SoftWinerEVB Tablet PC android for me

any adice, experience, comments on this ?
7" android 4.0.4 tablet wifi.The Brand is SoftWinerEVB,
Comes with mains charger laptop charger and a convertor usb charger,
It has a slot for an external memory card and the internal storage is 6 gig

thanks

THE CHAINS OF HABIT ARE TOO WEAK TO BE FELT UNTIL THEY ARE TOO STRONG TO BE BROKEN... :A

Comments

  • prand
    prand Posts: 1 Newbie
    edited 22 January 2013 at 1:51PM
    A relative recently gave me one of these for my kids to try out so below is a very quick summary of what I have found so far. Working in education he was evaluating these for use in the classroom. He says he can get them for £50 which on paper is very good value for a 7" capacititve (the better type compared to resistive) screen Android 4.04 tablet, with access to and compatible with all the Android apps & content, has WIFI for web browsing and a solid media player.

    What I have found so far, after a couple of days playing is that while it is good in certain areas (the Android OS is good for features and function, it has up to 4gb onboard storage, and you can add up to 32gb with a micro SD card. It syncs easily with gmail, hotmail etc, has WIFI for connectivity, a Micro USB slot for wired connectivity to a laptop and charging, and it plays music and video, and you can browse the web easily enough, but you really do get what you pay for in terms of performance, features and quality.

    Build quality seems adequate for the price, it's built of flimsy plastic with a plastic, not glass, screen. However, if you were using it to only browse the web or play media content (i.e. 80% of a tablet's real-life use), this should be perfectly up for this job. I'd be on the lookout for a silicone rubber case (none seem to be specificially available) which would add some ruggedness, especialy in the hands of my children.

    The screen is not a great resolution if you are used to Apple products or higher end tablets. But it was perfectly usable and presented film, streaming tv and text well enough.

    The touchscreen response is vague and inconsistent. I found this resulted in intermittent menu, icon, and web link selection not being successful first time, which can be frustrating. Plus the on-screen typewriter doesn't always pick up the letter you select. You wouldn't want to type a lot of emails on this unit, and is much less consistent than iPhone or iPad (which I don't enjoy typing much on either, this is much worse!)

    The performance (particularly menu transition and app activation) is slow and therefore confusing to my little
    ones as they are used to instant screen and app response with apple & samsung products, so end up pressing icons over and over before the unit has responded. Which often means they end up in a very different place to the one they intended.

    I checked the specification online and it is supposed to have a 1Ghz processor (which doesn't sound too bad but it does depend on how it is utilised!) and 512Mb of RAM - I have read that at least 1GB of RAM improved performance with Android devices - and certainly this device needs that.

    The unit has crashed on me once and became completely unresponsive requiring a forced reboot.

    The single, person facing, camera is very low resolution and dark, even in well lit room. Video Skype for instance will not be a great experience (although I have not found how to configure video/photo input yet, so this may be able to be adjusted). For interior photos it was pretty useless.

    All of the above were acceptable at the price point above but my main problem though, is with the battery life. Video and music playback is not too bad - you can get a few hours of watching stored fils and tv shows. But using WIFI for web browsing or downloading, or even having WIFI active results in the battery is used up surprisingly quickly and will often need to be recharged within 1 hour of use.

    This unit is only a few months old, and perhaps is faulty, but I have checked specifications online, and video playback is "only" 4 hours which if you allow for some usual drop of battery performance over time is not great. This will obviously be worse if you add Wifi, and other background processes into the mix.

    Output sound is fine through headphones and not great, but adequate through the 1W speaker. I couldn't find any way to change the sound quality (treble, bass etc), so it may be improved by doing that, but you are stuck with a rear pointing speaker, so the person sitting in front of you will be hearing most of the sound!

    So - in quick summary, a very cheap device, and the clunky performance and screen response I'd probably live with, for something for the children to use or to take on holiday.

    If only for the battery issue. This the biggest problem for me. I'd run out of power watching a couple of iplayer tv shows and a bit of web browsing in bed for instance. I'd be looking aty other options rather than this one.

    EDIT - doing some further research I've found a very similar model to this: the Allwinner Q88 or A13 which info and models are much more common if you need to do some more research.
  • thats anything but a quick summary... but very helpful
  • loopy_lass
    loopy_lass Posts: 1,551 Forumite
    wow, very concise and extremely helpful, i think i shll save more and get somehting like the nexus 7 or galaxy after that,. budget is ok but they apper to develop faults quite quickly with little or no support.

    thnks very much for the info ... brilliant

    loopy
    THE CHAINS OF HABIT ARE TOO WEAK TO BE FELT UNTIL THEY ARE TOO STRONG TO BE BROKEN... :A
  • I received one recently. The battery runs out of power in an hour and a half or less. The charger in a small 'pin' type., the cable is very short. My husband purchased a battery backup but it needs a small usb connection to work. Any one know of an adapter for this connection?

    I have downloaded some small games and solitaire and it works fine. Although, I agree with the touch screen comment. It seems sluggish when used in the games that need quick response to properly work.

    tamurlaine,
    new from Maryland
  • JJ_Egan
    JJ_Egan Posts: 20,281
    First Anniversary Name Dropper First Post
    Forumite
    Android 4.04 is old and not as responsive as later builds
This discussion has been closed.
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