Ainolo Novo7 Basic/Advance Review

[Guest aaww]

Ainol Novo 7 Basic and Advance

Ainol, the name doesn’t sound very pleasing in the English language I must say but it’s increasingly becoming a Tablet name people are talking about(check out the CES videos on YouTube, like this one : http://www.youtube.c...h?v=nhOb-vpVVbU ).

Little history, not too much :)

Ainol Novo 7 firstBasic edition which came preinstalled with android 2.3.4. The tablet had a 7inch capacitive touch screen, and 1 GHz CPU by MIPS. This tablet was quicklyreplaced by the Android 3.2 Honeycomb Novo7 Basic edition, and today it runsthe Android 4.0 aka Ice-cream Sandwich.

The Novo7Advance was released shortly after; It has a more powerful 1.2ghz ARM CPU andweighs 5 grams more because of the battery size(I weighed both of them myself).Other than that the Advance has better HDMI output video playback capabilities,It can handle 2160p (3840X2160) which makes it the cheapest TV streamersolution to date. Sadly the Advance Module was discontinued due to Ainoldecision to invest in ICS based devices (Paladin and Basic and a few moreupcoming devices that will be reviled in CES 2012). http://www.ainovo.com/product.html

The popularityof these 2 models during the holiday season has been grate and Ainol wasfinding it difficult to keep up with the demand but now the Paladin and theBasic version are available again.

Both tabletsbasically have similar hardware features and outer appearance.

And here is aTechnical specs table that compares both models.

Both have thesame package (with slight differences) content but can vary (depends on the stock):

- Ainol Novo 7 Basic or Novo 7Advance itself.

- [*] Mini-USB to USB cable

- [*] USB Female to Mini-USB

- [*] Charger

- [*]Ainol Earphones

- [*] Remote Control

- [*] soft case

- [*] Hard lather case with a stand

- [*] Screen protector

Most of the objects are optional but Igot them all in both devices.

My Experience with the tabs was neverthe less pure fun that was followed by some disappointments but I am extremelyhappy because the value I got for 99$ (Novo 7 Basic) is greater than what Ihave expected!

I have been playing around with cheapchina tablets before but these 2 really got my attention and won my trust.Although the screen quality isn’t that grate and comes with a low resolution (800 X 480) screen, both tabs don’t disappoint! Reading a book usingKindle or surfing the web and playing 3D games and high resolution videoplayback works as smooth as butter, the Ui on both is very responsive and thebattery actually lasts long enough to play 3 full length movies (Cowboys andAliens (2011), FinalDestination 5 and The Hangover 2), So why am I so excited about this?

While playing the movies, the Wi-Fiwas on and sleeping policy was set on never, also the screen brightness was onmaximized, now that is impressive! But that is not all.. I still had enough batteryto play music for 20 min.

The camera on both devices is not goodat all. The quality can be compared with the Andy Pad and other cheap tablets asyou can see.

Advance photos:

Basic Photos:

The MIPSXburst cpu is grate when it comes to the balance between energy efficiency andperformance, and the most important part for as the consumers, It’s cheap andits fast.

Support wise,there is a problem at the moment. Many developers do not support this magicalchip from MIPS, meaning that the amount of apps and games available for thisdevice are limited but it will improve in the near future because many Mobiledevice developers are looking in to MIPS.

Sure it willnot give the NVIDIA Tegra performance but for 99$ it rocks !

The lack ofBluetooth and the crappy camera do not make this tablet

In the latestfirmware of ICS for the Basic device, Flash support was improved (flash 10.1),and Facebook/YouTube apps were added but tweet deck an even the officialtwitter app will not work on your device (you will be forced to use Seesmic).

Anyways forless than 100$ tablet it is a grate deal and the fact that the build quality isgood and it is working as smooth as butter, considering the fact it is only anentry level tablet. I would highly recommend it!

Now I am waiting on my Novo7 Elf and Novo7 Aurora to show up as they were released a few days ago and were shipped to me.

I will review them as well.

I was working on a video review as well but I saw way too many reviews on YouTube already so I have decided to skip it.

Please feel free to post questions,

I will be more than happy to answer.

With kind regards,

Albert Altman

Edited January 17, 2012 by aaww

[Guest aaww]

I have forgot to mention that a few hours ago Ainol officially released ICS for the Novo7 advance

As usual there is no change log published, Ainol are very slow to release documentation or news updates on the chines website.

here is the direct link:

http://115.com/file/cl3vsk9o#

(you will need to download and install a download manager to use this link)

I will upload the file later on to rapidshare.com as well

Here is the link to the download section (use google translate if you need it):

http://www.ainol.com/plugin.php?iden...odule=download

Enjoy !