The Pipo X8 is a rather interesting (for the lack of a more descriptive word) device. It is not a phone, not a tablet, not a phablet (phone/tablet hybrid)… but a combination of a tablet and a mini PC.
We’ve talked about it before, and even back then we were as surprised as you are now. It turns out that fitting a screen is cheaper than obtaining a legit Windows 8.1 licence and hence the weird combination.
Inside, it is powered by an Intel Z3736F processor along with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of ROM. It has the usual radio goodies in the form of WiFi and Bluetooth. In addition to being a Windows PC, the Pipo X8 Mini can also boot Android 4.4 KitKat.
Gizchina News of the week
The display itself is a 7-inch 1024 x 600 pixel unit, but I’m guessing you’ll be interested more in attaching it to your large screen TV. You can find more info about the device in our initial news article here. If you want to buy one, you can do so by visiting this listing on GearBest where the device can be had for $108 after using coupon code ‘PIPOX8’.
From $$$ perspective, is it interesting? or we pay too much money for an lcd screen that we will almost never use?
I guess it is OK. Most of these TV boxes are around this range, and if you care for a genuine copy of Windows, this does make sense.
At first the Pipo X7 came with a tablet licence, this was not suitbable for the device (no screen), then Pipo made the X7s (dualboot) and made the price higher of both the X7 and X7s due to the licence that needed to be payed.
Now they come with the X8, this has a screen = extra hardware costs but they can use a free licence again. At the end you get the screen for free 😛
it’s better to wait when pipo x7 will became cheaper since it have not display
From $$$ perspective, is it interesting? or we pay too much money for an lcd screen that we will almost never use?
I guess it is OK. Most of these TV boxes are around this range, and if you care for a genuine copy of Windows, this does make sense.
At first the Pipo X7 came with a tablet licence, this was not suitbable for the device (no screen), then Pipo made the X7s (dualboot) and made the price higher of both the X7 and X7s due to the licence that needed to be payed.
Now they come with the X8, this has a screen = extra hardware costs but they can use a free licence again. At the end you get the screen for free 😛
it’s better to wait when pipo x7 will became cheaper since it have not display
How does it boot to Android? It comes preconfigured with dual boot or you have to flash it?
There’s an android icon on the Window’s taskbar. Click on it and it will shutdown Windows and boot to android. Similar icon to boot to Windows can be found on the android notification area.
That’s awesome
Not sure if playstore is on the Android part of the system. The X7s did not have the playstore installed. This due to Microsoft rules or something like that.
I bought a Pipo tablet for my son, about years ago. The specs looked really promising, but its building quality was utterly crap, its wifi performance was dramatic and the Android rom (4.2) that the had installed was corrupted in a way that even some of the most popular apps (i.e. Candy Crush) couldn’t even be installed on the worthless device.
For future customers I sincerely hope that Pipo has fired the s.o.b.’s responsible for Quality Control & Final Inspection.
I have pipo w2 which runs on Windows 8.1. The built quality is good, only thing is the touch screen is average, but still acceptable.
Pipo is in my opinion one of the better lesser known brands at this time. The M7pro, P4, W2, W6 are all quite sollid devices.
Before the M7pro they did have some budget devices (talking 2012 here) that where not so good supported. Do you know what tablet you had?
Android on Intel CPU is a pain, lots of apps won’t work. Not Pipo’s fault, just the way things are, as the app developers must invest extra effort to support an incompatible CPU family.
The payoff is computational performance, as well as ability to install and use fully featured Windows. IMO these should be used as Windows or as dual-boot devices.
As to WiFi issues, i have an 8″ Pipo running Windows and it’s not having issues in that regard. But i noticed that Bluetooth and Wifi are on the same IC connected via SDIO. The performance isn’t going to be great in principle for this reason, but i doubt there is another power efficient way they could have done it, given the rest of the architecture they had to work with. Also depending on the driver version, i heard Bluetooth and Wifi would corrupt each other for some people, i indeed end up with bad Bluetooth after a few days of uptime. It doesn’t appear that the manufacturer of the IC is taking their job seriously, but reputable companies like Dell have also been hit by the issues.
This comment was deleted.
There’s an android icon on the Window’s taskbar. Click on it and it will shutdown Windows and boot to android. Similar icon to boot to Windows can be found on the android notification area.
This comment was deleted.
Not sure if playstore is on the Android part of the system. The X7s did not have the playstore installed. This due to Microsoft rules or something like that.
I bought a Pipo tablet for my son, about years ago. The specs looked really promising, but its building quality was utterly crap, its wifi performance was dramatic and the Android rom (4.2) that the had installed was corrupted in a way that even some of the most popular apps (i.e. Candy Crush) couldn’t even be installed on the worthless device.
For future customers I sincerely hope that Pipo has fired the s.o.b.’s responsible for Quality Control & Final Inspection.
I have pipo w2 which runs on Windows 8.1. The built quality is good, only thing is the touch screen is average, but still acceptable.
Pipo is in my opinion one of the better lesser known brands at this time. The M7pro, P4, W2, W6 are all quite sollid devices.
Before the M7pro they did have some budget devices (talking 2012 here) that where not so good supported. Do you know what tablet you had?
Android on Intel CPU is a pain, lots of apps won’t work. Not Pipo’s fault, just the way things are, as the app developers must invest extra effort to support an incompatible CPU family.
The payoff is computational performance, as well as ability to install and use fully featured Windows. IMO these should be used as Windows or as dual-boot devices.
As to WiFi issues, i have an 8″ Pipo running Windows and it’s not having issues in that regard. But i noticed that Bluetooth and Wifi are on the same IC connected via SDIO. The performance isn’t going to be great in principle for this reason, but i doubt there is another power efficient way they could have done it, given the rest of the architecture they had to work with. Also depending on the driver version, i heard Bluetooth and Wifi would corrupt each other for some people, i indeed end up with bad Bluetooth after a few days of uptime. It doesn’t appear that the manufacturer of the IC is taking their job seriously, but reputable companies like Dell have also been hit by the issues.
Can anyone speculate on the ability to run this as a Plex or Kodi client? I think for me, having the touchscreen near the TV, streaming from the Mac server downstairs would actually be phenomenally useful. No extra peripherals (mouse, keyboard) needed necessarily (for my setup).
Yes, Kodi does work on my X7 and X7S which use the same chip, memory and RAM.
The X7s seems to be prepared to get a screen , the place for the connector was on the board already: http://i.imgur.com/0CyBtc2.jpg
I was thinking about the same. Should I buy PIPO x8, or MINIX x8 h+ to about the same price.
Why not just buy a cheap dual boot tablet? Like the Chui vi8 witch I’m currently typing on. Mainly the same price/specs but bigger screen (8″ @ 1280 800) and it’s portable because well… it’s a tablet.
there are a few use cases where something like Pipo X8 would be better.
for instance: better wireless.
but we’ll have to wait for some reviews first.
To use it as a small TV/media center with a Ethernet connection, and some more USB ports.
Ι guess the point is that you can do all those with cheap adapters and it’s not as if they’ll take much more space than the behemoth above … Then again there may be people who trully and tottaly have no need of a tablet in which case merely the fact that this thing has better thermals (=less throttling) means more to them.
Ugly
Seems like they finally took care of the cooling. If you check this picture you see the blue silicone thermal pad. The normal X7 and X7s work way better with this mod (no throttling), now Pipo seems to have fixed it 🙂
Thermal pad is a must on X7’s.
It would also be beneficial to know if the case is also made out of aluminium, unlike the bottom which doesn’t conduct heat so well.
I really hope they’ve put some better quality thermal pads on the chips or even some heat sink on the shield.
This combination works really well for Kodi/Popcorn/4K, once cooled down.
Totally untrue! The very same overheating problem from X7 remained!
I had to make a little cooling mod (install a blower fan) to somehow control the temps..
Can anyone speculate on the ability to run this as a Plex or Kodi client? I think for me, having the touchscreen near the TV, streaming from the Mac server downstairs would actually be phenomenally useful. No extra peripherals (mouse, keyboard) needed necessarily (for my setup).
Yes, Kodi does work on my X7 and X7S which use the same chip, memory and RAM.
The X7s seems to be prepared to get a screen , the place for the connector was on the board already:
I was thinking about the same. Should I buy PIPO x8, or MINIX x8 h+ to about the same price.
Why not just buy a cheap dual boot tablet? Like the Chui vi8 witch I’m currently typing on. Mainly the same price/specs but bigger screen (8″ @ 1280 800) and it’s portable because well… it’s a tablet.
there are a few use cases where something like Pipo X8 would be better.
for instance: better wireless.
but we’ll have to wait for some reviews first.
To use it as a small TV/media center with a Ethernet connection, and some more USB ports.
Ι guess the point is that you can do all those with cheap adapters and it’s not as if they’ll take much more space than the behemoth above … Then again there may be people who trully and tottaly have no need of a tablet in which case merely the fact that this thing has better thermals (=less throttling) means more to them.
Ugly
Seems like they finally took care of the cooling. If you check this picture you see the blue silicone thermal pad. The normal X7 and X7s work way better with this mod (no throttling), now Pipo seems to have fixed it 🙂
Thermal pad is a must on X7’s.
It would also be beneficial to know if the case is also made out of aluminium, unlike the bottom which doesn’t conduct heat so well.
I really hope they’ve put some better quality thermal pads on the chips or even some heat sink on the shield.
This combination works really well for Kodi/Popcorn/4K, once cooled down.
Totally untrue! The very same overheating problem from X7 remained!
I had to make a little cooling mod (install a blower fan) to somehow control the temps..
Spec wise its pretty good, its cheap but good lord it is ugly.
Spec wise its pretty good, its cheap but good lord it is ugly.
Shut up and take my money! Better than a common TV box (and cheaper too), better than a tablet (but less portable) for me is perfect and so useful. I like it. Isn’t ugly (for me).
P.S. Now it is $123.98 unfortunately, but still continues a good device with a nice price.
I am thinking about using it together with KODI (XBMC), and play it on the TV + my wife we will have a extra windows computer. What do you think abut that?
It’s a good idea.
Vander,,, you write 123,98$ , New price, but still ok..
Now (2 months later) it’s $102.99
Shut up and take my money! Better than a common TV box (and cheaper too), better than a tablet (but less portable) for me is perfect and so useful. I like it. Isn’t ugly (for me).
P.S. Now it is $123.98 unfortunately, but still continues a good device with a nice price.
I am thinking about using it together with KODI (XBMC), and play it on the TV + my wife we will have a extra windows computer. What do you think abut that?
Vander,,, you write 123,98$ , New price, but still ok..
It’s a good idea.
Now (2 months later) it’s $102.99
Still have it to 108$ ?
Any ideer Sjoerd…
Still have it to 108$ ?
Any ideer Sjoerd…