SmartQ T20 review by andropos

[andropos]

Today i got my hands on SmartQ T20 and want to share my first impressions.

SmartQ T20 Specs:

• CPU TI OMAP 4460, ARM Cortex-A9 dual core, 1.5GHz
• GPU PowerVR SGX 540
• RAM 1GB
• Nand Flash 16GB
• Screen Size 10.1"
• Type IPS Capacitive Screen
• Resolution 1280 x 800
• Camera 2.0 Megapixels front.5.0 Megapixels rear
• Multi-Touch 10 points touch
• Bluetooth Support Bluetooth 4.0
• WIFI 802.11 b/g/n
• Earphone Interface 3.5mm
• Battery 7500MAh
• 1 x MINI HDMI port
• 1 x MINI USB port
• 1 x 3.5mm earphone port; 1 x OTG cable

The device is very well built and it actually feels lighter then Ten3.

The faster CPU really makes a difference, the UI is flying and i didnt experience any lag AT ALL when using the basic Android operations.

Battery Test

Video playback, screen set to minimum brightness, speaker off, wifi off, CPU governor set to interactive. Firmware version is V2.0 running ICS 4.0.4.

100% : 12:39
43% : 19:03
30% : 20:27

8 hours video playback from 100% to 30%, after reboot the battery indicator went to 38% so video playback continues.

21% : 22:17

I rebooted the device at 22:17 and status show 21% battery, Maximum CPU frequency changed to 920Mhz. I plugged the device to charger, Maximum CPU frequency changed to 1500Mhz and charging battery status was now at 2%.

Video file codec details:
Codec: H264 - MPEG-4 AVC (part 10) (avc1)
Resolution: 1280x546
Frame rate: 23.976215
Codec: MPEG AAC Audio (mp4a)
Sample rate: 48000 Hz
Codec: Text subtitles with various tags (subt)

I got almost 10 hours of video playback on one charge with minimum settings, and i could probably squeeze out some more but this test clearly shows the true capacity of the 7000mah battery and the power management.

More battery tests will follow.

Photos

[andropos]

Something i want to report early is that my unit suffers from serious screen bleeding, see photo below.





After some research i found that the bleeding issue is common on IPS screens.
I would like to add that the brighter areas are only visible when the image on screen is very dark or totally black and not during normal use.

Ipad is no exempt, search "bleeding screen" on Youtube to see some exemples.

Browser Benchmark





Quadrant results



Quadrant System Info



Gameplay on SmartQ T20




A new setting is available on T20, under Setting > Performance, you can now set CPU clock speed. Great feature to use if you like to increase battery time.






Camera

The rear camera is 5MP but the image quality is very poor, auto white balance not very good, the auto focus is there but not very accurate.

SmartQ commented on the poor photo quality that is has to do with the camera drivers and promised to fix this in future firmware updates.

Below are some photos i snapped during my visit in Hong Kong.

Below are resized images:









more original resolution photos:

http://i.imgur.com/nA3VP.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/fVNQb.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/zbdeC.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/OVmGK.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/OVmGK.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/hXcno.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/OVp0A.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/qCNu9.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/0Kgta.jpg


Welcome to discuss T20 in our dedicated forum:
http://tabletrepublic.com/forum/smartq-t20/

Let me know if you want me to test something for the review.

The good
* High performance dual-core CPU
* The OMAP4 solution offers good power management and battery life
* SmartQ frequently release firmware updates with bug fixes and improvements


The bad
* No 3G dongle support with current firmware version
* No exFAT support, real downer as T20 offer good HD playback
From V4.0 firmware NTFS and exFAT file system is supported.

[Grippen]

It seems to be a good tablet already seemed so from other pics. I'm very curious about the performance will this match the Tegras

[ArisGrUk]

@ andropos

forgetting the screen bleeding problem, would you say that this tablet is worth the over $330 price tag? Is any Chinese tablet worth spending that much money on (>$330)? is dual core that much better/faster to demand extra $100 compared to single core? and last question, would YOU buy the T20 and what alternative dual cores you suggest?



I am new to the android tablets so I am asking out of curiosity and not to put down the T20. I was actually considering buying the T20 but as there are not many dual core tablets I decided to wait till competition heats up to drive costs down, rumours also says that google will be releasing a tablet soon with a very competitive price tag and maybe quad processor?? I might wait couple of months for 8726-MX or RK3066 tablets.... wishful thinking??

[yellowperil]

I think this is were the china tablet needs to be careful, one of the reasons its doing so well is staying at the 200$ mark, above that people are goign to spend a little more for a brand name, a lot of last year models are now dropping down to 300$ range.
China market is not competing with the models, if they want to they will lose, taking into consideration the risks and repair options we take with the tablets, marking tablets at the same price as brand models for near like for like, people will just not bother with the china models at all.

[Grippen]

I think this is were the china tablet needs to be careful, one of the reasons its doing so well is staying at the 200$ mark, above that people are goign to spend a little more for a brand name, a lot of last year models are now dropping down to 300$ range.
China market is not competing with the models, if they want to they will lose, taking into consideration the risks and repair options we take with the tablets, marking tablets at the same price as brand models for near like for like, people will just not bother with the china models at all.

I second that most of people including me only consider a Chinese brand due to the price it is very difficult to find a branded one which gets even closer to it. If in some cases the price difference pays off taking into consideration the risks of custom taxes and damage on the way plus lower warranty times (at least when compared with Portugal where everything is mandatory to have 2 years) on some others may not pay off and this can be one of those cases. Luckily here in Portugal some companies are already selling the China brands and providing proper support to it some are direct resellers of the brands other rebranding the devices in the end there are 3 or 4 good Chinese solutions here specially in the 7'' market with prices going from 100 to 140 euros.

Bottom line is that these dual cores cannot be so expensive otherwise people will just go to branded devices.

[yellowperil]

We are starting to get some places in Greec selling the china tablets in excess of 200 euros for the resistive screens, and as you can guess these are not selling, as the places selling these are easily marking up 50-75% of the china stores for what we would consider extreme low end tablets (256mb mem, etc).
The reason why china tablets do well is the price, lets face it if you had the money you would buy a branded one not a china version.

Unfortunately the turn around period on the tablets is so fast that dumping the next gen out at the same price as current ranged tablets, would mean they would need to drop the prices of the devices its replacing and cause a loss for most of the manufacturers.
Unlike the western market were a device has maybe 1 year to the next release, we can be anything from 3 months since the last release to the replacement tablets with higher specs.
The market needs to slow down and pace itself, or the tablets in another 3 months will exceed 300$ and not sell at all.

[will567]

I don't think I would buy a tablet from Smartq at this time, myself. This one obviously has the light bleeding, that Andropos shows. The Ten3's have touchscreen issues, which while only a few in number, I read today that it's caused by a BIOS problem, requiring return of the tablets to the manufacturer. I'm sure it will get sorted out, but it does seem that at times these manufacturers are rushing products to market without proper testing or quality control. My JXD had some problems that weren't fixed until a user came up with a rom based on another device's firmware. So maybe there should be a slowdown of releases, and concentration on getting what is put out for sale properly functioning.

[yellowperil]

I hope so, as this is seriously affecting the roll out of firmwares, as devices are made redundant even before they have a stable release of a firmware.
I think the devices on the present market are more than sufficient,with more time spent on a stable and reliable firmware file, I think more sales would happen, how many tablets are out in the market atm with no firmwares apart from whats shipped on them.

[ArisGrUk]

We are starting to get some places in Greec selling the china tablets in excess of 200 euros for the resistive screens, and as you can guess these are not selling, as the places selling these are easily marking up 50-75% of the china stores for what we would consider extreme low end tablets (256mb mem, etc).
The reason why china tablets do well is the price, lets face it if you had the money you would buy a branded one not a china version.

Unfortunately the turn around period on the tablets is so fast that dumping the next gen out at the same price as current ranged tablets, would mean they would need to drop the prices of the devices its replacing and cause a loss for most of the manufacturers.
Unlike the western market were a device has maybe 1 year to the next release, we can be anything from 3 months since the last release to the replacement tablets with higher specs.
The market needs to slow down and pace itself, or the tablets in another 3 months will exceed 300$ and not sell at all.

I agree 100% completely with you my friend!!
The reason why we all look for chinese 7inch tablets is their ~$150 price tag, the same for the 10inches around $250 so when compared to the branded $500 they feel cheap. (50% cheaper)

If the dual cores are now selling for $330 then the quads will sell for over $400??? This is crazyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy as the Chinese are asking for the same money but with much less product support and NO guarantee if/when something goes wrong.

I think I managed to convince myself not to spend $330, at this moment at least, and wait for more companies to roll out more dual/quad processors!!