VeeDee D10 (ICS!!) Review
After seeing the iPad and the Galaxy Tab, everyone seems to get their hands on a tablet PC, but many of us cant afford the iPad 2 or we don't see enough purpose in a tablet to invest some Rs30,000 of hard earned money. Then people started looking at low cost Tablets and leading the pack was the indian 'Akash' tablet which really generated a lot of interest. When bookings started, almost everyone I know wanted one, just for the sake of having a tablet. But the Akash aka Ubislate made compromises on every aspect to get its low price which would eventually destroy the whole experience. Its a different story that very few actually got the device. So now what we need is something that can strike a balance between price and performance and the product that does that is the Veedee D10, a low cost android device with a ton of great features for a very reasonable price. Here are the pros and cons in short, read the full review for a more detailed analysis.
Pros:- Responsive 7" Capacitive screen
- Fast processor
- Runs Android 4.0 ICS without any major issues
- Good Audio Quality
- Good build Quality
- Price
Cons:- Average looks
- No rear Camera
- Does not come pre-installed with ICS
- No bluetooth
- No sim card slot
Specifications:- Allwinner A10 1.5 GHz with Mali-400 GPU
- 512MB DDR3 RAM
- Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread (its easily upgradable to Android 4.0 ICS)
- 4GB internal storage, expandable to 32GB via micro SD card
- 7" Capacitive touch screen with a resolution of 800x480 pixels (~133ppi)
- Wifi (3G via Dongle)
- Front camera (1.3MP)
- Mini HDMI out
- USB OTG
- Built in Speaker
- 3800mAh battery
The Package:I think its worth pointing out that the package was very well packed and I received it in 2 days of confirming my order. The box is pretty plain, nothing fancy. Inside the box, we have the VeeDee D10 tablet, USB OTG cable, Mini USB cable, headphones and a charger. The headphones are nothing great, just fine for daily use. If you really want to enjoy your music, get some other headphones. No mini HDMI to HDMI converter included, which is expected as it is a low cost device. It is available at an extra charge.
Looks and Design:The tablet looks OK, nothing stunning. I personally don't like the large VeeDee branding, it kind-off kills the looks without which the tablet looks fine. The good thing is that you can remove it by scraping it out
. The tablet looks similar to the original Galaxy tab, just that this has extra hardware buttons on top. The build quality is fine for a device its price. It does not feel as solid as an iPad, but the plastics are certainly not cheap and the tablet feels pretty sturdy. The back side of the tablet is pretty plain, its white in color and there is just one opening for the speaker. You will notice that it does not have a rear camera.
The micro SD, mini USB, mini HDMI, headphone and power connections are all on the same side of the tablet and are pretty convenient to use. On the other side we have the power button and the volume rocker. All the buttons feel firm and good when used. The front buttons however require a harder push, please note that the sample I got was a demo piece and had taken a lot of abuse, so it might be better on your new tab.
Screen : The screen is a 7" Capacitive touch screen with a resolution of 800x480 pixels. It has a pixel density of 133ppi which is pretty low, but it does not look too bad. The touch is pretty good and the tablet as a whole is very responsive. The view angles, are again what you would expect from a TFT screen. The brightness level is quiet acceptable, it was somewhat usable under bright sunlight, but most phones would fail in those conditions (too sunny in bangalore these days!)
OS : Android 4.0 ICS (updated from gingerbread)Will not get into too much detail here, as it is not a part of the original device. The Tablet came with Gingerbread pre-installed, nothing special there. I am sure almost all who buy this will update it to ICS, if you are not sure on how to, here are the steps to be followed :
If you want to install ICS on your device, follow this: (don't know if it voids warranty or not, I am happy with ICS! )
STEP 1 Download the Firmware: Яндекс.Народ
STEP 2 Download and install LiveSuitPack 1.07 FreakShare - Easy One-Click File Hosting
Prepare the files
1. Extract the firmware so you can see the image named "MOMO9C-4-Kevin"
2. Install LiveSuitPack 1.07
2. After running the exe go to the folder and run the application (LiveSuit.exe approx. 2mb)
3. Browse to the folder where the image MOMO9C-4-Kevin
4. The tablet should be off
Prepare the Momo9
5. Whilst keep volume+ button pressed, plug it in via USB
6. Keep pressing the volume+ button and also press the power button time for 10 times
7. After several presses on the power button there will be a "sound" it connects as Windows recognises new USB hardware
8. Windows 7 will install drivers automatically, in Windows XP you need to point windows to the directory where you extracted software
9. When all the drivers are installed, the firmware will start to install automatically
Finishing the Installation
10. There will be no sign of loading on the Momo9 - don't worry
11. On the PC, LiveSuit shows a bar graph - it takes about 2 mins to go onto the Momo9
12. After the yellow bar on Livesuite is completed action (about 2 mins) nothing happens.
13. You will see an exclamation mark (using Windows 7) with no text. Click OK.
14. Then wait a few seconds. Unplug the momo9 from the USB. You will see a green battery symbol. Ignore it. Restart the tablet manually (as normal using the on/off button).
15. After this, you will be given two options, click start using android wizard (or something similar).
These are not mine, I will not take credit, found them
here.Anyways, the tablet looks much better with ICS and is still pretty responsive. Its slightly slower but nothing to complain about, you will have no issues. Since ICS is not designed for this, there are some minor issues, such as Gtalk constantly crashes, but nothing major.
Android Market : Android market works fine...did not download much though... just a few benchmarks and music players.
Music and Video :The standard music player does a pretty decent job, but you might want to download something off the market as there is a huge variety of players offering different features, most of the being free. I tested some mp3 and flac music, both worked fine. The audio via the speakers is not great, but I feel the audio quality via headphones is very good and I was impressed. It slightly lacked in the bass but not bad at all.
Video was not an issue as well. The tablet played HD video without any issues, it supports many formats, but I just tried .avi , .mp4 and .wmv and they all worked fine. Having an HDMI out is an advantage here as you can just connect the tablet to your HD TV and enjoy HD movies, but you would obviously need a memory card as 4GB is just not enough.
Connectivity and Browser performance :The main source of internet connectivity is WiFi, which is fine on the unit. The Wifi reception is pretty average and you should not face any real issues. I did however face the issue of constant call drop in skype (voice call), not sure if its a device issue or an issue with ICS. The is no provision for a Sim card, hence for 3G you will have to use a USB stick (dongle). It does not support those made by ZTE, so do take that into consideration. I did not test it with my Micromax MMX 310G as it was not available. The VeeDee D10 lacks bluetooth, so that maybe a bummer for some, but a non issue for me.
I used the standard browser for ICS, which is pretty good. The browser supports flash so you should have no problems at all in playing any kind of flash content. As for the browsing performance itself, its pretty quick, I tested it against my laptop (Pentium D 6200, 4GB DDR3 RAM, W7) and it was almost as fast in loading most pages. Since the screen is not pixel rich, pages might get squeezed a bit, but its still pretty usable.
Performance and Battery Life:So here are a few synthetic benchmarks...
Neocore:
Quadrant :
The Veedee D10 scored 1617 in the quadrant test. It scored around 17xx when i used Gingerbread.
I dont really pay attention to these benchmarks, as long as the experience is smooth (which it is) I don't care about the numbers.
Battery life is also good, I never got a chance to time it exactly, but you can watch a full movie with ease. Even with wifi on all day, some light browsing, chat and music I still have around 60% of my battery left. The tablet does get slightly warm, but its not really a problem, not too hot to hold.
Conclusion:If you need a tablet for browsing, movies, music and for reading ebooks and you are under a budget, then the VeeDee D10 is the tab for you. It might not have the looks of an iPad or the hardware of a Xoom, but its still a very good device for the price. You can get this off ebay for Rs6990 shipped, which is a discounted pre-order price. The capacitive screen and decent hardware make the tab very responsive, the build quality is also satisfactory. The only real complain I got with it is the relatively low resolution screen, I would personally pay a few more bucks to get a higher resolution (say 1024x768), but even then it is still pretty manageable. I would give the VeeDee D10
8.5/10 simply because I am impressed by the value for money the device offers.
I would like to thank Mr Devesh from Veedee Enterprises for sending the review sample and markanaxole who originally told us about the tab.
