Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.
Benchmarks
- 3D Mark: Fire Strike: would not run; Sky Diver: 453; Cloud Gate: 1,179; Ice Storm Unlimited: 14,463; Ice Storm Extreme: 8,791
- CineBench 11.5: CPU: 1.08 (multi), 0.29 (single); Graphics: 5.8fps
- PC Mark 8: Home Test: 1,097; Battery Life: 10 hours
Under the hood of the Linx 8 you'll find a quad-core Intel Z3735F Bay Trail-T Atom processor clocked at 1.83GHz. It's the same passively-cooled 22nm processor that is found in a variety of the latest lower-end Windows tablets, featuring Intel's Gen7 architecture that supports DirectX 11, even with the relatively low clock speed of Intel's HD graphics, which maxes out at 646MHz. Backing up the processor is 1GB of DDR3 RAM – not a whole lot, but enough for limited multi-tasking.
32GB of on-board storage is not to be sniffed at, and is considerably more storage than you'll get on many other budget tablets, but when you boot up the tablet, you'll find only around 18GB of free space for storage, primarily because of the size of Windows 8.1 and a number of pre-loaded applications.
The Linx 8 features an 8-inch, 1,280 x 800 IPS display, with image quality and viewing angles that are really rather good. The backlight pushes the maximum brightness up to an impressive 292cd/m2 – considerably brighter than the Argos MyTablet – whilst contrast comes in at 1,257:1, which is particularly good for such a low-end device. Despite the admirable brightness and contrast, colour can look a little artificial, with whites taking on a blue tint.
To give it a fair going over, I ran the suite of benchmarks detailed above. Whilst the 3D Mark scores were not abysmal, they showed that this certainly isn't a tablet destined to be a capable gaming machine, and is most definitely more suited to everyday browsing and light productivity.
Despite the 64-bit Atom processor, like so many other budget tablets I've come across, the Linx 8 runs a 32-bit version of Windows, so undoubtedly performance levels in the multi-core tests were affected by this.
Linx quote a battery life of anywhere between five to seven hours, and with the screen at full brightness and nothing else tampered with, the Linx 8 clocked in at just over six hours. After turning off the Wi-Fi and lowering the screen brightness, I found I could eke out just over eight hours of playing a 720p video on repeat – ideal for a long-haul plane journey.
Bundled software
There's not a whole lot to talk about where pre-loaded software on the Linx 8 is concerned. Apart from the selection of Windows programs and accessories, you'll find a year's subscription to Office 365 included as standard – as is found on many of the low-end Windows tablets these days.
It may not be software, but it's worth mentioning that to sweeten the deal, Linx will give you £30 cashback if you trade in your existing tablet, bringing the cost down to about £60 (around $90, AU$115), and leaving you with some extra cash to buy up any apps you might need from the Windows Store.
