[Roman2025]

---THIS IS A BIT OF A RANT BUT IT MIGHT SAVE YOU SOME TROUBLE---
I have yet another warranty nightmare on my hands due to another shite Chinese company not having their house in order. In this case, PiPo.

I have now had several M3 customers report dead touchscreens on their tablets. Based on reading I had done elsewhere, PiPo botched something on the motherboard on a fair number of units which causes the touchscreen to bite the bullet after a few weeks/months of use.

So what is now becoming an oddly regular (and costly) TNT tradition, I am saying "Screw 'em". Paul, our partner in the UK, already went through hell with Quality Control issues on the M2 tablets and M3 tablet.

It is obvious PiPo doesn't have a clue about how to make a well-built product. The only unit I have ever had from them without problems has been the M1 which they are scaling down production of to make room for the large volumes of crap that they have since designed.
---END RANT---

Takeaways...

PiPo is not a Top Notch company. They have proven that they make poor products or at least have very poor quality control.

If you buy a PiPo product, other than the M1, you are taking a major gamble. I won't keep supporting the company so I am going to be dropping the M1 from our site. It was ironically one of the best tablets I have ever sold and it is interesting to see how a company could nose dive so quickly with its subsequent product launches.


PSS - Other horrible companies/brands that have made our "NOT Top Notch" list are Ainol (they are popular but they have very bad QC, similar to PiPo) and Elijah. You have been warned.

This post has been edited by Roman2025: 21 December 2012 - 11:39 AM

[geofferyh]

Since you have taken it upon yourself to offer a friendly warning, could you also offer some friendly advise as to a better choice of tablet products.

[Nickos-V]

Roman2025, on 21 December 2012 - 11:31 AM, said:

Paul, our partner in the UK, already went through hell with Quality Control issues on the M2 tablets and M3 tablet.

PiPo is not a Top Notch company. They have proven that they make poor products or at least have very poor quality control.

It amazes me how Chinese companies will sacrifice quality for achieving greater sales!!!

Sending out a faulty product in America or Europe would earn that company a bad reputation and no one would want to do business with them again. But, I guess not so for China based businesses. ie. selling to make money is more important to the Chinese than making quality product for their customers to enjoy and use

[trespasser]

ok, so we know M3s can develop problems with touchscreen and there were batches released with badly assembled screens. But what was wrong with M2s? I just got one from China a few days ago and I'm EXTREMELY happy with it - touchscreen works fine, no freezes, all smooth, seems to be a quality tablet.

[BaconBits]

Nickos-V, on 22 December 2012 - 12:21 PM, said:

It amazes me how Chinese companies will sacrifice quality for achieving greater sales!!!

Ugh, I should have taken some warning signs way back when I assisted one south american bank office on purchasing office computer system and they vanished after getting paid.

Out of 6 tablets, only 1 didn't come with a visible/tangible defect.
So long "Chinese" tablets, hello mainstream ones.

[Roman2025]

geofferyh, on 22 December 2012 - 11:01 AM, said:

Since you have taken it upon yourself to offer a friendly warning, could you also offer some friendly advise as to a better choice of tablet products.

Ployer seems to be doing well at the moment. We started selling their stuff not long ago. Onda has generally been a good brand as well however I have learned that things are "model-by-model". A company can do a good job with one model and horrible with the next. I am not putting as much stock in brand-names anymore.

Teclast consistently lies about specs (particularly battery)

Ainol consistently fails to support anything they sell and they have horrid qc.

PiPo had a great product in the M1 and the M2 and M3 were fine until all the defect issues started popping up.

Onda usually makes solid products but they have had some losers in the past

Ployer is my current pick as I have had good luck thus far with everything I have gotten from their recent models. I am getting the Momo 8 in next.

Aoson I have heard good things about but I know they have had some minor QC issues. Better than most and if they can make a prettier product I might look into them next .

Hyundai I have heard mixed things on.

Ampe - My partner in Canada has been very happy with Ampe and says their units are very solid. I haven't carried anything by them yet.

Sanei - I have heard good things about some Sanei products but haven't been impressed with any of their offerings yet. I believe Ampe and Sanei may be the same company.

Regards,

Roman

This post has been edited by Roman2025: 28 December 2012 - 12:17 PM

[geofferyh]

Roman2025, on 28 December 2012 - 12:15 PM, said:

Ployer seems to be doing well at the moment. We started selling their stuff not long ago. Onda has generally been a good brand as well however I have learned that things are "model-by-model". A company can do a good job with one model and horrible with the next. I am not putting as much stock in brand-names anymore.

Teclast consistently lies about specs (particularly battery)

Ainol consistently fails to support anything they sell and they have horrid qc.

PiPo had a great product in the M1 and the M2 and M3 were fine until all the defect issues started popping up.

Onda usually makes solid products but they have had some losers in the past

Ployer is my current pick as I have had good luck thus far with everything I have gotten from their recent models. I am getting the Momo 8 in next.

Aoson I have heard good things about but I know they have had some minor QC issues. Better than most and if they can make a prettier product I might look into them next .

Hyundai I have heard mixed things on.

Ampe - My partner in Canada has been very happy with Ampe and says their units are very solid. I haven't carried anything by them yet.

Sanei - I have heard good things about some Sanei products but haven't been impressed with any of their offerings yet. I believe Ampe and Sanei may be the same company.

Regards,

Roman

Good info, what are your thoughts on the Freelander PD90 and Yuandao N101? They seem to be very similar to Ployer Momo 12 and PiPO M3, except Freelander has a 32GB ROM. I really like the Yuandao N101 and PiPO M3 due to the front mounted speakers. Don't care much about cameras.

[gtx_slotcar]

Roman2025, on 28 December 2012 - 12:15 PM, said:

Ployer seems to be doing well at the moment. We started selling their stuff not long ago.......

What percent of them had a problem, roughly? Isn't it possible that the Ployer could develop problems in a few months like the PiPo?

[ottogiugno]

Any chance that the new firmware fixes the touchscreen issue?
Mine stops working last friday, I'll try to fix it with the diode as I read on this post http://www.slatedroi...chscreen-issue/, but before doing that I'd like to know if it's something solving with the new fw...

This post has been edited by ottogiugno: 02 January 2013 - 06:46 AM

[ottogiugno]

ottogiugno, on 02 January 2013 - 06:20 AM, said:

Any chance that the new firmware fixes the touchscreen issue?
Mine stops working last friday, I'll try to fix it with the diode as I read on this post http://www.slatedroi...chscreen-issue/, but before doing that I'd like to know if it's something solving with the new fw...

No, it doesn't. :-(

[bmamo]

ottogiugno, on 03 January 2013 - 08:19 AM, said:

No, it doesn't. :-(

Will you let us know if the diode trick works please?

[ottogiugno]

bmamo, on 04 January 2013 - 05:42 AM, said:

Will you let us know if the diode trick works please?

I'm waiting the diodes from an ########### seller. But I'm thinking of finding out someone who is a little more skilled than me in soldering, because the spot where I have to sold the diode is very little. Also, I don't have a precision solder, just a standard soldering gun.

[bmamo]

you could try looking up some techniques on youtube

[ottogiugno]

I can confirm that the diod trick solved the touchscreen issue. I have not soldered it yet, but if I place it where it has to be soldered the touchscreen works again.

[bmamo]

That's good to hear!

I seem to have a problem installing adb drivers. The tablet gets recognised as an unkown device, and no installation of drivers detects it then. Even though i could successfully get rkbatchtool to get a green square when in firmware update mode!

[Lord Ratson]

Just bought my pipo m3 wifi only for almost 2 weeks ago, added up some apps and used some apps, quite seem fine for me. As of now I'm satisfied with it. Sad to hear others encountered issues on this tab. >.< After checking my tab's version its updated to the latest one. Wish I could get the mod version apps and fixes from your mod Roman its cool to see the changes you've made.

[bmamo]

I am very happy with mine. i figured out the problems with the adb drivers, and once that was through i installed standard firmware and rooted. Very very happy with the product up till now.

[01101110110110]

I am very happy with mine as well, however I was aware of the problem before I bought the tablet & chose to buy it anyway since the fix seemed so simple and there were very little other alternatives with 3G capability. It would be nice to be able to use the TNT rom on the 3G version as well however.

This post has been edited by 01101110110110: 02 February 2013 - 11:40 AM

[TechnicGeek]

@Roman2025 What is your opinion on Cube and ICOO tablets? In general would you recommend any chinese tablet for business and educational purposes, for productivity, for being able to type/jot down ideas quickly, for reading and watching YouTube videos at the comfort of bed? Do chinese tablets have quality of onboard flash memory that would suffice and prove reliable? Taking into account all this, do you think there still can be found chinese tablets that would suffice or would you recommend going with branded tablet?

Thanks.

This post has been edited by TechnicGeek: 09 February 2013 - 10:48 AM

[minibeats]

TechnicGeek, on 09 February 2013 - 10:48 AM, said:

@Roman2025 What is your opinion on Cube and ICOO tablets? In general would you recommend any chinese tablet for business and educational purposes, for productivity, for being able to type/jot down ideas quickly, for reading and watching YouTube videos at the comfort of bed? Do chinese tablets have quality of onboard flash memory that would suffice and prove reliable? Taking into account all this, do you think there still can be found chinese tablets that would suffice or would you recommend going with branded tablet?

Thanks.

I work in education and I have Chinese tabs (Pipo M3, TNT tab and T9).

There are some great pros to using Chinese tabs for schools. The first obvious choice is that the tabs are a lot cheaper than branded Android ones or the infamous Ipad, so you can get waaay more. Additionally, as there are so many ports to use from (usually) it means the items can be transferred via USB or through the sd card, as well as hooking up to a projector (if it has HDMI) and into the TV screen, making finding vids and playing them straight out without having to convert them etc easy to do. Additionally, my class use them for research and when we are working on finding information or translations, as well as looking at videos. You just eed to make sure these ports all work.

HOWEVER, there are cons. The wifi's can be notoriously bad, depending on which you go for, so these cause a huge headache (as my T9 struggles, but my Pipo and TNT one are fine) and sometimes when you have a class full of students you just want them to be able to get on with it. Additionally the cameras are pretty awful too, so asking them to take photos or creating independent photo based activities is very very hard as the photos end up being very blurry. Additionally, for the younger students (4 - 7) you need the apps, which unfortunately, although a die hard android fan that I am, I have to say the Ipad does do a better deal with.

In terms of general word processing etc, again, they just don't hold up to a regular computer (I'm including the Ipad in this). The students can't use 'traditional' tools like creating powerpoint files etc with a tab, so these skills don't cut the mustard, but word processing can be a mixed bag (as they are available but not always cross compatible - Ipad included).

In short:
Cons:
Wifi is an issue
Lack of apps for younger students
Can't quite use them for 'traditional' tools to be taught

Pros:
My kids love using them in class
Quick easy access to information
(Providing all ports work) video files and data transferring makes lessons more accessible and quicker
The whole tablet structure brings a whole different angle to teaching and learning.

Hope this helps!