Category: Tablets

Design and Construction

On the right side, we find the RESET button, charging socket, Micro HDMI slot, Micro USB, mini-jack and a single speaker. There are also two physical buttons on the side. It comes with a high-resolution display, and compared to the Wi-Fi only model, it has the SIM card slot, which is located on the bottom, right next to the micro SD card slot. With 240 x 176 x 10 millimeters dimension, it measures same as Wi-Fi model, but weighs slightly more, about 15 grams heavier(605 grams).

Kiano Elegance 9.7 3G Screen

Kiano used a 9.7-inch IPS panel with a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels. So we get a density of 132 PPI – this is not a particularly high value and difficult to consider it as an advantage. Since it uses IPS, the viewing angles are excellent, and so are the white balance and color reproduction levels. Brightness on the other hand, is mere 300 cd/m2.

Kiano Elegance 9.7 3G Specs

Dimensions    240 x 178 x 10 mm
Weight    605 grams
Colors    gray / black
Screen    9.7 "
Screen Type    IPS touch screen, capacitive, multi-touch support
Resolution    1024 x 768 px
Processor    Rockchip RK3188, 4-core, 1.6 GHz
GPU    4-core Mali-400
RAM    1 GB RAM
Usable Memory    8 GB
Media    microSD
System    Android 4.2 Jelly Bean
Battery    7800 mAh
Main camera    2 MP
Front camera    0.3 MP
3G Modem    so
WLAN    802.11 a / b / g / n
Bluetooth    so
USB    microUSB
GPS    not
HDMI    yes, Micro HDMI
What is in the box    Tablet, Charger, USB cable, Warranty Card, Manual

Kiano Elegance 9.7 3G Battery life

The tablet comes with a 7800 mAh battery. With brightness set to 120 cd/m2, you can watch a movie for nearly 9 hours in a row / surf the internet for more than 10 hours. 3G web browsing will yield 7 hours of runtime. Brightness levels play  a big part in overall battery runtimes.

Performance and Benchmarks

It is powered by rockchip RK3188 processor that is quad core and based on Cortex A9 architecture. It has clock frequency of 1.6 GHz and has 4 core Mali 400 GPU to handle graphics. Here are its benchmark results.

1. 3DMark – 3381
2. Peacekeeper (chrome / stock) – 684 / 765
3. Sunspider – 1207
4. Kraken – 13470

The tablet runs very smooth, and is very optimized. There are no hangups or slowdowns.

Kiano Elegance 9.7 3G Review Summary

Kiano Elegance 9.7 3G tablet is a well designed device. It does not have a high resolution display, but does that affects us? Not at 9.7 inches. Given its price and built in 3G connectivity, you just cannot complain about lack of retina display.

ASUS PadFone Infinity A80 debuted at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Catalonia, and the ASUS PadFone Infinity A86 was revealed in October at a press conference in Taiwan. According to recent rumors, the owners of both models will have to wait quite a bit of time for Android 4.4 kitkat firmware update.

ASUS PadFone Infinity A80 phone is powered by a 4-core Snapdragon 600 processor that runs at a clock frequency of  1.7 GHz processor backed by Adreno 320 graphics chip. It will be getting the update in the first quarter, next year, while the PadFone Infinity A86 with the Snapdragon 800 SoC will be updated to KitKat by the end of second quarter. Yes, that is a long time to wait for the two flagships phone hybrids.

Meet Wind Tech Co. LTD, which has become the first company to offer a tablet without an operating system pre-installed. We have seen laptop vendors doing this from a decade to reduce the retail price, but this is the first time a tablet is being offered without one. Fortunately, since it is an x86 machine, you can easily install Windows 8.1 on it.

Specs include 11.6 inch display packing 1366×768 pixel resolution, Intel Celeron 1007U 1.5 GHz processor, 64 GB SSD, Intel NM70 express chipset, 4 gigabytes of RAM, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Micro SD card slot, micro HDMI, 2x USB 2.0, 1 MP / 2 MP front / back cameras, and head phone / microphone jack.

Battery capacity is 6,000 mAh, which should give you 6+ hours of productivity time. It measures 302 × 196 × 13.5mm (height x width × depth, and weighs 950 grams. The Wind C22L will retail at 50,000 Yen (~ $500) [press release link] [product page] (both Japanese)

Lenovo Japan will be releasing the world’s lightest Windows 8 tablet, Miix 2 8 in Japan on December 6, 2013. This tablet weighs 350 grams and will come with latest version of Windows 8 – v8.1. It will be priced at 42,800 Yen for the 32 gigabytes of flash storage and 47,800 Yen for the 64GB version. Both come with Microsoft Office software pre loaded.

Lenovo Miix 2 8 inch screen include  Atom Z3740 (1.33GHz, onboard video), 2GB memory, Windows 8.1, 64GB or 32GB storage, 2 mega pixel camera, micro USB, micro SD card slot, 5 mega pixel rear camera and headphone / microphone jack.

The Miix 2 measures 215.6 × 131.6 × 8.35mm. [via pcwatch]

If you go to expansys to order the 1.86 GHz version of the OQO, you will find that the expansys is showing that product has been discontinued. This makes us wonder as the product is barely few months old. This can only mean one thing: OQO is going to launch the revision of its flagship model. It can be that OQO is preparing the revision of model 2+ with Intel Atom 2.0 GHz (Z550) instead of Intel Atom 1.86GHz (Z540).

It may be noted that the power consumption of Z550 is same as Z540 even with the speed jump. Also, it makes sense to equip the flagship model with the best available mobile processor.

[via oqotalk]

The SmartQ 5 MID from China, costs just $130 (900 Yuan) and runs ARM-based Ubuntu. It has a 4.3-inch display with WVGA (800×480) resolution. The display should be crisp at that resolution. It also comes with built-in BT connectivity and WiFi b/g/a.  It also comes with some pre-installed applications (StarDict dictionary and FBReader ebook reader).

It may not be running the best CPU around, but we should not underestimate ARM-processor, which powers more than 80% of the phones that we use in our daily life. Also, I need not reiterate the fact how less power the ARM processors consume.

[via itechnews]