Alcatel Onetouch Announces 8-Inch Windows 10 Mobile Tablet

At CES this week, Alcatel Onetouch announced the PIXI 3, an 8-inch Windows 10 Mobile Tablet. But unless I’m missing something, this thing is an effect a giant smart phone, since it provides 4G LTE connectivity too.

It’s hard to tell what’s going on from Alcatel’s web site, since the promo page for the PIXI shows off photos of the device with both Windows 10 Mobile and Windows 10 for PCs on-screen. But the firm tells me it’s really Windows 10 Mobile.

“The PIXI 3 is an 8-inch tablet with a tablet-optimized Windows 10 Mobile operating system offers lightning-fast browsing and downloading with Qualcomm chipset driving 4G LTE connectivity,” Alcatel Onetouch told me. For clarity, it attached a press release for a different product, however.

Further confusing matters, I didn’t think Microsoft licensed Windows 10 Mobile on 8-inch devices. My understanding is that the screen size has to be less than that. (Maybe the PIXI 3 is technically a 7.99-inch tablet. Or maybe I’m just remembering this wrong.)

Here’s what I can tell, sort of.

The PIXI 3 appears to offer a 1.3 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 210 (MSM8909) processor, which makes this a very low-end device. (This is basically the same processor used by the Lumia 550 and other low-end Windows phones.) The screen is listed as 8 inch, 1280×800 IPS, also low-end, and the 1 GB of RAM and 8 GB of storage (with microSD up to 32 GB) are not inspiring either.

The 4G/LTE stuff is of course GSM-based, and there is Bluetooth 4.1. The cameras seem terrible: 5 MP on the rear, 2 MP up front. Like a phone, it has a microUSB port and a 3.5 mm audio jack. Sensors are minimal: GPS, A-GPS, and G-sensor (whatever that is). It comes in white and black versions. Pricing is unknown.

Put simply, this is basically a very low-end Windows phone with a big screen. The goofy thing is, during the Windows 8 debacle, I often pointed out that a big Windows phone would be better than a Windows 8 mini-tablet. But here in 2016, that ship has sailed, I think: For most people, this platform’s lack of apps makes this thing just about as untenable as any Windows mini-tablet.