102 SEPTEMBER 2019 |COMPUTERSHOPPER|ISSUE 379
VALUE
IT’SEASYTOlook at the MicrosoftSurface
Go and be lured in by its affordability,but
you maywish to go even cheaper.Ifso,
the Linx 12X64 might be just the thing,
combiningaremovable keyboard
with a12.5in, Full HD tablet for
well under £200.
Admittedly,it’s uninspiringin
the design department.The 12X64’s
hard plastic shell is bland and nowherenear
as attractiveas the Surface Go,nor any of
the other 2-in-1s we’ve seen so far, such as
the GooglePixel Slateand HP Envy x2.
We do,however,like the kickstand,
which is made out of aluminium.It’s fully
adjustable,soyou’re not forced to look at it
in one or two pre-defined angles, and it’s
sturdy enoughthat you can comfortably
prop up the tablet on adesk or your lap
withoutany trouble.KEY POINTS
Anotherpoint in the 12X64’sfavour is that it
comes with the keyboardattachmentin the
box. This connectsto the main body of the
tablet with amagneticstrip located at the
bottom of the tablet, and it feels very
comfortableto type on. There’s aslight flex
in the base when it’s tilted, but with the
keyboardplaced flat on asolid surface,it
doesn’t budge.The trackpadunder the
spacebaris ajoy to use,too; it’s accurate
and doesn’t suffer from any tracking
problemsat all.
The arrayofconnectionswon’t compete
with afull-size clamshelllaptop,but fora
2-in-1 the 12X64 offers agood mix. On the
left-hand side are asingle USB3 port, a3.5mm
headphonejack, aMicro HDMI output,a
microSDcard reader and aMicro USB port
used forcharging.The power button and
volumerocker are at the top.
In addition,two sideways-firing
speakersare found near the bottom
of the tablet. These were apleasant
surprise–their sound quality puts
most laptops to shame,regardlessof
how much theycost.
Finally,you also get both front-
and rear-facing camerashere; they’re
only 2-megapixelunits, however,which
makes them useful only forthe
occasionalvideo call. Forwireless
connectivity,the 12X64 has dual-band
802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0.
The 12X64 comes with a12.5in,
10-pointmultitouch 1,920x1,080IPS
display. We can’t sayit’s the best displayLINX12X64
★★★★★
£180•From http://www.laptopoutlet.co.ukVERDICT
Abonafide2-in-1bargain,the12X64
balanceslowspeedwithaFullHD
touchscreenandbundledkeyboardwe’ve ever used on ahybrid tablet, but for
under £200 it’s pretty good, especiallywith
its Full HD resolution.Contrastis respectable
at 1,148:1, and its sRGB colour gamut coverage
of 63.2% –while low in granderschemes–is
enoughforbasic browsing.
It’s alittle on the dark side,however,with
apeak measuredbrightnessof 290cd/m^2.
This might be aproblemif you intend to use
the laptop outsidein daylight, but most of
the time it’s perfectly fine.Colour accuracy
is poor,however,with the 12X64 recording
an average delta-Evalue of 4.36 and a
ridiculouslyhigh maximumof 19.3 in our
tests. Still, foreverydayuse,it’s just about
acceptable.You can do photoediting on it,
just don’t expect people to see the same on
acolour-accuratescreen.SPLITTINGTHEATOM
Being abudget 2-in-1, the Linx 12X64’s
performancewas never going to be its
strongestasset. It uses alow-power
1.44GHz quad-coreIntel Atom x5-Z8350
processor,which is paired with 4GB of
dated LPDDR3SDRAM.
Forbrowsingthe web,light multitasking
and office work, the Linx has enoughpower,
but throw anythingdemandingat it, such as
multipleChrometabs,andyou’llfinditlagging.
It also producedan extremelylow Geekbench
4single-coretest result of just 705.That said, it could be worse as well: its
multicoretest score of 2,037 is fairly decent.
It’s definitely not agood gamingdevice,
however; the integrated Intel HD Graphics
400 processorwill handle afew roundsof
Solitaire,but anythingremotely demanding
will prove toomuch.
To its credit, the 12X64 completed our
4K benchmarkswithoutcrashing–Intel
Atom devices can go either way–but it
still only came out with an overall score of- In fairness, the MicrosoftSurface Go
only managed20 despitecosting several
times as much (especiallywhen factoring in
the cost of akeyboard).
LIFEAFFIRMING
Battery lifewas more encouraging.At 7h 10m
in our video rundowntest, the Linx mayor
maynot last afull daydependingon what
exactlyyou run on it, but it did narrowly
outlastthe Surface Go.
Storage is limited to a64GB eMMC
drive.This is very little foraWindows
device,sobepreparedto use the
microSDslot foradditionalspace,unless
you’re happytorely on cloud-based
software and storage,treatingthe 12X64
more like aChromebook.
Overall,we never expected the Linx 12X64
to be ahigh-performancemachine,and so it
proved. But, at amere £180 foraWindows
10 2-in-1 that has aFull HD displayand a
bundleddetachablekeyboard,the Linx is
certainlygood value.
Is it an even better choice than the Surface
Go? On that, we’re not so sure.It’s true that
Microsoft’s device costs alot more,but the
step up in quality is massive,with the
Surface Go offering better build quality,
better storage,better performance,abetter
displayand abetter keyboardattachment.
We’d argue that since the
Surface Go is still sufficiently
close to the budgetend of the
spectrumthat it’s worth investing
in over the 12X64. If you’re on a
genuinelytight budget,however,you
likely won’t regret opting forthis instead.