[creationsh]

Deanox, on 11 February 2013 - 02:13 AM, said:

I have only had an hour or so.. but .. my 2 cents..

Thank you for your 2 cents, this is by far most descriptive review I have stumbled upon yet. And believe me, I've been searching through various sources found little to nothing about f9x. Unfortunately I couldn't see it for myself until a number of shipping days after the 17th when they start shipping things out again.

[Deanox]

A bit bummed right now.. just installed DPI modder and changed DPI from 320 to 240.. and now I can only get a black screen.... aaargh..

Sure it will be easily fixed.. but I have No Idea how to get this thing into recovery etc so I can do a factory reset.. or if I need to use Phoenix..

Anyone have any ideas? HELP!

[PocketSmiley]

Deanox, on 11 February 2013 - 03:32 AM, said:

A bit bummed right now.. just installed DPI modder and changed DPI from 320 to 240.. and now I can only get a black screen.... aaargh..

Sure it will be easily fixed.. but I have No Idea how to get this thing into recovery etc so I can do a factory reset.. or if I need to use Phoenix..

Anyone have any ideas? HELP!

Hi Deanox, thanks for being pretty much the only legit reviewer of this tablet. My question is, what color did you order your tablet? Is the "Silver" actually black?

[pogodancer]

PocketSmiley, on 11 February 2013 - 09:16 AM, said:

...My question is, what color did you order your tablet? Is the "Silver" actually black?

Yes, that's the most important question. Which color ? More important than built quality or performance.

[Deanox]

mine has a sliver back (like an brushed aluminium effect). Front bezel is black.

[alan310]

After reading through the Onda Chuwi and Ainol forums, I decided to take the plunge on the Nextway F9x, however not due to the price [always helpful though], but because the tablet seems to be the best of the bunch. The Ainol absolutely sucks! I couldn't imagine a company rushing a product to market which cannot sustain a viable wifi signal. My distrust for the company has passed the "Do not buy" level of trust. Obviously, a big[gggg] battery was a must for a tablet with a retina display due to the power-hungry screen. Nextway F9x packed an 8000 mah battery which is "good enough."

So Chinese New Year, shipping time, and hopefully the unit is in stock; I am thinking I should have one in my hands by April 1. And that's no April Fool's Joke!

[rui no onna]

How is battery life on this? Thanks!

[PocketSmiley]

pogodancer, on 11 February 2013 - 04:56 PM, said:

Yes, that's the most important question. Which color ? More important than built quality or performance.

Actually it is (:

How one perceives screen contrast and brightness is affected by the color and brightness of a screen's immediate boundary.

But then, what else is there to ask? All other information I need is deducible there thanks to Deanox. I don't need the cameras (and I doubt future custom ROM's would make them work flawlessly) so the Nextway is perfect for me.

[LoungeSounds]

I am also thinking of purchasing one of these tablets probably the F10x rather than the F9x as it is slightly cheaper, has a higher clock 1.6? and scored higher on antutu 13000ish, it does have a poorer screen 1280x800, but that will not be a problem as I want to use it as an XBMC server through hdmi!

My questions are: 1. has anyone connected these devices to a large external NTFS hard drive e.g. 2tb and above to see if they can read the data? 2. Does the tablet output hdmi at 1080p or 720p? (my current Asus Transformer only outputs at 720p)
3. I guess due to drivers its not possible to connect a usb bluetooth, but has anyone tried? Not sure why this handy feature is not included anyway!

Cheers in advance :-)

[Deanox]

Nextway F9x Quick Review.

Screen
- really happy, not complaints, its as good as I could have expected a cheap android tablet to be, apart from being a tiny bit recessed, quite similar to ipad 4.
- along with great wifi, this is the drawcard for this tablet..

Speed / Benchmarks

See Antutu & Quadrant results.

tablet feels quite fast, almost no lag / good responsive touchscreen...
UI is very fast smooth with only the tiniest bit of lag.. almost non existent on Nova Launcher..

Web browsing with stock browser or dolphin is EXCELLENT. Chrome is slow
-has exceeded my expectations for browsing..

Some graphically intensive apps are a little slow.. looks like a driver issue. For example Ted Talks, when viewing homescreen stutters, then is super fast when scrolling..

The Nextway rom seems faster than other stock roms..

Quadrant
My stock quadrant @ 1008mhz = 3308
Overclocked @ 1200mhz = 3728

Antutu
stock -
1200mhz - 12373

Seems to compare quite favorably to other A31 (sure its just because of the software).. see here
http://forum.xda-dev...2092329&page=15

USB Copying
Usb copying seems pretty reasonable
- copy 1GB file to tablet. Average 17MB/sec

Battery
- see screenshots attached.
On standby / deep sleep rom is excellent. Loses about 1% every 12 hours.
Screen is the killer as we already know from other A31 Retina tablets..

On my test - roughly over 18 hours with 3hrs 30mins of screen on time..
about 1.5 hours of that was watching 720p video.
wifi on the whole time
heavy/ installing of apps.. (pretty much constantly for the other 2 hours)..
brightness was about 40%.. which is a decent level indoors.

- will do another test with just video on loop with wifi off. (ie watching videos on a plane..)
- would expect approx 4 hours on this test.

very happy with deep sleep. (so many android roms have issues here with battery drain when asleep.. not this one!).

Wifi.
THIS IS SUCH A CRITICAL THING FOR A TABLET...

- EXCELLENT-PERFECT. Best tablet experience so far (compared to 4 other ainol).
- at distance of about 4m 47000kbps - same rooom as Access point
- at about 8 to 10m through two brick walls) - still around 20000kbps
(this is so much better than my experience with other tablets... on Ainol elf II & Ainol Fire/Flame doing the same approx tests)
with the ainols I would get @4m - about 17000kbps and @ 8m through 2 brick walls - 5000kbps - but unstable.

Camera
Sucks *arse. But its reflected in the price and I knew this when I bought it.. I have a galaxy S3 so hence why I decided to save money here.
(I also don't want to be one of those dorks walking around in public taking pictures with there tablet... )

[Market - Apps

has market out of the box..

Also has Root out of the box... (that was easy!)

Most apps work.

Here is what I have had trouble with.

can't install Google + (just get stuck installing and have to close install)
Chrome not in market (Dolphin & stock are much faster on this tablet anyway).
Speedtest.net (not available in market)


Games
I'm Not much of a gamer on tablets but..

Temple run & temple run 2 - run perfect smooth
Riptipe - run smooth . its not 60fps.. but maybe 40fps.

I wouldn't get this tablet to play 3D games... The resolution will kill anything too demanding.

Webbrowsing/reading is where this shines..

For $210 or there abouts.. it gets two thumbs up from me!.

Minor Issue
External SD Card is not writable..

Build quality.
- its not an ipad, but feels very solid. S***s on the build quality of the Ainols I have unfortunately owned.

Ciao.

Attached File(s)

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•  Screenshot_2013-02-14-04-50-43.jpg (63.84K)
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•  export.jpg (168.28K)
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•  Screenshot_2013-02-13-18-51-45.jpg (45.81K)
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This post has been edited by Tablet_Collector: 15 February 2013 - 02:29 AM

[PocketSmiley]

Deanox, on 13 February 2013 - 05:21 PM, said:

Nextway F9x Quick Review.

Screen
- really happy, not complaints, its as good as I could have expected a cheap android tablet to be, apart from being a tiny bit recessed, quite similar to ipad 4.
- along with great wifi, this is the drawcard for this tablet..

Speed / Benchmarks

See Antutu & Quadrant results.

tablet feels quite fast, almost no lag / good responsive touchscreen...
UI is very fast smooth with only the tiniest bit of lag.. almost non existent on Nova Launcher..

Web browsing with stock browser or dolphin is EXCELLENT. Chrome is slow
-has exceeded my expectations for browsing..

Some graphically intensive apps are a little slow.. looks like a driver issue. For example Ted Talks, when viewing homescreen stutters, then is super fast when scrolling..

The Nextway rom seems faster than other stock roms..

Quadrant
My stock quadrant @ 1008mhz = 3308
Overclocked @ 1200mhz = 3728

Antutu
stock -
1200mhz - 12373

Seems to compare quite favorably to other A31 (sure its just because of the software).. see here
http://forum.xda-dev...2092329&page=15

USB Copying
Usb copying seems pretty reasonable
- copy 1GB file to tablet. Average 17MB/sec

Battery
- see screenshots attached.
On standby / deep sleep rom is excellent. Loses about 1% every 12 hours.
Screen is the killer as we already know from other A31 Retina tablets..

On my test - roughly over 18 hours with 3hrs 30mins of screen on time..
about 1.5 hours of that was watching 720p video.
wifi on the whole time
heavy/ installing of apps.. (pretty much constantly for the other 2 hours)..
brightness was about 40%.. which is a decent level indoors.

- will do another test with just video on loop with wifi off. (ie watching videos on a plane..)
- would expect approx 4 hours on this test.

very happy with deep sleep. (so many android roms have issues here with battery drain when asleep.. not this one!).

Wifi.
THIS IS SUCH A CRITICAL THING FOR A TABLET...

- EXCELLENT-PERFECT. Best tablet experience so far (compared to 4 other ainol).
- at distance of about 4m 47000kbps - same rooom as Access point
- at about 8 to 10m through two brick walls) - still around 20000kbps
(this is so much better than my experience with other tablets... on Ainol elf II & Ainol Fire/Flame doing the same approx tests)
with the ainols I would get @4m - about 17000kbps and @ 8m through 2 brick walls - 5000kbps - but unstable.

Camera
Sucks *arse. But its reflected in the price and I knew this when I bought it.. I have a galaxy S3 so hence why I decided to save money here.
(I also don't want to be one of those dorks walking around in public taking pictures with there tablet... )

[Market - Apps

has market out of the box..

Also has Root out of the box... (that was easy!)

Most apps work.

Here is what I have had trouble with.

can't install Google + (just get stuck installing and have to close install)
Chrome not in market (Dolphin & stock are much faster on this tablet anyway).
Speedtest.net (not available in market)


Games
I'm Not much of a gamer on tablets but..

Temple run & temple run 2 - run perfect smooth
Riptipe - run smooth . its not 60fps.. but maybe 40fps.

I wouldn't get this tablet to play 3D games... The resolution will kill anything too demanding.

Webbrowsing/reading is where this shines..

For $210 or there abouts.. it gets two thumbs up from me!.

Minor Issue
External SD Card is not writable..

Build quality.
- its not an ipad, but feels very solid. SHits on the build quality of the Ainols I have unfortunately owned.

Ciao.

Now I'm DYING to get mine! When I saw the YouTube videos the live 3D wallpaper first grabbed me. The launcher experience seemed smooth despite the animated background. And the game demos were impressive as well; the car racing and the first-person shooter looked very playable.

I had to cancel my pending order of the Chuwi V99 right after I read your previous review. The reported excellent wi-fi made the deal for me, of course along with the $210 price tag. Having Darkrickpr hard at work making the custom rom is also something to look forward to.

As Darkrickpr mentioned, the lack of dedicated volume control buttons can be inconvenient especially with CWM. As for me I plan to use the tablet mostly for music so the volume control will be missed. The cameras are also inferior to other A31 tablets but I'm only going to cover them with stickers because I'm paranoid. Now those are all insignificant compared to how good this tablet is.

Thank you, THANK YOU Deanox for this detailed review! You just raised the worth of the F9X above the rest with this.

[rui no onna]

Deanox, on 13 February 2013 - 05:21 PM, said:

Nextway F9x Quick Review.

Spoiler

Screen
- really happy, not complaints, its as good as I could have expected a cheap android tablet to be, apart from being a tiny bit recessed, quite similar to ipad 4.
- along with great wifi, this is the drawcard for this tablet..

Speed / Benchmarks

See Antutu & Quadrant results.

tablet feels quite fast, almost no lag / good responsive touchscreen...
UI is very fast smooth with only the tiniest bit of lag.. almost non existent on Nova Launcher..

Web browsing with stock browser or dolphin is EXCELLENT. Chrome is slow
-has exceeded my expectations for browsing..

Some graphically intensive apps are a little slow.. looks like a driver issue. For example Ted Talks, when viewing homescreen stutters, then is super fast when scrolling..

The Nextway rom seems faster than other stock roms..

Quadrant
My stock quadrant @ 1008mhz = 3308
Overclocked @ 1200mhz = 3728

Antutu
stock -
1200mhz - 12373

Seems to compare quite favorably to other A31 (sure its just because of the software).. see here
http://forum.xda-dev...2092329&page=15

USB Copying
Usb copying seems pretty reasonable
- copy 1GB file to tablet. Average 17MB/sec

Battery
- see screenshots attached.
On standby / deep sleep rom is excellent. Loses about 1% every 12 hours.
Screen is the killer as we already know from other A31 Retina tablets..

On my test - roughly over 18 hours with 3hrs 30mins of screen on time..
about 1.5 hours of that was watching 720p video.
wifi on the whole time
heavy/ installing of apps.. (pretty much constantly for the other 2 hours)..
brightness was about 40%.. which is a decent level indoors.

- will do another test with just video on loop with wifi off. (ie watching videos on a plane..)
- would expect approx 4 hours on this test.

very happy with deep sleep. (so many android roms have issues here with battery drain when asleep.. not this one!).

Wifi.
THIS IS SUCH A CRITICAL THING FOR A TABLET...

- EXCELLENT-PERFECT. Best tablet experience so far (compared to 4 other ainol).
- at distance of about 4m 47000kbps - same rooom as Access point
- at about 8 to 10m through two brick walls) - still around 20000kbps
(this is so much better than my experience with other tablets... on Ainol elf II & Ainol Fire/Flame doing the same approx tests)
with the ainols I would get @4m - about 17000kbps and @ 8m through 2 brick walls - 5000kbps - but unstable.

Camera
Sucks *arse. But its reflected in the price and I knew this when I bought it.. I have a galaxy S3 so hence why I decided to save money here.
(I also don't want to be one of those dorks walking around in public taking pictures with there tablet... )

[Market - Apps

has market out of the box..

Also has Root out of the box... (that was easy!)

Most apps work.

Here is what I have had trouble with.

can't install Google + (just get stuck installing and have to close install)
Chrome not in market (Dolphin & stock are much faster on this tablet anyway).
Speedtest.net (not available in market)


Games
I'm Not much of a gamer on tablets but..

Temple run & temple run 2 - run perfect smooth
Riptipe - run smooth . its not 60fps.. but maybe 40fps.

I wouldn't get this tablet to play 3D games... The resolution will kill anything too demanding.

Webbrowsing/reading is where this shines..

For $210 or there abouts.. it gets two thumbs up from me!.

Minor Issue
External SD Card is not writable..

Build quality.
- its not an ipad, but feels very solid. SHits on the build quality of the Ainols I have unfortunately owned.

Ciao.

Thank you very much for that detailed review. I just placed an order for one. Looks like this will be a much better choice than the Ainol Novo9 Spark I was originally considering.

[Deanox]

rui no onna, on 13 February 2013 - 10:25 PM, said:

Thank you very much for that detailed review. I just placed an order for one. Looks like this will be a much better choice than the Ainol Novo9 Spark I was originally considering.

I was considering the same, but got this mostly just to save some cash, as I knew even on the ainol or onda / chiwei etc, the camera would still be much worse than the Galaxy S3 which I already have.. so probably never used apart as a a novelty at first.. its worked out pretty nicely..

[rui no onna]

Deanox, on 13 February 2013 - 10:36 PM, said:

I was considering the same, but got this mostly just to save some cash, as I knew even on the ainol or onda / chiwei etc, the camera would still be much worse than the Galaxy S3 which I already have.. so probably never used apart as a a novelty at first.. its worked out pretty nicely..

Lol, I highly doubt I'd use the camera on this, not even for video calls. Most of my family use FaceTime for video calls (I've got a slew of iOS devices anyhow). Would be interesting to see how the Nextway F9X compares to the iPad. I've got a 3rd gen iPad on-hand and a 4th gen iPad 128GB incoming.

I was considering both RK3066 and A31 retina display tablets but the price is really good on the F9X (got it for $212 with express shipping from aHappyDeal after 12% off coupon) and it's readily available unlike the Novo9 Spark which is still on pre-order on most sites. The RK3066-based tablets I've seen only have 1GB RAM while A31-based tabs have 2GB RAM. The A31 also seems to have a slightly better GPU which I figure should help given the much higher resolution. Hoping microSDXC cards would work on this. The Ainol Novo7 Venus worked just fine with my 64GB SanDisk microSDXC despite the specifications only listing compatibility with 32GB microSDHC. I believe 128GB microSDXC cards are expected to be released 2nd half of 2013.

[darkrickpr]

LoungeSounds, on 13 February 2013 - 04:56 PM, said:

I am also thinking of purchasing one of these tablets probably the F10x rather than the F9x as it is slightly cheaper, has a higher clock 1.6? and scored higher on antutu 13000ish, it does have a poorer screen 1280x800, but that will not be a problem as I want to use it as an XBMC server through hdmi!

My questions are: 1. has anyone connected these devices to a large external NTFS hard drive e.g. 2tb and above to see if they can read the data? 2. Does the tablet output hdmi at 1080p or 720p? (my current Asus Transformer only outputs at 720p)
3. I guess due to drivers its not possible to connect a usb bluetooth, but has anyone tried? Not sure why this handy feature is not included anyway!

Cheers in advance :-)

i would sujest that f9x is more nice and is retina screen so resolution is more higher tan 1280x800 about the 1.2 and 1.6 dont think real and just 400Mhz mhz the screen does a big difrent. bluetooth via otg is possible and i could do some test and include it on my custom rom

[LoungeSounds]

darkrickpr, on 14 February 2013 - 10:54 AM, said:

i would sujest that f9x is more nice and is retina screen so resolution is more higher tan 1280x800 about the 1.2 and 1.6 dont think real and just 400Mhz mhz the screen does a big difrent. bluetooth via otg is possible and i could do some test and include it on my custom rom

Yes the screen is much nicer on the F9X and the price is only a few $$$'s more than the F10X, but I will probably be running the unit as an XBMC host through hdmi so the screen is not such an issue. Looking at the specs the F9x has a clock of 1.5 while the F10x has a clock of 1.6 not much different granted but every little helps with xbmc! Have you had a chance to test large hard drives over otg > 2tb and running NTFS? I have had a reply from GadgetGreat and they say that both tablets will be able to read and write NTFS without problem! They also said that the F10x is NOT rooted but a rooted rom will be available soon for download. I think I read that your F9x was rooted as supplied?

If bluetooth could be made to work over OTG that would be great as I would then be able to use various bluetooth controllers, I'm not sure why they don't have this built in as it would be very handy!

I guess the other difference between the F9X and F10X is that the F10X appears to have an internal 3G card slot so you could use it as a phone/mobile internet with something like the HuaWei EM770W card?

Anyway thanks for the reply :-)

This post has been edited by LoungeSounds: 14 February 2013 - 12:34 PM

[Kowicz]

Hello all
I'm Dominik from Poland...
Thx for a very nice review.
I just ordered it at pandawill with 10% new year discount and I hope that there won't be any troubles.
Regardint to many bad opinions I have some concerns.

If I have it I will put my observations.

[Deanox]

F9x is rooted by default.

I have tried to do a similar thing with XBMC with MK802 & MK808 (RK3066 USB TV Sticks).

First problem you hit is that typically android when you connect to HDMI doesnt actually connect at 1080p, its whatever the tablet resolution is Upscaled to 1080p - so it looks crap on HDTV.

with the MK808 TV sticks .. you need to use a custom Kernel that supports True 1080p.

I would suggest that before you assume that it will work get someone with F9x (or 10x or whatever) to check what resolution it outputs to screen. All manufacturers say that its 1080p, but leave out the MINOR detail that its upscaled. This was the case with every TV stick I ahve tried and also ainol ELFII / Ainol Aurora II & Ainol Firetablets....

I just dont have a mico HDMI or I would test for your right now.

WIll be interested to see what F9x does, as its actually higher than 1080p.

There was no HDMI switcher app or similar on the stock rom (so I can only assume that it still runs at the desktop res, but then scales to 1080p. So the F9x would be working harder than it needs to, (but at least you would still see 1080p video), and the F10x would essentially be outputting video that was very similar to 720p upscaled.

I suggest you have a look at an MK808 using Finless 1.7 ROM. - there is option for a true 1080p kernel, and supports USB-OTG - and costs about $60. Works perfect with XBMC with MX PLayer as your external player. - I built this setup for my parents for last christmas..

Once I get a micro HDMI I will let you know how the F9x goes over HDMI.

[rui no onna]

Hmm, been doing some research on PowerVR Graphics.

iPad 2 1024x768
Apple A5 Cortex A9 1GHz dual-core
PowerVR SGX543MP2 @250MHz: 16 GFLOPS

iPad 3 2048x1536
Apple A5X Cortex A9 1GHz dual-core
PowerVR SGX543MP4 @250MHz: 32 GFLOPS

iPad 4 2048x1536
Apple A6X Swift (Cortex A15-like) 1.4GHz dual-core
PowerVR SGX554MP4 @300MHz: 76.8 GFLOPS

Nextway F9X 2048x1536
Allwinner A31 Cortex A7 1GHz quad-core
PowerVR SGX544MP2 @350MHz: 22.4 GFLOPS

So Allwinner A31 graphics performance is between iPad 2 and iPad 3 level. Some games already cheat on iPad 3 and only render at 75% resolution or so because the SGX543MP4 isn't fast enough. It would certainly be interesting to see how well the SGX544MP2 can handle retina display resolution.

[Deanox]

What would be ideal is an option to change the screen resolution lower (I think cube u9gt5 has this option), where it drops to 1024x768 or similar, so games can work faster)..

Sure it could be done - but it would be a custom rom.