Insignia 8 inch "Windows 8.1 with Bing" tablet for $99 at Best Buy

[noirsoft]

I just bought a new 8 inch tablet per the subject line. Best Buy exclusive Insignia brand 8 inch Windows 8.1 tablet (Windows with Bing) for $99.00



Quick review: Speakers really are bad in that they have almost no volume (headphones okay) screen has decent viewing angles in both portrait and landscape. In addition to 16GB micro SD card, has 10GB system C: drive for Windows & apps (So total of 26 GB included) Performance seems okay, though I've had a few odd multi-second freezes (may be my bad internet connection at this hotel) but it then recovers and runs without problems. Overall: NINETY NINE BUCKS? WOW!

 

[Laura Knotek]

Re: Insignia 9 inch "Windows 8.1 with Bing" tablet for $99 at Best Buy

That's a really great deal! $99 is cheap.

 

[noirsoft]

Re: Insignia 9 inch "Windows 8.1 with Bing" tablet for $99 at Best Buy

Argh. I can't believe I mistyped the subject. It should be "8" inch tablet, not "9" inch tablet. Is it possible to edit and fix that?

 

[ohgood]

Re: Insignia 9 inch "Windows 8.1 with Bing" tablet for $99 at Best Buy

no gps or cellular data ?
no hdmi or dlna ?

 

[noirsoft]

Re: Insignia 9 inch "Windows 8.1 with Bing" tablet for $99 at Best Buy

Definitely no Cellular. It does not specifically say GPS, though it does have a "Windows Location Provider" device. Not sure if that means GPS or based on network connection. It does have MicroHDMI out, but did not come with a cable, so can't test.

 

[ohgood]

Re: Insignia 9 inch "Windows 8.1 with Bing" tablet for $99 at Best Buy

Definitely no Cellular. It does not specifically say GPS, though it does have a "Windows Location Provider" device. Not sure if that means GPS or based on network connection. It does have MicroHDMI out, but did not come with a cable, so can't test.

I'd bet that's just a Wi-Fi connection plus a script to figure out where you are by ip.

gps doesn't matter to some folks, I prefer a solid chip and good track history. some of the cheap tablets are getting a hand out by att / tmo in the hopes someone will subscribe to the non free service through their cellular antenna. my daughter's tablet was $110 and has aGPS with free tmo data (250mb/month 3g, then throttled to 3.1baud!) for life.

I've seen some Japanese spec tablets that had great antennas and chips but the lifetime data was for orange or some foreign to me service.

well, have fun with it!

 

[Laura Knotek]

Re: Insignia 9 inch "Windows 8.1 with Bing" tablet for $99 at Best Buy

Argh. I can't believe I mistyped the subject. It should be "8" inch tablet, not "9" inch tablet. Is it possible to edit and fix that?

I've edited the title.

 

[WillysJeepMan]

Re: Insignia 8 inch "Windows 8.1 with Bing" tablet for $99 at Best Buy

Thanks OP for drawing our attention to this tablet. I just returned from Best Buy after picking one up. (I had $15 in rewardzone bucks burning a hole in my pocket :winktongue: )

I've always associated "Insignia" with "junk", but I have to admit this device feels very solidly built. The screen quality is impressive even with the protective plastic on. I've convinced myself that some defect will require me to return it so I figure I'll keep the plastic on a bit longer.

MicroHDMI, microSD, and microUSB were all "must-haves" on my list. The only thing missing from the list was an active digitizer. I had been looking long and hard at the Dell Venue 8 Pro - but lack of HDMI was a show-stopper.

I'll give it a good shake-down test. If it holds up it will be quite a bargain at $100.

 

[dgr_874]

Re: Insignia 8 inch "Windows 8.1 with Bing" tablet for $99 at Best Buy

Does this come with a free trial of office 365?

 

[azcruz]

Re: Insignia 8 inch "Windows 8.1 with Bing" tablet for $99 at Best Buy

Does this come with a free trial of office 365?

Box says 1-year subscription...

 

[WillysJeepMan]

Re: Insignia 8 inch "Windows 8.1 with Bing" tablet for $99 at Best Buy

Does this come with a free trial of office 365?

It comes with a 1 year subscription to Office 365 personal. Since I already have Office 365 Home, this personal subscription was not only not worth it for me, but dangerous. If you already have Home (5 PCs/Macs/Windows tablets + 5 tablets) and then activate Personal, you'll wipe out your Home subscription and end up with Personal (1 PC + 1 tablet) Be warned!

One of the first things that I did was to run the updates. One of the updates hung and I ended up rebooting. Upon rebooting, I could log into Windows but got stuck on the "Personalized Settings" (not responding) before the start/live tiles appeared. I let it sit for 10 minutes. I shut down and rebooted about 6 more times. The final time, before logging in, I disabled WiFi and was then able to fully boot up. No problems since then.

I ran some more tests and things ran fine. Very nice little tablet for $100. But I packed it up and will wait for Christmas (I'm very difficult to buy gifts for so I told my wife she can give it to me for Christmas)

​

 

[dgr_874]

Re: Insignia 8 inch "Windows 8.1 with Bing" tablet for $99 at Best Buy

It comes with a 1 year subscription to Office 365 personal. Since I already have Office 365 Home, this personal subscription was not only not worth it for me, but dangerous. If you already have Home (5 PCs/Macs/Windows tablets + 5 tablets) and then activate Personal, you'll wipe out your Home subscription and end up with Personal (1 PC + 1 tablet) Be warned!

One of the first things that I did was to run the updates. One of the updates hung and I ended up rebooting. Upon rebooting, I could log into Windows but got stuck on the "Personalized Settings" (not responding) before the start/live tiles appeared. I let it sit for 10 minutes. I shut down and rebooted about 6 more times. The final time, before logging in, I disabled WiFi and was then able to fully boot up. No problems since then.

I ran some more tests and things ran fine. Very nice little tablet for $100. But I packed it up and will wait for Christmas (I'm very difficult to buy gifts for so I told my wife she can give it to me for Christmas)

​

That's great to hear! I don't have Office 365 yet and wanted to try it.

 

[squire777]

Re: Insignia 8 inch "Windows 8.1 with Bing" tablet for $99 at Best Buy

It's too bad that Best Buy Canada is not selling it otherwise i'd consider it

 

[dgr_874]

Re: Insignia 8 inch "Windows 8.1 with Bing" tablet for $99 at Best Buy

Has anyone had any issues with the only 1GB of RAM installed? I wonder if the dell venue pro 8 with 32 GB memory and an extra 1GB of RAM would be worth the extra 100 bucks?

I have a 75 dollar best buy gift card that will expire soon so I wanted to use it fast.

 

[WillysJeepMan]

Re: Insignia 8 inch "Windows 8.1 with Bing" tablet for $99 at Best Buy

Has anyone had any issues with the only 1GB of RAM installed? I wonder if the dell venue pro 8 with 32 GB memory and an extra 1GB of RAM would be worth the extra 100 bucks?

I have a 75 dollar best buy gift card that will expire soon so I wanted to use it fast.

I haven't used it heavily enough to determine the impact of having only 1GB RAM.

As for whether or not the DV8P is worth $100 more, I'd say that it depends.

On the DV8P PLUS side:
- full MS Office license (no Office 365 subscription)
- Active digitizer
- 2GB RAM
- 32GB storage

On the MINUS side:
- no HDMI port
- to utilize the active digitizer, add $30 for the pen

Personally, I have 4 other tablets and this Insignia was more of a experiment or something to tinker with. If a Windows tablet was going to be my primary tablet, then I would choose the DV8P, hands-down.

 

[dgr_874]

Re: Insignia 8 inch "Windows 8.1 with Bing" tablet for $99 at Best Buy

I took the plunge earlier tonight. No major issues so far. I'll report more in a few days.

 

[deadwrong03]

Re: Insignia 8 inch "Windows 8.1 with Bing" tablet for $99 at Best Buy

Is there a front camera?

 

[spectre51]

Re: Insignia 8 inch "Windows 8.1 with Bing" tablet for $99 at Best Buy

Would also be interested to see what people think of the 1gb of ram. Been looking at the DVP or the Thinkpad 8 but for quite a bit less this tablet is intriguing. The 1gb of ram though has me holding out.

Posted via Sony Xperia Z2

 

[WillysJeepMan]

Re: Insignia 8 inch "Windows 8.1 with Bing" tablet for $99 at Best Buy

Would also be interested to see what people think of the 1gb of ram. Been looking at the DVP or the Thinkpad 8 but for quite a bit less this tablet is intriguing. The 1gb of ram though has me holding out.

Posted via Sony Xperia Z2

It isn't the 1GB of RAM that should be the only issue to consider, but also the 16GB storage.... which after all is said and done is about 4GB free. I have a few legacy apps that I'll be installing on it. I should be able to install them to the microSD card. Without support to install Modern UI apps to removable media, that 4GB will be a barrier before the 1GB RAM.

 

[spectre51]

Re: Insignia 8 inch "Windows 8.1 with Bing" tablet for $99 at Best Buy

It isn't the 1GB of RAM that should be the only issue to consider, but also the 16GB storage.... which after all is said and done is about 4GB free. I have a few legacy apps that I'll be installing on it. I should be able to install them to the microSD card. Without support to install Modern UI apps to removable media, that 4GB will be a barrier before the 1GB RAM.

Yeah missed that initially. 16gb is no where near enough.

Sent from my Xperia Z2