In 2015, Toshiba is presenting its new generation of Windows Tablets. The Toshiba Encore exists in both 10.1” and 8” and comes with a nice touch screen display which is backed by a Wacom digitizer capable of sensing 2048 levels of pressure. This is high-end stuff in the tablet world.
Encore 2 is designed around an Intel ATOM processor and 2GB of RAM. There is 64 GB of internal storage for both the OS and files but this can be extended by another 128 GB with the help of a microSD.
I had some hands-on time with the 10.1” tablet, and I was glad to see that the build quality is quite high. I wouldn’t say “luxurious”, but it is solid and well done. It doesn’t feel cheap or fragile. I also like that it has a big and comfortable digital pen, which makes it much more agreeable to use than thin pens. The tradeoff is that the pen is stored outside of the tablet, instead of inside it.
More importantly, the Toshiba Encore 2 tablets are loaded with powerful productivity applications from Toshiba: TruNote, TruCapture and TruRecorder. TruNote is for basic note taking or drawing. Its user interface is well done and taking notes is hassle-free. It’s pretty interesting to see how much friction most digital note taking apps have. Toshiba has done a good job with this one.
TruCapture is for taking photos of whiteboards meetings notes. After the capture, it will make things cleaner by straightening out the image using a keystone so that it looks like you took the photo from a perfect angle. The software also lets you take a photo of a journal and it will scan the text through an optical character recognition (OCR) algorithm to give you useable text that can be copy/pasted.
Finally, TrueRecorder capture audio from the built-in microphone. It can however separate each person’s voice into different channels which can be played back individually.
Affordably priced at $399.99 and $349.99, the determining factor for choosing between the two is really the size. I would personally prefer the 10.2” for the overall comfort, but if you really need something small that can run Windows 8, then I would understand. The Toshiba Encore 2 Write is a nice evolution of the Toshiba Encore series, and is worthy of your consideration.