Eve T1 Review

Windows tablets may not be mainstream, however, there’re a couple of good choices if you’re looking for a new Windows tablet.  Some of the Windows tablets aren’t worth buying, and some are pretty good. Now, one of the best Windows tablets right now is the Eve T1 from a Finnish company called Eve-tech. The Eve T1 is an affordable tablet priced at only €159 – that’s somewhere around $171 and £110. For those unfamiliar, the tablet comes with Windows 8.1, a 8-inch display (1280×800), a Intel BayTrail CPU – clocked at 1.8GHz, 32GB Internal Storage, 2GB of RAM, a 5MP rear camera, a 2MP front shooter, and a 4300mAh battery. Spec-wise, the tablet looks pretty powerful.  However, how does the tablet perform? Let’s find out.

Design

You see, one of the most disadvantage of buying cheap tablets is the design. Most of the cheap tablet don’t come with good design, and are mostly disappointing. However, the Eve T1 won’t disappoint you.

The Eve T1 looks premium, despite the fact that it’s an affordable tablet. It feels great on the hands, as it packs a a soft rubberized back – which makes it a breeze to hold the device on hands. The device weights at 395 grams, which might be a bit heavy for some users, but for some, it’ll probably feel quite light. But, I’ve to say that my hands were tired after I watched several YouTube videos on the device.

Nonetheless, the T1’s other elements are also quite good. The button placement is actually pretty good, I never found myself looking for the volume rockers – which is indeed a plus-point for tablets. However, one tiny thing that really annoyed me is the rear-camera placement. When playing games, browsing websites, or watching movies, you’ll often find yourself covering up the rear camera. But overall, I’m a big fan of how the device feels on hands, and it’s premium look for the affordable price which many tablets don’t offer.

Display

Most of the affordable tablets in the market doesn’t have impressive displays, or even decent displays. However, the Eve T1 surprised me quite a bit with it’s 8″ display. The display has a resolution of 1280×800 pixels, and to be fair, the device packs a decent display for the price. The display produces good colors, especially deeper blacks which looks quite nice. The T1’s display also offers a great experience while playing games. Multi-touch, and overall responsiveness of the display is good as well.

The viewing angles on the display isn’t really impressive, and you’ll probably be a bit disappointed with the viewing angles – especially while watching movies. On the other hand though, the display performs pretty good under sun light, which is another plus-point for the device. Protecting the device’s LCD is a hardened Asahi glass which apparently is much more durable compared to many other affordable Windows tablets, according to Eve. To test the durability, I’ve tried to scratch the displays, and I failed.

Overall, the display of the T1 is decent – however, it’d be even better if the viewing angles were a bit better.

Performance

When it comes to the performance, most of the low-end devices fail to leave up to the expectations. And to be fair, the T1 doesn’t impressive, or disappoint on this section. Windows apps aka Metro apps open quite quickly on the device, and you’ll hardly see any lag on animations. However, I’ve to not that multitasking slows down the device a bit – but then again, you probably won’t be multitasking on a $170 device.

To test the device’s performance even further, I’ve played some heavy games such as Asphalt 8. The game didn’t run very smoothly on the device, and there was quite a few frame drops. However, games such as Crossy Roads ran smoothly on the device, and you’ll hardly see any lag. But, to be fair, the performance of the Eve T1 is actually pretty decent. Unsurprisingly enough, the device will struggle a bit to run heavy games, however, metro apps runs smoothly on the device and you won’t be disappointed with the overall performance of the T1.

Camera

Most of the consumers probably doesn’t care about the camera on a tablet. But, nonetheless, some users do indeed care about cameras on a tablet to take pictures on events with tablets awkwardly. But, whatever.

The T1 comes with a 5MP rear camera. The camera didn’t impress me at all, it took good pictures under decent light. However, under low-light conditions, the device doesn’t perform good at all. Additionally, users don’t have the control over advanced camera settings such as shutter speed, ISO on the default Camera app on Windows 8.1.  But it’s worth pointing out that you can adjust the exposure.

Of course, that’s not a much needed or used feature for most consumers, however, some power users will probably appreciate the addition of it.

Surprisingly enough, the T1 comes with a front camera – it’s a 2MP sensor and as expected, it doesn’t impress either. Under decent light, the front snapper struggles to perform well, and under low-light, it’s a bit of disaster. But then again, you probably won’t be talking selfies on a £110 tablet. And to be fair, the tablet packs decent cameras when compared to the competition.

Battery

One of the other important element a tablet should include is a good battery. Most of the tablets that are available under £200 doesn’t pack amazing batteries, however, that’s not entirely the same case for the T1. The device comes with a 4300mAh battery, which was able to serve up to 7 and a half hours for me. During the testing period, I used the device heavily, played some games, watched several videos and browsed some websites. To me, the battery life isn’t disappointing at all as the T1 costs only £110 and compared to the its competitors, the device does perform really well.

Others

There are some other tiny things about the T1 that I’d like to point out: the speakers of the device produces good sound, they’re not the best and that’s to be expected. The buttons are clicky, and feels quite nice. One thing that really disappointed me about the T1 is the build quality, the review unit that I’ve received made tiny noises while I was holding the device with a bit of pressure – but, keep in mind that this could just be a fault on the unit that I’ve received and not for all the devices. The T1 also comes with some other pros: it has a microSD card slot which lets you expand the storage to 128 GB of storage which most tablets don’t include.