The RCA Cambio W1162 is a detachable-hybrid Windows tablet that's very affordable at $199.99 (as tested), but its construction (especially in the touchpad) is a little flimsy, and it's underpowered, even for the price. Our Editors' Choice, the $300 Asus Transformer Book T100HA costs a lot more, but comes with a 64-bit version of Windows, and features better work and multimedia performance, and longer battery life. If you're on a strict budget and need a Windows 10 machine, the Cambio W1162 is worth checking out, but be prepared to make serious sacrifices in quality and performance.

Design and Features
Available in black, blue, pink, or purple, the 1.65-pound, 11.6-inch Cambio W1162 measures 0.39 by 10.20 by 6.50 inches (HWD) sans keyboard, a good bit larger than the E-Fun Nextbook Flexx 9 (0.2 by 5.8 by 8.9 inches, 1.06 pounds), which has a 9-inch screen. The detachable keyboard adds about 0.25 inch of thickness and 1.23 pounds. That's about the same size, but heavier, than the Transformer Book T100HA (0.90 by 10.3 by 6.7 inches; 2.2 pounds).

Both the tablet and the keyboard dock are made of plastic with a smooth finish. Two holes on the bottom edge of the tablet align with two plastic tabs on the keyboard to connect the two. There's no magnetic latch to keep the tablet and the keyboard attached, but the plastic connectors are strong. You can lift the tablet with the keyboard attached and it won't fall off. Overall, the connection system works well.

All of the connections and ports are on the tablet itself. On the left edge, there's a USB 3.0 port, a headphone jack, a micro USB port, and a mini HDMI port, along with the Power button and the connector for the AC adapter. You can charge the tablet using either the included AC adapter or via micro USB. RCA does not include a micro USB charger, but you can charge the tablet by plugging it into a PC using a USB-2.0-to-micro-USB cable.

On the back of the tablet, you'll find the volume controls, a Reset button, and a slot for a microSD card (up to 64GB), and a 2-megapixel rear-facing camera. There are no ports on the right edge of the tablet, and USB-C is absent here, which isn't surprising for the price. Both the Asus Transformer Book T100HA and the HP Pavilion x2 (10-n123dx) include USB-C connectivity. This is a fairly common port setup for a budget detachable hybrid—similar to the Nextbook Flexx 9's port selection. For wireless connectivity, there's 802.11ac dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0.

The 1, 366-by-768 screen has slightly better resolution than you'll find on the E-Fun Nextbook 10.1 (1, 280-by-800), and In-Plane Switching technology means wide viewing angles. It's not quite as clear and vivid as the full HD (1, 920-by-1, 200) screen on the 10-inch Lenovo Miix 2 , but works fine for simple productivity tasks. Right above the screen is a 1-megapixel front-facing camera for video calls.

The bundled, detachable keyboard, with plastic keys and a tiny touchpad, feels flimsy. With the touchpad, you have to exert a lot of force to register a click. Right clicking is difficult, and dragging files is an exercise in patience and persistence. The full-size, chiclet-style keys offer a good amount of travel, however, so typing is comfortable.

Along with a 32-bit version of Windows 10, you get just 2GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. That's understandable at this price. A 32-bit operating system cannot run several Windows apps, such as VLC Player, and won't utilize enough RAM to run a complex program like Adobe Photoshop effectively. The Asus Transformer Book T100HA offers both a 64-bit OS and 4GB of RAM for $130 more, and the Acer Aspire Switch 10 E (SW3-013-11N8) has a 64GB solid state drive (SSD), along with a 500GB hard drive in the keyboard dock, although it has only 2GB of RAM, for $150 more. The 2GB of RAM is more than you'll find in the Nextbook Flexx 9 (1GB), but the Cambio W1162 offers nothing out of the ordinary in the way of internal storage or memory. RCA covers the Cambio W1162 with a one-year limited warranty.

Performance
Equipped with a low-end 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z3735F quad-core processor, the Cambio W1162 underperformed in almost all of our benchmark tests. It scored a 1, 305 on the PCMark 8 Work Conventional test, which measures a system's productivity capabilities at tasks like document creation, Web browsing, and video conferencing. Less expensive machines like the Nextbook Flexx 9 (1, 385) and Nextbook 10.1 (1, 431) showed better results, as did more expensive systems such as the Transformer Book T100HA (1, 698) and the HP Pavilion x2 (1, 478). A budget system isn't going to ace graphics or gaming benchmarks, but should perform reasonably well in productivity, and the Cambio W1162 struggles to keep up. While you can work in Microsoft Office or browse the Web well enough on the tablet, the system will likely encounter sluggishness when you attempt to multitask. The more programs we loaded on the tablet, the longer it took to refresh even the weather app. Right clicking on an icon resulted in a pause for a second or two before the menu appeared.

Source: www.pcmag.com