
I don't know who's got the typo, as I read it was Windows 10 Pro in their PDF manual from their site (linxtablets.com) , list in the operating system . It won't surprise me if Linx themselves made this mistake, as I read in other places it's just the home edition.
http://linxtablets.com/manuals/LINX1010_Guide.pdf
If you can't open that link then, just go to http://linxtablets.com/ scroll down to the Linx 1010 section and click read more. Bottom of that drop down, there's download link for the PDF manual.
Hope someone can ask about this and confirm, is it Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro? Thanks.