Ramos W30 Exynos Quad-Core Hands-on Review

[andropos]

So it finally landed on my desk like a Christmas gift, the one and only Samsung Exynos 4412 Quad-core Android tablet, the Ramos W30. As always i will run down some test to see if this device is as wonderful on the inside as it is on the outside.








The sepcs

Ramos W30 Specifications

• CPU Samsung Exynos 4412, ARM Cortex-A9 Based Quad Core
• Frequency 1.4GHz
• Graphics Mali-400x4 Quad Core GPU
• Screen 10.1 inch 1280*800 wide viewing angle high-definition IPS screen
• 10 Point capacitive multi-touch touch screen
• Memory 1GB DDR3 + 1GB ROM (extremely fast processing speed)
• Storage Nand flash: 4GB-16GB
• Micro SD(TF) card slot supports 1GB--16GB
• Function Hardware 2080P video decoding!
• 3D graphics acceleration
• VGA front camera, back 2MP camera
• Connectivity IEEE 802.11 b/g/n WiFi network
• 2x USB 2.0 high-speed OTG port and Mini USB port
• Sensor Three-axis accelerometer
• Ambient light sensor
• Audio 3.5mm standard stereo headphone port
• High-quality stereo loudspeakers
• Microphone
• OTG external mobile device supports EXFAT, NTFS, FAT32 subarea. High sensitive G-sensor. Vibration motor.
• Casing Alluminium and Hard Plastic
• Weight 538g
• Dimensions 258.3*164*9.5mm
• Battery 3.7V 5400mAH Li-polymer battery. Low power consumption and long standby

Hardware

Ramos displyed the W30 and W30HD already at the Hong Kong fair back in October, where i had a chance to get a quick feel at this and other devices which you can read about his this post. The first impression i had back then is still the same today, the W30 is snappy with its 4-core cpu, its super thin and the built quality feels first class apart from the ports cover which i will go into details leter in the review.

When you pick up the device you will be surprised how thin (9.5mm at its thickest) and light (538 grams) this device really is. The bezel around the screen is really at its minimum, the white front makes it look sleek and the silver aluminum back gives it even more quality feel. Ramos is well know for its built quality, good design but also late release of their hyped devices, as in the case of W30/W30HD. Late release can in some cases actually be a good thing. I can easy that the built quality is on pair with highend devices from Samsung or other expensive bands.

The only issue i have as for the built is the cover over the ports at the pack of device, its made of plastic and not very easy removed using your nail, its held in place by tiny rubber bands on each end and it really feels like they will break easily after extended use, i guess its the price you pay for the slim design. Under the cover you find the micro USB port and the SD card slot, if you dont plan to use the USB cable or remove the SD card too often i guess this wont be un isssue and it looks more clean with the ports hiddeden.

Orther thing i noticed is that the power and volume buttons are quite tiny and located too close to eachother and its easy to press wrong button by mistake, they also feel very plastic, i would prefer something more solid as i tend to use the volume buttons alot. Overall the good built quality, slim snd sleek design lets you easy forget about the few drawbacks.

Screen

The screen is very bright with good contract and crystal clear image, even at extreme angles the image is claer and there is no color tint from any of the 4 angles. Even at lowest brightness setting the image is very clear and hopefully can help you save battery when on the-go. The quality of the IPS displays on new tablets constantly improves and its no longer an issue as it was just few months ago. Having said that i noticed some screen bleeding on my test sample but i also know this is very common with IPS displays, plus my unit comes from an early batch. To see the bleeding you need to turn off all your lights set the screen to 100% brightness and open a totally black image, something that is invisable in normal use, but i dint want to left this one out.

I have noticed the image on the W30 is displyed at lower color bitrate resulting in lower color tones which makes images with lost of color tones look poor in quality and this is also noticable in the UI effects. Im not sure if this is related to the IPS display, the android drivers or some setting that im unable to find but this has to be addressed and i will update this part as soon as i have this cofirmed.

Software

As with most Chinese tablets the Ramos W30 comes preloaded with few Chinese apps that cant be removed as the device is not rooted. I hope for a rooted firmware or at least a root method for this device to gain more control over the Android firmware and to tweak what needs to be teaked. I have not owned or used any Ramos tablet eariler but looking at their firmware updates and forum topics im not very impressed, i hope this will not become on of the device with great specs and potential but left abondond with no firmware updates. Im worried that the last firmware update was november Novermber 26 (20121126), maybe the communiity can keep this device alive.
























Play and Gapps

The W30 comes pre-loaded with Play and has no issues but Gmail app is missing. I downloaded and installed Gmail via Play but the app will keep crashing on launch and i suspect some framework files or other are missing, i didnt have time to look into is in order to find a fix. Youtube installs fine and works.

UPDATE
Gmail fix:
http://tabletrepublic.com/forum/ramos-w30-w30hd/ramos-w30-w30hd-gmail-fix-3528.html

To gain root access see instructions here:
http://tabletrepublic.com/forum/ramos-w30-w30hd/how-root-ramos-w30-w30hd-3512.html


Performance

The Exynos 4412 is powering some of really popular phones like Meizu MX, which i used my self for some time and always wished someone would relese a tablet using this chipset as the performance is really good. Cortex-A9, Quad-core with up to 1.5GHz and Mali 400 sound al good, but like with any Android device the speed of the cores under the hood can only impress if the firmware is well implemented and optimised to get full power out of each core.

The devide feel snappy and browsing rendering is blazing fast, but while still on 404 we cant get the smooth android ui the most of us crave.







Wifi

Another positive surprise with the Ramos W30 is the excellent wifi signal strength, im not sure what wifi module is being used and how the antenna is positioned under the aluminum back but the signal beats all previous tests i have made. I get 135Mbps by default when connected to the router and the signal is almost twice as high as other devices when away from router and behind walls. Big fat thumb up for the wifi performance.





Battery life

Having used Meizu MX i know that this cpu can be very power hungry and with this slim design, light weight and 5400mAh battry i was not expecting much, i was actually afraid that this would be another imx6 experience, but to my surprise the battery life on this device is great.

Below is a screenshot of first real life battery test i did.

This review was written on the Ramos W30 using a bluetooth keyboard, the battery lasted for whole 8 hours of extensive use. First half i wrote the article with wifi off and bluetooth keyboard on, second half the wifi and screen was on constantly. The second half of the time i was browsing web, watching online video, streaming online music via bluetooh, downloading and installing 3D games, playing 3D games.

I did keep the screen brightness at minim most of the time when writing the review as the screen is bright enough, also when streaming music, only then watching video, photo and playing games did i turn up the brightness to 50%, but never to max is it was not necessary to have a clear image and i dont feel the need to impress anyone, i just wanted to test how much time i could get out of a full charge when on the go.

I must say that i am very impressed with the fist battery test, 8 hours on such a slim device with CPU 4-cores under the hood, this must be be a record from a Chinese brand device.

Battery test 2 - Video playback

100%
14% - 6h 38m
0% - 7h 38m

More battery test to come, screenshots for the battery test will also be posted later.



Screen from the first battery test.

[andropos]

Price


Retail price for both Ramos W30 and W30HD via http://ramos.tmall.com

Ramos W30 1GB/16GB 10.1-inch 1280x800 - 1399RMB (~225USD)
Ramos W30HD 2GB/32GB 10.1-inch 1920x1200 - 1599RMB (~257USD)

Purchase online from our sponsors:
Ramos W30 - 259.99USD - Free Shipping
Ramos W30HD - 289.99USD - Free Shipping

[bcog]

Hi Andropos!

I've been lurking for a few weeks now and am in the market for my first china tab I've been interested in the ramos w30 for a while now but couldn't find any concrete reviews on battery life. I would be much obliged if you could post your thoughts on that. (Also a big hello to all the knowledgeable members here and their helpful posts

[dfranz]

KB or BP in another thread had suggested that the test scores were not being accurate for China Tablets anymore. Well this quad core is scoring over the Onda v811 , which was 12184- so should be a lot faster in general usage- quite noticeable I would think.
I also would concur with Bcog, that the battery life would be interesting to note.
And I look forward to your over all impressions on speed Andropos.

[andropos]

Hi Andropos!

I've been lurking for a few weeks now and am in the market for my first china tab I've been interested in the ramos w30 for a while now but couldn't find any concrete reviews on battery life. I would be much obliged if you could post your thoughts on that. (Also a big hello to all the knowledgeable members here and their helpful posts

I will make a proper battery test of the device, im also very keen to find out how it preforms, meizu mx which uses the same CPU had reported bad battery life and heating problem and i want to find out is this is the case here too.

So far the battery has been surprisingly very good, however i have not clocked it so you will have to hold till i make new tests.

KB or BP in another thread had suggested that the test scores were not being accurate for China Tablets anymore. Well this quad core is scoring over the Onda v811 , which was 12184- so should be a lot faster in general usage- quite noticeable I would think.
I also would concur with Bcog, that the battery life would be interesting to note.
And I look forward to your over all impressions on speed Andropos.

Im not a big fan of benchmark scores but thats what ppl like to see so i have to include it, also with the latest Antutu version the score jumped from 13 000 to 15 000 so its not like the device got better just cos new Antutu version is out, well i will compare with other devices in real life applications to have a good sense of the power of this device.

[kingbrowne]

I second that approach Dro.

The two things that I have noticed was that the new Antutu scores much higher than the previous version and also that the Onda devises were registering scores that was not proportional to their actual use.

[wlf]

Could you test wifi performance? Could you test it compared to SmartQ T30? Thank you.

[andropos]

Could you test wifi performance? Could you test it compared to SmartQ T30? Thank you.

I have updated the review, welcome to read what i have found out so far.

The wifi signal is really really strong, to that extend that i start to think they have modified the wifi signal icon to make it look full when it should be less

It have not compared them two at the same time, but from previous test it looks like W30 get better signal strength when far away from the router.

[justincredible]

Does it support 32gb micro SD cards or only up to 16gb like you posted on the specs sheet above?

[andropos]

Does it support 32gb micro SD cards or only up to 16gb like you posted on the specs sheet above?

I didnt have a 32GB card during the review to test, but i would be surprised if it didnt support 32GB and maybe even 64GB sd cards.