Bargain basement 7-inch Toshiba Encore Mini Windows 8.1 tablet announced

As part of its big IFA 2014 reveal, Toshiba has announced a little Windows 8.1 tablet, the low-cost Toshiba Encore Mini.While there's currently no price information available, we bet – or hope – that the Toshiba Encore Mini is heading for a bargain-price future. It's a 7-inch Windows tablet with a rather low-res 1,024 x 600 pixel display. That's lower in resolution than most of the Android tablets you can get for £100-120 today, such as the Asus MeMO Pad HD 7.Aside from a low-end screen, the Toshiba Encore Mini offers an Intel Atom Z3745 SoC processor and 1GB RAM. That's the same processor used by the Acer Iconia Tab 8.The tablet's outer hardware is kept pretty basic too. There's a microUSB port and microSD slot, but no video output for connection to a monitor and no full-size USB to let you attach a mouse or keyboard. This is a simple tablet, whose core feature seems to be a one-year subscription to Microsoft Office 365, worth £60 on its own.Extra featuresOn the rear of the Toshiba Encore Mini sits a 2-megapixel camera, while the front offers a simple VGA-resolution one. Toshiba boasts battery life of up to 72 hours, but this is presumably if it's left in your sock drawer and not used. At all. The Toshiba Encore Mini will be available in the UK within the last few months of 2014. We don't yet know exact pricing details, but fingers crossed it'll be cheap.

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