Alfawise is known as a manufacturer of kitchen appliances, home robotics, smart home devices, Android TV set-top boxes and Windows 10 mini-PCs. However, the range of products has been expanded, and this review will focus on the company’s new product – Alfawise Tab tablet PC, which is equipped with a 7.9” display, with high resolution and aspect ratio 4:3. The model is positioned by the manufacturer something like this: “A tablet with the same characteristics as the Xiaomi Mi Pad 3, only at a more affordable price.”
Equipment
The device comes in a box made of thick cardboard, with gold embossing in a minimalist style on a white background. Inside the box there is an Alfawise Tab tablet, a quick user guide, a power adapter and a USB TypeC cable.
Appearance
This model is presented exclusively in a gold color option, with a white frame on the front side covered with a glass panel. The body of the product is all-metal, with rounded side edges. The tablet turned out to be quite elegant, light and thin. The thickness of the case is only 7 mm, and the weight including the battery is 374 grams.
In general, in appearance and arrangement of elements, Alfawise Tab strongly resembles Apple's iPad mini. Of course, with the exception of some points. For example, at the top of the front panel, against a white background, you can see not only the front camera, but also the light sensor. And below the screen, instead of Touch ID, there are three touch navigation buttons.
On the back panel you can find the main camera module, microphone hole and manufacturer's logo.
A symmetrical USB Type-C connector and perforations for two stereo speakers are placed on the bottom edge.
The 3.5mm audio jack for headphones is located on the left side of the top edge, while the mechanical power/lock button is located on the right side.
Separate buttons for controlling the sound volume level are located on the right side.
Display
The Alfawise Tab tablet is equipped with a high-quality IPS display, the main characteristics of which are comparable to iPad mini screen: 7.9-inch diagonal, QXGA resolution (2048 x 1536 pixels), aspect ratio – 4:3. The screen has excellent viewing angles, a good reserve of brightness and moderately rich color rendition. The pixel density value complies with Retina technical specifications. Accordingly, there is no pixelation, fonts on the screen look clear and smooth, and the images you view are more realistic and detailed.
Alfawise Tab is most convenient to use in portrait orientation, especially while reading. It is believed that tablets with an aspect ratio of 4:3 are the best option for viewing PDF documents, electronic tables, editing text documents, as well as for web surfing and working with email (typing and sending letters).
operating system
The OS is Android 6.0 Marshmallow. The firmware is multilingual, with pre-installed Google Play Store and full support for Google services. The set of applications is standard, without additions from the manufacturer. The OS shell interface does not contain modifications or any third-party add-ons.
Hardware platform
The Alfawise Tab tablet is equipped with a single-chip MediaTek MT8173 system, consisting of a 64-bit quad-core processor based on the ARM big architecture. LITTLE. The productive cluster is represented by 2 Cortex-A72 cores (with a maximum frequency of up to 2.0 GHz), the energy-efficient cluster is represented by 2 Cortex-A53 cores (with a clock frequency of up to 1.6 GHz). When performing complex resource-intensive tasks, all 4 cores are used simultaneously.
Graphics processing is handled by the integrated PowerVR GX6250 video accelerator, which supports hardware encoding and decoding of video formats H.264/HEVC/VP9, with 4K resolution, at 30 FPS. The amount of RAM is 4 GB. In the synthetic AnTuTu performance test, the Alfawise Tab tablet scores just over 66 thousand. points.
In general, thanks to the “clean” OS and fairly powerful hardware, smooth visualization of the interface and good performance indicators are ensured. The tablet copes well with intensive web surfing, high-definition video playback, running office software, casual and resource-intensive games. The most resource-intensive 3D games will require graphics quality to be set to medium or lower to run smoothly.
There is no slot for memory expansion, however, the tablet uses a built-in 64 GB eMMC drive. Not counting the space occupied by the operating system, the user has plenty of free space at his disposal to store documents, multimedia files, install games and applications. In addition, it supports connecting external drives via the USB TypeC port.
Wireless interfaces
This model does not provide the ability to install a SIM card. To access the Internet, you can connect an external 3G modem, or use a wireless connection via the built-in WiFi 802.11b/g/n/ac module. Data transmission is supported in the 2.4 and 5.0 GHz bands. To ensure wireless communication with other devices, a Bluetooth 4.0 module is provided.
Cameras
The main 8-megapixel camera is suitable for taking photos and videos in sufficient lighting conditions. There is no flash LED. The camera application interface is simple and concise, with a minimum number of settings. HDR mode and timer shooting are supported. The front 5-megapixel camera allows for video chatting.
Battery
According to the manufacturer, Alfawise Tab is equipped with a built-in lithium-polymer battery with a capacity of 6200 mAh. One charge is enough for 12 hours of operation in video playback mode (subject to setting the minimum comfortable brightness level for indoor viewing). In mixed use mode with average display brightness, you can count on approximately 8 hours of battery life.
There is no separate connector for connecting power. The tablet is charged via a USB-TypeC connector using a regular 5V/2A AC 100-240V power supply.
Advantages and disadvantages
Pros:
- excellent screen;
- speed at work;
- volumes of RAM and built-in memory;
- good level of performance;
- ergonomics (the tablet is light and thin);
- build quality, metal body;
- dual-band WiFi support;
- affordable price.
Minuses:
- no microSD slot;
- the ability to install a SIM is not provided.
Conclusion
Alfawise Tab is a good budget tablet with a high-quality screen on which it is convenient to read news on the Internet and e-books, work with documents, communicate in instant messengers and social networks, watch videos on YouTube. The CPU and GPU power is enough even for games, and the amount of RAM is enough to ensure good performance and multitasking.
The built-in memory is enough not only to install software, but also to store other user files. For example, you can download several movies or a couple of seasons of a series to watch during a long trip. The device is not much inferior to the Xiaomi Mi Pad 3 in terms of characteristics, and, thanks to the noticeable difference in price, the Alfawise Tab can be considered a bargain.
