Ramos, Onda or Ainol - best alternative tablet manufacturer to the usual big 6

Forums › Android › Ramos, Onda or Ainol - best alternative tablet manufacturer to the usual big 6

perplu

24 posts

Geek

#126804 20-Jul-2013 12:50

Been looking at alternatives to the usual big 6 or 5 or is it 7 tablet manufacturers such as Samsung, Apple and so on. After some searching and reading it seems like these three: Ramos, Onda and Ainol ... I know, I know.

http://www.ramos-tablet.com/
http://www.onda-tablet.com/buy-android-onda.html
http://www.ainol.co.nz/
http://www.ainol.com/

I don't know which if any of the sites above are actually official brand sites - they could be tablet drop-shippers - see forum item
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=97&topicid=108577

But at least you can check out specs, etc.

My question is anyone had any experience with these three - from my searching they appear to be the better three or near top three alternatives. Certainly they represent value for specs supplied. I appreciate that along with the price there might be some quality-control issues. Maybe not?

Cheers

urban

487 posts

Ultimate Geek

#862587 20-Jul-2013 14:13

The Quality of the Ainol tablets can be a bit of a hit and miss.

I have owned three models the Aurora, Aurora2 and Fire, and the A2 has been by far the most reliable... and was running CM mod rom as opposed to the horribly buggy stock one.

All three models had some niggling wifi issues, although it was less of a problem again with the A2.

The Fire model I had was by far the worse quality tablet I have used, it had weak wifi issues and a shoddy screen(which would not detect touch sometimes).

I would buy it off a local trader on trademe which has you covered by the cga in the event something happens. Shipping a return item back to China is VERY expensive.

numfarr

329 posts

Ultimate Geek

#863007 21-Jul-2013 13:45

I bought a Pipo M9 10" tablet from Geekbuying. Supposedly Pipo is one of the better brands, and it had quite good reviews. Unfortunately it has quality control and design problems that would be an instant return in a more expensive tablet:

* With headphones plugged in some audio problems showed up: quite bad audio noise on one channel (digital interference noise) which is annoying during quiet parts of movies and music, and cracks and pops when starting to play. No problems with Bluetooth headphones.

* Some lighter patches in the middle of the screen, visible at offcentre angles when viewing a darker page or video.

* Screen flickers visibly and annoyingly when set to the lowest brightness level. Is OK at higher brightness levels.

* Text tends to flicker when scrolling, looks like a redraw caused by driver problems

* The touch sensor has a dead zone of about 3 mm on the right-hand edge.

* Screen protector adhesion was bad, started peeling off in several places almost immediately.

* Camera is pretty bad, very noisy even in average light.

* SD card is recessed so far in you need long fingernails or a screwdriver to insert and remove it

I submitted a review with all this but Geekbuying didn't publish it, evidently they only publish positive reviews.

RoyalWulf

41 posts

Geek

#867787 29-Jul-2013 12:52

numfarr: I bought a Pipo M9 10" tablet from Geekbuying. Supposedly Pipo is one of the better brands, and it had quite good reviews. Unfortunately it has quality control and design problems that would be an instant return in a more expensive tablet:

* With headphones plugged in some audio problems showed up: quite bad audio noise on one channel (digital interference noise) which is annoying during quiet parts of movies and music, and cracks and pops when starting to play. No problems with Bluetooth headphones.

* Some lighter patches in the middle of the screen, visible at offcentre angles when viewing a darker page or video.

* Screen flickers visibly and annoyingly when set to the lowest brightness level. Is OK at higher brightness levels.

* Text tends to flicker when scrolling, looks like a redraw caused by driver problems

* The touch sensor has a dead zone of about 3 mm on the right-hand edge.

* Screen protector adhesion was bad, started peeling off in several places almost immediately.

* Camera is pretty bad, very noisy even in average light.

* SD card is recessed so far in you need long fingernails or a screwdriver to insert and remove it

I submitted a review with all this but Geekbuying didn't publish it, evidently they only publish positive reviews.

Interesting. I have been looking at the Pipo M9 until the Pipo M9Pro came along, now waiting for a review of the Pro. Can you tell me if you upgraded to one of the custom ROM's available?

numfarr

329 posts

Ultimate Geek

#868110 29-Jul-2013 21:21

Yes I tried one of the Riley ROMs, but it's pretty much the same deal. They are just repacking the existing binaries as Pipo like most Chinese manufacturers haven't released any source code, so they have the same basic bugs, but most of the problems are hardware-related anyway.

Forgot to mention that if you turn Bluetooth on/off it kills Wifi for some reason and you have to toggle Wifi to restore service. Now that is a software bug. :)

perplu

24 posts

Geek

#884173 25-Aug-2013 11:36

Well ... after some research I dipped my toe in the water ... in the end buying the WiFi-only version of the Pipo M9 Pro. Specs are below. There is a 3G version available but not sometihng I need. For anyone interested my buying and product experience is below. Cheers.

RESEARCH
Found these sites useful:
http://liliputing.com
http://www.gizchina.com/category/tech/tablets/
http://chinagadgetsreviews.blogspot.ro/search/label/tablets
http://www.bestchinatablets.com/

SUPPLIER
In the end I bought it from http://www.spemall.com/. I'd not bought from them before but decided to in the end because:
- There was nothing I could find on the internet that suggested they were crooks.
- There was one or two sites that rated them as OK.
- They had the product I wanted and what seemed a good price and also reasonable shipping cost.
- They also had good information on shipping and what type of shipping to use, ie. the local China shipping was to be avoided.

PAYMENT AND SHIPPING
Once I clicked "pay" it took two weeks for it to be shipped. Once is was shipped it took 5 days to get to my front door - funnily enough 2 of those days were spent at the Wellington courier's depot. The two-week delay before shipping was some minor concern, but I logged a ticket with Spemall twice on this and each time they responded promptly (within a day) with a reasonable explanation. Not having the tablet two weeks after purchasing it was not a big deal - I was going to starve and I'd still continue to enjoy life.The product was packaged OK. There was some ripped up cardboard included in the outer packaging as extra filler. Not exactlly high-class, but its packaging and hey - at least its a good way to re-use rubbish.PRICE$NZ350 in the end which included the tablet, a faux-leather case that I selected as an extra item (the type that folder round on itself that we all use) and shipping.

USE
It arrived fortunately just before a 2-week holiday to aussie. So that was great. Got to use it continuously on two back-to-back flights and at the airport inbetween. With WiFi off, screen dimmed nearly to lowest brightness which is perfectly fine when indoors - I got more than 9.5 hours out of it and it still have juice left - Australia's a big country. This is what I would expect. While on the beach under an umbrella I had to have the screen up to full brightness - and it would last about 4 to 5 hours - difficult to tell between swims and the hours of gaming.In terms of all the hardware, buttons, etc - none have been a problem. It works. The dual speakers are on the back rear-facing. They provide loud enough sound, a bit harsh but its a tablet not a $2000 receiver + $5000 speakers.

Am happy with the purchase - for $350 it does everything I need and I suspect much the same as any of the $700+ common Western-brand tablets around. With the lower price it means the overall long-term cost is less considering that the useful life of mobile devices can be 2 to 5 years depending on whether you always need the latest and greatest.

SPECS
10.1", 1920x1200 IPS (16:10) Capacitive 10-touch
CPU Rockchip 3188 Cortex A9,1.6GHz, Quad-core CPU+Quad-core GPU
RAM 2GB DDR, 32GB flash memory
Android 4.2
Camera Front 2M, back 5M
WiFi: 802.11/b/g/n
GPS receiver
G-sensor, Gyro sensor, light sensor
E-compass, Micro SD slot, mic, speaker, mini HDMI outputX

huxtable

107 posts

Master Geek

#884208 25-Aug-2013 13:57

Awesome review, thanks perplu.

perplu

24 posts

Geek

#886058 28-Aug-2013 18:28

I've just thought - my experience with the supplier and tablet have all be rosy .... anyone else considering purchasing from the same and purchasing the same tablet will be at your own risk. I'd say the supplier is OK. But the Pipo while I've had not problems, its possible I've just been lucky and received one that was built just before payday. Who knows. Good luck out there.

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reven

3743 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#886059 28-Aug-2013 18:34

I have an Ainol fire/spark. the wifi is terrible, super slow. screen is nice, but I wouldnt recommend them.

vexxxboy

4244 posts

Uber Geek

#886175 28-Aug-2013 21:08

reven: I have an Ainol fire/spark. the wifi is terrible, super slow. screen is nice, but I wouldnt recommend them.

read somewhere there is an update that fixes the wifi, not sure if it was official or not. i have 2 Ainol and one is 2 years old and still have had no problems with it and a venus again no problems and it's 8 months old, they have just bought out an 8 inch tablet that i wouldnt mind trying

http://www.mp4nation.net/electronics/tablets/ainol-tablets/ainol-novo-8-discover-quad-core-android-4-2-tablet-w-bluetooth-16gb-white

Common sense is not as common as you think.

perplu

24 posts

Geek

#888422 2-Sep-2013 17:25

Just FYI - found this site for Pipo owners ... useful but try at your own risk:

http://www.freaktab.com/showthread.php?6382-Pipo-M9-Pro-RileyROM-1-2-%28M9-with-1920x1200-display%29-Feedback/page7

Cheers

skewt

750 posts

Ultimate Geek

#888432 2-Sep-2013 18:02

I purchased an Ainol Fire for my son and have had no problems with it