A Windows 8.1 tablet with Office for just £100
Bush is a company best known for cheap and cheerful white goods, such as washing machines and fridges, so we weren’t expecting much from its £100 Windows 8.1 tablet. We were therefore pleasantly surprised by the MyTablet 8 Inch. It may have an unimaginative name, but this little tablet has a lot going for it.
We expected the plastic casing to be cheap and flimsy, but the plain silver-andblack construction is rigid and sturdy. However, the narrow borders on the left- and right-hand edges of the screen means, when you hold the tablet vertically, getting a firm grasp without accidentally touching an onscreen control is difficult.
The MyTablet 8 is very similar to Windows 8.1 tablets that cost twice as much, such as the Toshiba Encore 2 8in. The full version of Windows 8.1 means you can run older Desktop programs, if you really want to, and you can use USB peripherals such as printers connected via a USB On-The-Go adapter.
There’s a micro SD slot for adding more storage - essential as only half of the 32GB of built-in storage is available to use. The touchscreen is very responsive, much more so than similarly priced Android tablets.
There’s no shortage of flaws, though. The screen is bright, but colours look a little washed out and contrast is poor. Its relatively low 1280x800-pixel resolution makes text look a little fuzzy. The cameras are unusably bad, even for video calls. Battery life when playing videos on a loop was below average at eight hours and 36 minutes.
Much more problematic is the tablet’s slow performance. The Intel Atom Z3735G quad-core processor is hobbled by being paired with just 1GB of memory. It’s good enough for browsing the web, sending emails and watching video, but attempting to switch between multiple apps running simultaneously is slow. Attempting anything remotely complex such as editing photos, working on a spreadsheet or scrolling through a long Word document is often infuriatingly slow.
The latter is a shame as the MyTablet comes with a free Microsoft Office 365 Personal subscription. Valid for one year, this gives you the latest version of Office not just on the MyTablet, but also on one other PC or Mac. You also get 1TB of OneDrive online storage and 60 minutes of free Skype calls a month. After the year is up, it’ll cost £6 a month or £60 a year to renew. It’s almost like buying Office and getting a free tablet thrown in.
The Bush MyTablet is far from perfect, but at this price it’s good enough as a tablet for a child or for light occasional internet use. As long as you can live with its limitations, it’s good value.
VERDICT
A good tablet for basic tasks such as watching videos and email.
SPECIFICATIONS
8in 1280x800-pixel touchscreen • 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z3735G quad-core processor • 1GB memory • 32GB storage • Intel integrated graphics chip • Windows 8.1 • 350g • 9x123x215mm (HxWxD) • One-year warranty