Finally I got the Xtab A10 tablet PC on Tuesday with COD (Cash on Delivery option). The box pack looked great as you can see in the video and I was more than excited to check out the low cost tablet with Android 4.0 OS.
The Box
On the top there is the Xtab A10 image and on either sides the descriptions, the content in the box and the price. Upon opening the first thing you will see is the tab covered in plastic. The bottom box compartment contains the Charger, earphones, miniUSB to USB connector and USB cord.
Xtab A10 first impression – fascinating
The 7 inch touchscreen with black border and 3 touch sensitive buttons looks great and so does the rear side with glossy white colour with the NXG logo (Xtab A10 is also available in black colour). The hard plastic metallic colour (white) body weighs a bit but gives you that rugged feeling when holding it in your hand.
Power On
The Android logo followed by the NXG logo and then Android 4.0 loaded waiting for your command. The capacitive touchscreen is pretty smooth and responsive. The display quality is better than expected. Apps open faster and you can smoothly switch between applications (multitasking).
A quick look at the specifications
This tab is powered by a 1.5 GHz AllWinner Cortex A8 processor with 512 MB DDR3 system memory and internal storage of 4GB or 8 GB or 16 GB option. The TF card slot can hold cards with capacity up to 32 GB. The tab runs at 1 GHz speed and can be clocked up to 1.5 GHz. NXG are shipping with speed of 1 GHz as higher speed will drain the battery. You can expect more firmware upgrades in future and probably with some more speed. But even with 1 GHz the tab performs exceptionally well.
Android 4.0 a.k.a. ICS (Ice Cream Sandwich) runs smoothly on this low cost powerhouse. The display screen is 7 inch supporting 800 by 480 resolution.
What is missing?
GPS, Bluetooth and built in 3G SIM slot. NHX will soon come out with a 3G version in case you want a tablet with phone functionality. As far as Bluetooth is concerned it is really not needed as there is no phone functionality plus you can use Wi-Fi, USB or the memory card for transferring data.
What can you do on this tablet?
Read eBooks, view movies (1080p), play games (yes.. Angry Birds too), listen to MP3’s, work with office document files including PDF, surf the net, chat, video chat using Skype and you can download from thousands of apps using Google Play.
Watch the Unboxing video and the features in action!
The Xtab A10 is a good low cost tablet with impressive feature and quality. The front facing camera can be used for video chatting, though I have not used that, yet. As far as the battery life is concerned will keep you updated. 1080 p videos looks pretty good on this tab.
The Xtab A10 comes with limited applications so the first thing that you might want to do is download some useful apps (Office, games etc.). The tab carries a 1 year warrant and the NXG guys are very supportive in case you need any assistance.
Xtab A10 Benchmark results using Quadrant Tool
Updates:
My Tata Photon USB Dongle make Huawei EC152 did not work. I will try and use the Wi-Fi hotspot to share net between 3G handset and the Xtab A10. I think any USB Dongle that requires user to connect using login and password will not work on this tab. A plug and play dongle i.e. the net is active as soon as you plugin the device without the need to enter the user – password, will most probably work with A10 tablet. This tab is rooted, has root access.
Front Camera on Xtab A10
The camera app can take still images as well as record videos. Being a VGA camera the quality is not that good, but good enough for closeups. You can even share the images on skype, gmail and Picasa.
Skype Video Chat
Skype App does not come per-installed, you can download it from Google play. I downloaded and installed it. The video chat worked perfectly from my end but the video feed that my friend was getting was not perfect, he sent me the print-screen image that you see below. Not sure what is causing it. The default camera app works perfectly fine and the images taken are perfect, could be some issue with Skype.
To fix the Skype video problem on ICS just use an older version of SKYPE, I tried the skype 2.5 version and it worked flawlessly. Just make sure you do not update the skype again. Skype might come up with a new version which you can try and see if it fixes the issue or just keep using the 2.5 version for the time being.
eBook on Xtab (click to enlarge)
Games on Xtab
Cityville using Facebook
I tried the default browser logged on to Facebook and started the cityville game but it switched to mobile version with messaging options, you cannot play the game. I then downloaded the Dolphin HD browser which has the Desktop mode option. Now when I tried the game again it did load but no good as extremely slow and browser crashes.
Shadow Gun on Xtab A10
You can play many high quality games provided the app supports Mali 400 GPU. I downloaded this game called Shadow Gun of size about 250 MB. The game runs pretty smooth, you can check out in the video. This will give you an idea what this tab is capable of.
Check out the video.
Battery performance
Totally drained the battery (5%) and now charging – Full Charge (Tablet not used): 3 Hours 30 minutes. When you plugin the charger a blue LED light indicator switches on. When the Blue LED switches off it indicates that the tab is fully charged. By default the battery brightness is at 100% I have changed to a lower value around 15% you can change it accordingly. This will improve the battery life.
You can Watch about 250 to 300 minutes of video on a single charge with 10 to 15% brightness level.