Review: Eve T1 Windows Tablet

I was a little unsure about the new Eve T1 by Eve-Tech who are a new Finnish company born out of the desire to build a great affordable tablet. I always feel this way about any unproven product, especially one that is retailing for only €159. As it turns out I need not have worries as the Eve T1 is a stomping good tablet, performs well, looks good and is built like a tank.

With some quality internals picking a more expensive tablet over the Eve T1 will be a hard sell

• 8-inch IPS HD 1280×800 display
• Intel Bay Trail Z3735F 1.8 GHz CPU
• 2GB of RAM
• 32GB onboard storage
• MicroSD card support up to 128GB
• 4300mAh battery
• Miracast
• 5MP rear camera
• 2MP front camera
• 802.11ac Wifi
• Dimensions 130mm x 216mm x 9mm
• Weight 395 grams

Design

The Eve T1 is a really nice looking tablet, the rear is coated in a soft touch rubbery plastic which gives good grip but does retain greasy finger prints. Their is a circular pattern that radiates outwards from the center which further adds grip. The Eve T1 has its volume and power buttons on the right hand side along with a mic and a port for the microSD card which has a nice little lip to the port door.

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The bottom of the Eve T1 has a sole microUSB port and charging LED indicator. There is a 2MP camera up top on the front and a 5MP on the rear, no flash so only really suitable to well-lit rooms and outdoor shots. Overall the design is not something I feel anyone could argue with, it is rock solid, feels good if a little weighty but perfect for any coffee table.

Sadly outdoor readability is not fantastic and even with the brightness turned up to max levels on a sunny day it is unusable, see the headline image. In this the Eve T1 screen is actually on and set to full brightness, so for outdoor use its a no go.

Software and Performance

The Eve T1 comes with an Intel Bay Trail quad-core 64bit processor, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of onboard storage which can be increased up to 128GB via microSD card. Day to day the Eve T1 perfomed admirably for me, easily performing mundane tasks like web browsing, watching Netflix and the occasional bit of work.

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The small 8" screen size does not lend well to doing major amounts of work on as the desktop version of Windows 8 is not geared towards this size screen. Don’t get me wrong, everything works but it just feels a little cramped. Thankfully the Eve T1 comes with a full 1 years licence for Microsoft Office.

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Gaming on the Eve T1 one worked great, games loaded quickly and all ran well, with many applications open though some games did become a tiny bit choppy but nothing drastic. In terms of benchmarking 3DMark scores the Eve T1 a 6991 on Ice Storm Extreme and 14604 on Ice Storm Unlimited while it maxes out the low end test. So it is not going to rival a Surface Pro 3 or even the now defunct Lumia 2520 but it is certainly a capable device.

Camera

I have said it before many times and will again now, I don’t care about cameras on tablets, sure its handy to have it there just in case but I am never going to use it. Most tablet cameras are fairly useless or mediocre at best and the Eve T1 falls into the later category. The 5MP rear camera is ok but cannot handle very bright conditions. An example of this can been seen below in the shot of the trees (left), today is a clear blue sky day but in this shot it almost looks like dusk. In the other shot the image is clear but perhaps the sensor is just letting in too much light as on the right of the image it is a bit washed out.

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The front camera is a 2MP lens and is not great either, for video calling, Skype etc it is okay but again don’t ever make a decision about a tablet based on its cameras. Below is a sample image from the front facing camera in what I would describe as perfect conditions, the image is a little grainy so video calling in darker conditions will not be ideal.

Battery Life

I found the battery life on the Eve T1 to be very good, it is fitted with a 4,300mAh battery that easily saw out a full day and well into the next day with low to moderate use. Heavy gaming sessions and lots of movie playback did reduce it to needing a top up charge around 7pm however. In my build which has since been updated there was a small issue whereby the sleep mode was consuming too much power. Eve have told me that this is now resolved and tablets purchased in March will ship with this update.

Verdict

Is the Eve T1 a tablet worth considering, absolutely, if you want a well built tablet that performs well and is less than €200 and runs Windows 8.1 then this is a very good option. The only sticking point for Eve will be that many users still find Android to be more functional for that ‘pick up and go’ ease.

Bottom line, the Eve T1 is good, it has poor cameras, good battery life and a modern operating system that will only get better when Windows 10 arrives later this year. In this review you might think that I have been a little negative towards it, but really the issues I am pointing out are the only issues.

You can buy the Eve T1 for €159 here.