12-01-2015, 11:21 AM
Black Friday in the USA brings to mind three things... Crowded malls, [strike]people politely purchasing[/strike] people shoving, pushing and punching each other for that big doorbuster deal, and low-end no-name Chinese electronics. Such electronics typically are cheap Android tablets, cheap Bluetooth speakers or headphones, cheap no-name TVs, and so on. I'm interested in the cheap Android tablets myself. They have become so prevalent, stores that usually never sell tablets suddenly stock them for Black Friday. In my state, Macs Hardware and Runnings Farm & Fleet featured the "Bright-Tab" for $59.99
I initially resisted purchasing this tablet, but no reviews for the 9'' variant could be found. Reviews for an older 7'' model were on Amazon. In the end, I decided to purchase the Bright-Tab.
The main specs of the Bright-Tab are an Allwinner A33 Quad-Core CPU with a Mali-MP 400 GPU, 512mb RAM, 16gb Storage, 0.3MP front and rear cameras, 800x480 TFT LCD capacitive touch screen, and running Android 4.4 KitKat. These are typical specs for a budget Android tablet from China, though such tabs are typically found online and not in a physical retail store.
The tablet's Android 4.4 OS is mostly stock, with very little in the way of bloatware besides a weather widget on the home screen. Google Play and all the various Google apps come pre-installed and you view movies and pictures with the "UHD Player" application. There is an "Update" application which I presume updates the OS, but it's broken. First time I tried it, it failed to connect to it's server. Second time, the application crashes as soon as you check for updates. So far, I have tested general web browsing with Dolphin, and with the limited RAM, complex pages can become slow and laggy. Game performance seems good. I tested Angry Birds and Jewels Star and both run fine. Sonic Dash is listed as being incompatible by the Google Play store perhaps due to the low amount of RAM. Granted, I need to use the tablet for a week or so to get a better idea on how the tablet would perform with long browsing sessions or gameplay. I plan on doing so. The LCD screen quality is noticeably lower than Pumpkin thanks to using cheaper TFT technology. As such, the viewing angles are rather poor. Turning the tablet sideways too far causes the image to fade into a bright whiteness that perhaps is why the tablet bears the name "Bright-Tab". (I know, bad joke)
The build quality of the Android tablet is alright. Compared to Pumpkin, my RCA Maven Pro 11 inch tablet, the plastic does feel cheaper and lighter. It's not horrible though as it doesn't feel like it will shatter in your hands. There is a standard headphone jack, a DC input jack, a MicroUSB port, and a MicroSD slot. I don't know why the DC input jack is present as the included wall adapter is MicroUSB.
I now present a series of screen captures of benchmarks I ran on the BrightTab. I tried running my usual goto benchmark, AnTuTu. It kept restarting after the tests finished and I didn't get my device score. I used PCMark and Geekbench 3, and I also ran the benchmarks on Pumpkin to compare with. After the test screenshots, I will share camera comparisons, and I will post a rather surprising thing about the BrightTab. Now, the screenshot parade....
I initially resisted purchasing this tablet, but no reviews for the 9'' variant could be found. Reviews for an older 7'' model were on Amazon. In the end, I decided to purchase the Bright-Tab.
The main specs of the Bright-Tab are an Allwinner A33 Quad-Core CPU with a Mali-MP 400 GPU, 512mb RAM, 16gb Storage, 0.3MP front and rear cameras, 800x480 TFT LCD capacitive touch screen, and running Android 4.4 KitKat. These are typical specs for a budget Android tablet from China, though such tabs are typically found online and not in a physical retail store.
The tablet's Android 4.4 OS is mostly stock, with very little in the way of bloatware besides a weather widget on the home screen. Google Play and all the various Google apps come pre-installed and you view movies and pictures with the "UHD Player" application. There is an "Update" application which I presume updates the OS, but it's broken. First time I tried it, it failed to connect to it's server. Second time, the application crashes as soon as you check for updates. So far, I have tested general web browsing with Dolphin, and with the limited RAM, complex pages can become slow and laggy. Game performance seems good. I tested Angry Birds and Jewels Star and both run fine. Sonic Dash is listed as being incompatible by the Google Play store perhaps due to the low amount of RAM. Granted, I need to use the tablet for a week or so to get a better idea on how the tablet would perform with long browsing sessions or gameplay. I plan on doing so. The LCD screen quality is noticeably lower than Pumpkin thanks to using cheaper TFT technology. As such, the viewing angles are rather poor. Turning the tablet sideways too far causes the image to fade into a bright whiteness that perhaps is why the tablet bears the name "Bright-Tab". (I know, bad joke)
The build quality of the Android tablet is alright. Compared to Pumpkin, my RCA Maven Pro 11 inch tablet, the plastic does feel cheaper and lighter. It's not horrible though as it doesn't feel like it will shatter in your hands. There is a standard headphone jack, a DC input jack, a MicroUSB port, and a MicroSD slot. I don't know why the DC input jack is present as the included wall adapter is MicroUSB.
I now present a series of screen captures of benchmarks I ran on the BrightTab. I tried running my usual goto benchmark, AnTuTu. It kept restarting after the tests finished and I didn't get my device score. I used PCMark and Geekbench 3, and I also ran the benchmarks on Pumpkin to compare with. After the test screenshots, I will share camera comparisons, and I will post a rather surprising thing about the BrightTab. Now, the screenshot parade....