14 DAY TRIAL // There has been a big fuss over Microsoft’s recent attempts at penetrating the budget market. Recognizing it can’t solely rely on the premium sector, Redmond has rolled out Windows 8.1 with Bing in order to encourage manufacturers to put the OS on their budget devices.
But a recent discovery makes us doubt Windows 8.1 with Bing is really targeted at the budget sector. Surely, we have seen a bunch of devices coming out from China, which take advantage of the OS and sell for hilarious price-tags.
You probably remember we told you about the Emdoor I8080 and KingSing W8, an 8-inch tablet that should sell for just $99 / €72. However, it came to our attention that some tablets using Windows 8.1 with Bing are being sold for premium price-tags.
You might remember the business centric Lenovo ThinkPad 10. Back when it launched, the tablet was said to arrive with Windows 8.1 and sell starting from $599 / €435.
However, if you currently look on the official US Lenovo webshop, you can see that the models being sold both ship with Windows 8.1 with Bing (one 32-bits and the other one with 64-bit).
The base model which comes equipped with 2GB of RAM, sells for what can be considered a premium price tag ($599 / €435), while the 4GB of RAM (a recent addition) version can be yours for $619 / €468.
Now if we move on and do further research and check out the German Lenovo webshop, we can see Windows 8.1 Pro models are also available (with 2GB or 4GB of RAM) for bigger price tags (€729 / $962 and €849 / $1120 respectively).
The 4GB of RAM version of the tablet seems to have been made widely available across Europe and US, so if you think you’d benefit from having more RAM onboard, you can go pick it up.
However, the presence of Windows 8.1 with Bing on the business Lenovo tablet remains quite puzzling. Sure, brand vendors like Toshiba have also jumped onboard with Microsoft in order to put out Windows 8.1 with Bing tablets, but they offer them for around $249 – $299 / €182 – €218.
Anyway, at this point we can only give you a quick tour of Lenovo’s ThinkPad 10 specs in case you forgot what we’re talking about here.
The device ships out with a 10.1-inch display enjoying HD resolution (1920 x 1200 pixels). Power comes from an Intel Atom Z3795 quad-core processor and you’ll find two cameras onboard (an 8MP one on the back and a 2MP one up in front), microHDMI, USB 2.0, microSD slot and a battery said to last up to 10 hours of use.
Sure, the tab sounds well enough but is it worth paying all that money and getting Windows 8.1 with Bing onboard?
