It’s not unheard of to hook up a tablet to a TV via MHL, but the PIPO X8 takes thing a little bit further by actually incorporating a tablet into a TV box that connects via HDMI to the telly.
Experimenting with designs and form factors is not always a bad thing, as some of the most popular All-in-One devices must have been created that way. However, a tablet-TV box hybrid such as the PIPO X8 will definitely cause some eyebrows to raise, as the overlapping features are so many, one might consider the hybrid as being redundant. PIPO is not afraid to new things in terms of design, and after delivering some of the most affordable TV boxes and Windows tablets based on Intel’s Z3735F chipset, it now moved to creating a device that combines the two previously-independent items.
There are two hardware configurations for the PIPO X8. One of them is powered by Intel’s Z3736F SoC that includes a quad-core CPU running at up to 2.16Ghz, while the other has a Z3735F clocked at 1.83Ghz. Both of them sport an Intel HD GPU. In terms of memory, this media player sports 2GB of RAM and either 32GB or 64GB of ROM.
The storage can be furthermore expanded by using an SD card of up to 64GB. All of these are more than enough for playing media both on the included 7″ 10-point multi-touch display with a resolution of 1024 × 600, as well as on larger TVs and monitors. Connectivity options abound, as there is Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, LAN, HDMI, and microUSB, so you can connect to the TV or monitor, but also to other devices.
As far as the software is concerned, the tablet/TV box hybrid runs on Windows 8.1 with Bing, Microsoft’s special version of Windows for cheap devices. A dual-OS version will also be available, and the users of this one will be able to choose to boot into Windows or Android. Giving people alternatives is great, but you have to wonder if there’s any room left for files besides these two operating systems.
GearBest is currently selling the PIPO X8 Windows tablet-TV box hybrid for $123.98, but you can get it for $107.89 if you apply the coupon code PIPOX8 at checkout. The pre-sale period ends on May 22, so chances are that the coupon expires on that day, as well. By the looks of it, this store has the dual boot version that also packs Android 4.4 besides Windows with Bing.
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