Onda Air Tablet PC Intel 64bit Quad Core 9.7 inch QXGA IPS Retina Screen NOW 129 f/s

[MisterE]

I thought of getting that one too, but then I really had no need to put my cell phone card in it. But that is a good one still. I just played i-ninja on mine, Im slowly finding games I can play, but without a keyboard and mouse Im having trouble for the pop up one doesnt show up in games when you have to type in your name to progress further, and most my games need that. So anyone getting one, a keyboard and mouse is pretty much a must.

lol, you start a Hot Deal thread for a product but then buy a different product and won't post a link to what you actually bought? That's in poor form, funboy.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Kind of a side question. I've been looking at all the different chinese tablets after reading this thread because they're so cheap. I don't need a 10" tablet, but I would like to have a small portable 8" windows 10 tablet (no interest in android whatsoever).

I've looked at Dell Venue 8 Pro 5855 and HP 608, but they ask too much for what they offer at $400-600+ for the latest generation with 1080p+ screens. I'd like something a little more affordable hence why I need suggestions - what are good windows 10 8" chinese tablets?

My list of requirements:
- Windows 10
- 1920x1080 screen resolution or better
- I'd prefer more "square" aspect ration of 16:10 (1920x1200) or even better 4/3
- 2GB RAM, 4GB would be better
- 32GB storage, 64GB would be better
- MicroSD card support is a must if only 32GB eMMC is present, but can probably forgo if there is 64GB eMMC on board
- Black color (a lot of Chinese tablets are white which I do not like)

From my current research Chuwi Hi8 Pro seems to be the best bet. It has z8500/2GB/32GB/Windows10/1920x1200 8" screen/type-c. It only has 2GB/32GB which is a definite drawback, and it's also white, but I can't find anything better than that. Does anyone know of any 8" tablet that fit my requirements better?

P.S. XiaoMi Mi Pad 2 also looks good. However, it lacks MicroSD slot, and it's still not out and I can only find preorder for $250 which IMO is a bit too much as it's getting dangerously close to Dell Venue 8 Pro 5855 which has 4GB of RAM and MicroSD card support.

 

[funboy6942]

lol, you start a Hot Deal thread for a product but then buy a different product and won't post a link to what you actually bought? That's in poor form, funboy.

Its the same exact one, just it has 64 gigs of internal memory, no need to link it, for I have in the posts, and all you got to do is search onda v919 and see the one with 64 gigs vs 32 gigs I linked.

 

[sdifox]

Its the same exact one, just it has 64 gigs of internal memory, no need to link it, for I have in the posts, and all you got to do is search onda v919 and see the one with 64 gigs vs 32 gigs I linked.

do they sell the magnetic bt keyboard?

 

[funboy6942]

I dont think they do for this unit, only one usb connection along with the hdmi output. But, I did find and buy this....

http://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=11595

If I read right, I can charge and use it at the same time, and add more storage as well. I picked up a 4 port hub, and got a extra keyboard and laptop mouse, so I'll be all set. Oh, and since its windows 10 I can use my xbone controller on it too then, nah, I'm not happy at all......

 

[funboy6942]

Kind of a side question. I've been looking at all the different chinese tablets after reading this thread because they're so cheap. I don't need a 10" tablet, but I would like to have a small portable 8" windows 10 tablet (no interest in android whatsoever).

I've looked at Dell Venue 8 Pro 5855 and HP 608, but they ask too much for what they offer at $400-600+ for the latest generation with 1080p+ screens. I'd like something a little more affordable hence why I need suggestions - what are good windows 10 8" chinese tablets?

My list of requirements:
- Windows 10
- 1920x1080 screen resolution or better
- I'd prefer more "square" aspect ration of 16:10 (1920x1200) or even better 4/3
- 2GB RAM, 4GB would be better
- 32GB storage, 64GB would be better
- MicroSD card support is a must if only 32GB eMMC is present, but can probably forgo if there is 64GB eMMC on board
- Black color (a lot of Chinese tablets are white which I do not like)

From my current research Chuwi Hi8 Pro seems to be the best bet. It has z8500/2GB/32GB/Windows10/1920x1200 8" screen/type-c. It only has 2GB/32GB which is a definite drawback, and it's also white, but I can't find anything better than that. Does anyone know of any 8" tablet that fit my requirements better?

P.S. XiaoMi Mi Pad 2 also looks good. However, it lacks MicroSD slot, and it's still not out and I can only find preorder for $250 which IMO is a bit too much as it's getting dangerously close to Dell Venue 8 Pro 5855 which has 4GB of RAM and MicroSD card support.

If this helps any, this is what I know.

I watched mine taken apart and can have the ssd inside it swapped from 64 gigs to 256 gigs, for the ssd inside it is removable. All I'd have to do is clone the drive. Dont know if that b the same on the 8" however.

As for no sd slot, I just linked to a otg cable with micro usb, full size usb, and card reader that will allow you to expand the memory that way, if that helps. It's only 13 bucks shipped, around there depending on where you live.

Hope that may help for now, but in the mean time, I'll research more on the 8" ones ans see what I can find for u.

 

[funboy6942]

Ok, after looking at them I come up with this...

http://www.everbuying.net/product1116554.html

I know u just wanted windows, but for the price, and features, slots, can't go wrong. No it doesnt have the screen u asked for, but honestly, on that small, that high a rez, the text will be so tiny and hard to click on you'll end up hating it. I'm having a little trouble with mine on some websites myself. But other then that, you never have to really use android, but its there if u do.

Another thing to consider on this one is that its not on sale, and when you register with them for the first time they will give yo 50 bucks in coupons and a 20% off one too u can use towards this tablet, because its not on sale making it even cheaper

Just some food for thought....for if anything its cheap enough to dip your feet in, test the waters to see if this is going to work for you, and then you can always get better when the fix the cherry trail heat problems. I know when I get more money at tax time, if I can afford it, this will be mine....

http://www.everbuying.net/product1112213.html

 

[fleshconsumed]

Ok, after looking at them I come up with this...

http://www.everbuying.net/product1116554.html

I know u just wanted windows, but for the price, and features, slots, can't go wrong. No it doesnt have the screen u asked for, but honestly, on that small, that high a rez, the text will be so tiny and hard to click on you'll end up hating it.

. . .

I'm very well aware that FHD will be unusable in windows without scaling, but I can always set that to 125-150%. However, I need high res screen for reading PDF books. I've looked at low resolution 8" tablets and I hate using those for reading because I can see individual pixels which is highly distracting for me. So far it really looks like Chuwi Hi8 or upcoming Hi8 Pro/Xiaomi Mi Pad 2 are my best choices.

 

[funboy6942]

I'm very well aware that FHD will be unusable in windows without scaling, but I can always set that to 125-150%. However, I need high res screen for reading PDF books. I've looked at low resolution 8" tablets and I hate using those for reading because I can see individual pixels which is highly distracting for me. So far it really looks like Chuwi Hi8 or upcoming Hi8 Pro/Xiaomi Mi Pad 2 are my best choices.

but if it has high ppi, or ips screen, u shouldnt see any pixels I think, but ur right, if ur needing it the two u picked out would have to b it then.

 

[zposter]

The 9.7" tablets are close to a third of an inch thick. Does it feel comfortable to hold for a long time? How is battery life?

 

[funboy6942]

very comfortable imo, not very heavy, battery life is about 4 hours or so, not the best, but I keep mine plugged in all the time. If anyone cares at all, I just ran gta 3 in android at highest settings and it looked and played great with no lag.

 

[zposter]

Thanks. Seems like something worthwhile to play with.

 

[works4me]

Ordered one of these then received an email with a 20% off code 2 hours later
Code is ET0121. Good till 1/29

 

[SunnyD]

very comfortable imo, not very heavy, battery life is about 4 hours or so, not the best, but I keep mine plugged in all the time. If anyone cares at all, I just ran gta 3 in android at highest settings and it looked and played great with no lag.

4 hours while gaming or 4 hours while browsing?

 

[gibster]

Ordered one of these then received an email with a 20% off code 2 hours later
Code is ET0121. Good till 1/29

Thanks - but tried to apply it, and the starting price jumped from $150 to $200, so with the coupon code, it is $160, or $10 more... One may be able to use this coupon for things that are not on sale, but not on this unit (the 64GB one)...

 

[uallas5]

Across the top of their page there is a coupon banner given out in celebration of Chinese New Year. '2016CNY' gets you 20% off, but it's also for non-sale items. The page also explains that orders placed between Feb 4th and 13th will not be shipped till after the 13th due to the holiday.

http://www.everbuying.net/m-promotion-active-201.htm

 

[funboy6942]

4 hours while gaming or 4 hours while browsing?

mix of both

and coupons can only be used on non sale items only

 

[zijin_cheng]

very comfortable imo, not very heavy, battery life is about 4 hours or so, not the best, but I keep mine plugged in all the time. If anyone cares at all, I just ran gta 3 in android at highest settings and it looked and played great with no lag.

You should be getting more than that (depending what the usage is). I'm estimating about 5-6 hours of web browsing/ebooks/news.

 

[funboy6942]

thats with gaming in there too, and android as well, and heavy testing. I will say, the adapter that comes with it isnt enough to charge, use, and keep the battery up at full charge, but, it will last pretty much all day on from 9am to around 10pm always on leaving around 20% left on the battery. I plan on picking up a much better charger off monoprice to take care of this for 18 bucks.

 

[Schmide]

The one I received had a big scratch on it and some remnants of previous usage.

I declare lame.

 

[kmmatney]

I received mine today. There are a few minor scratches on the screen, which make it look lightly used. The biggest issue is the overall out-of-box experience.

Windows: Wasn't expecting much here, but its not too bad. A little bit peppier than I expected. However it won't connect to my Wifi. It see it, but fails to connect, so I can't do much of anything (no windows updates, etc..). A complete fail on WIndows, but I didn't get it for windows - no matter what the CPU isn't fast enough for decent windows experience.

Android: Connects to the internet OK, but play store is missing. I did a full Android reset, and after that it defaulted to Chinese. I was able to look up online how to get it back to English. Still haven't figured out how to put the play store and google chrome on it. The default web browser wants all searches to go through China- I'm not sure I trust it. A lot of Apps are in Chinese - I got rid of what I could, but still plenty left.

The screen and hardware otherwise seem OK, but it's obvious this will need a new ROM to be workable. So the hardware has potential, but out of the box experience is crappy.
My main issue is that I can't get the play store loaded - keep getting tons of errors. I did a full Android reset, etc..

 

[funboy6942]

I didnt have any troubles, other then no play store. All I did was search for play store apk, downloaded it, went into files/downloads/opened it/installed it/done

I had chinese crap on mine but took the time to delete most of it all, still got some, but doesnt bother me at all. As for browser, after I got the playstore I installed chrome, use it as default, no more chinese pages. Its a $100 tablet, gonna have some crap, cant be a $500 one.

As for the wifi stuff not working, one of the first things I did was use a driver update software. You will for sure need it for sound and video, and looks like in ur case wifi. Install it ti a sd card and pop it in and run it. I use driver pack solution, its huge, but has every driver known to man without having to go on the internet.

All of this is imo, and as for the scratch, mine had a screen protector on it, did your guys not?

 

[kmmatney]

I did the same, but the first few times I tried to install the play store I received a lot of errors. However I was finally able to get it on, and now things are a lot better. So I'm reasonably happy now.

Performance wise, on Android, it is pretty nice browsing with the built-in Android browser. Using the UC Browser is awful, and I've uninstalled that, and uninstalled most of the Chinese crapware. So I think things will eventually be working well on the Android side of things.

I did a full windows reset - I chose the "fast" method, but it still took 5 hours to complete. The wifi still wouldn't connect - it sees by router but fails to connect. I'll look into downloading the drivers. I'll probably look into wiping out windows and making it Android-only, though.

So I'm a lot happier with this now. Perfromance-wise in Android, for non 3D stuff it is about as fast as my iPad 4. However this tablet starts to stutter in some games, and I getnotifcations popping up about the screen having to be dimmed to due overheating. Curiously, the screen doesn't dim, but the message pops up a lot. The tablet feels warm under load, but not hot enough where I would think it would have to throttle. Maybe there is a way to increase the temperature where throttling kicks in. So overall the graphics seem a little underpowered for such as high resolution. There is an Android app that can to force lower resolution, so I think I'll have to use that for games.

Overall, I'm getting happier with this tablet - at least on the Android side.

As for the scratches on the screen, they were very light, and I buffed them out, and they are not a factor - the screen looks great

 

[funboy6942]

I did the same, but the first few times I tried to install the play store I received a lot of errors. However I was finally able to get it on, and now things are a lot better. So I'm reasonably happy now.

Performance wise, on Android, it is pretty nice browsing with the built-in Android browser. Using the UC Browser is awful, and I've uninstalled that, and uninstalled most of the Chinese crapware. So I think things will eventually be working well on the Android side of things.

I did a full windows reset - I chose the "fast" method, but it still took 5 hours to complete. The wifi still wouldn't connect - it sees by router but fails to connect. I'll look into downloading the drivers. I'll probably look into wiping out windows and making it Android-only, though.

So I'm a lot happier with this now. Perfromance-wise in Android, for non 3D stuff it is about as fast as my iPad 4. However this tablet starts to stutter in some games, and I getnotifcations popping up about the screen having to be dimmed to due overheating. Curiously, the screen doesn't dim, but the message pops up a lot. The tablet feels warm under load, but not hot enough where I would think it would have to throttle. Maybe there is a way to increase the temperature where throttling kicks in. So overall the graphics seem a little underpowered for such as high resolution. There is an Android app that can to force lower resolution, so I think I'll have to use that for games.

Overall, I'm getting happier with this tablet - at least on the Android side.

As for the scratches on the screen, they were very light, and I buffed them out, and they are not a factor - the screen looks great

I found this on Onda's site,

Maybe this will help you with the problems you are having??

http://www.onda-tablet.com/news/

 

[kmmatney]

I did finally get Wifi working in Windows. I tried many drivers, but one mentioned here finally worked (for anopther tablet):

https://social.technet.microsoft.co...g-on-pipo-w1-tablet?forum=WinPreview2014Setup

I had to uninstall the existing drivers, and physically delete the Realtek *.sys file from thje drivers folder before I could install this driver. Android Wifi has always been fine.

So I'm now pretty happy with it. I also own an iPad4, and it's awesome having an Android tablet with the same screen resolution and aspect ratio - I much prefer it over 16:9. Web browsing, especially on Android is very fast - very little lag. So my only remaining issue is that a few Android games can't handle the high resolution. I think this is an Android fragmentation issue, really. There are Apps that can force a lower screen resolution, and once I get these working, then everything will be "perfect". The cpu power is more than enough to comfortably run Android - the graphics are just a little underpowered for a retina display. Forcing a lower resolution for certain Apps requires root, and I haven't been able to do that yet, but I should get there eventually.

So overall, I wouldn't recommend this tablet to non-techies, but if you don't mind tinkering with things, resolving a few issues, and translating Chinese web sites then it's a great tablet.

A quick summary:

Android:

* Overall works fast with no UI lag. Web browsing is fast with Chrome. It sucks using their default Chinese browser (UC Browser), so that needs to be removed right away.
* Works great with my Air video server - just as good as my iPad. Movies look great.
* Games generally play well, expeically if they use mostly CPU. Games that use the GPU will stutter if they try to use the full screen resolution. I'm working on fixing this.
* Difficult to root - requires a tethered root. I haven't been successful, but I think I will eventually get it.
* Still a few Chinese apps on it that I need root to get rid of. Just ignoring them for now, although its impossible to ignore Clean Sweeper.
* The factory ROM is available for download, but you need a Baidu account, which sucks if you can't read Chinese. I was able to download it, but it was a pain. You can edit the factory image and remove the CHinese apps, spo at least there is an option for a clean Android install.

Windows 10
* Wifi did not work initially, and took quite a bit of effort to make it work, bit now works fine
* Web browsing in Windows is fast, no complaints
* Windows runs OK, but will stutter if you push it too hard. I think you need at least a Core M and a faster storage subsystem to really run Windows well.

I've gotten rid of other cheap Android tablets I've tried in the past (Nooks, no-name brands, etc) as they just were too laggy, or the screen was too small. This one is much better - it's nice to use, and I find myself favoring it over my iPad4 for quick web tasks.
So for the price, I'm happy.