Skip to main content

E-Fun Launches a New $79 Nextbook Android Tablet

As I reported yesterday with Kobo, most companies are avoiding the Android tablet, but luckily for this blogger that does not include E-Fun. This US subsidiary of the Chinese gadget maker Yifang quietly launched a new Nextbook tablet here in the US. There’s been no press release, but shoppers can now find the Nextbook NX700QC16G 7″ Android tablet at Walmart for $79.

nextbook 7 inch tablet

This tablet runs Android 4.4 on a quad-core 1.6GHz MediaTek MT8127 CPU with 1GB RAM and a nominal 16GB internal storage. It  sports a low quality 7″ display with a screen resolution of 1024 x 600, and it also has a VGA resolution camera, an HDMI port, Wifi, Bluetooth, and speakers (plural).

The NX700QC16G measures 7.59″ x 0.37″ x 4.41″, and comes with a 3Ah battery. It runs a full version of Android, including Google Play. It ships with a number of apps, including Vudu and Walmart.com, Cloudlink, Flixster, Net Nanny, and Nook for Android.

All in all, it’s not a bad tablet for $79 but I don’t think you should buy it. That is a cheap price, but even at that price point there are better choices.

For example, as I pointed out in my budget tablet buying guide you can find the Hisense Sero 7 Pro for only $78 at Amazon. That is a refurb and not a new unit, but given the specs I still think it is a better value.

While I am wary of buying refurbs, Hisense is one of those brands I would risk buying. To put it another way, I have higher confidence in a refurbished Sero 7 Pro than in the Nextbook tablet which just launched.

Liliputing

Similar Articles


Comments


MizzBee September 9, 2014 um 4:33 pm

Nextbook burned me with the Nextbook 3. Even after replacement by company, the one I have will open with a beautiful screen and then force close what ever app I open. NO, NO and NO on anything Nextbook.


Peter03102 September 9, 2014 um 7:38 pm

Lets see. Nextbook has

Faster (4-core) CPU. (1.6Ghz versus 1.3Ghz)
Double internal Flash memory (16Gb vs 8Gb)
Faster (1Gb) RAM (DDR3 vs DDR2)
Newer version of android. (4.4 vs 4.2+?)
More upgradable micro sd memory slot (64Gb vs 32Gb)
Newer Bluetooth (4.0 vs 3.0)
It has GPS.

What Hisense does seem to have is better resolution screen (1024×800 vs 1024×600) and a much better camera (5Mp vs .3Mp).

Nate Hoffelder September 9, 2014 um 8:10 pm

You’re welcome to go line for line on the tablets if you like, but just remember that the map is not the territory. Or in this case the spec sheet is not the tablet. (and FYI: the Sero 7 Pro has a flash.)

What the spec sheets won’t tell you is that E-Fun got the costs so low bu cutting a lot of corners. The Nextbook tablet probably has weaker performance, poorer camera, shorter battery life, and a much poorer screen than the Hisense Sero 7 Pro.

The Sero 7 Pro, on the other hand, was originally a $150 tablet which was loved by pretty much all of the reviewers who tried it. That makes it a known entity and thus a safe choice, which is why I would take it over the Nextbook.

Edit: Also, I have one; it was awesome right up until I broke the screen.

MizzBee September 12, 2014 um 4:25 am

"the map is not the territory", Mr. Nate I love that quote, is it a Nate original? If it is may I use it? It took me a few seconds to understand the meaning/implication of the statement. That is one bad-ass thought and quote.

Nate Hoffelder September 12, 2014 um 6:31 am

I got it from an SF novel. I’m not sure where he got it.

Nate Hoffelder September 12, 2014 um 6:36 am

Wikipedia says it dates to 1931:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map%E2%80%93territory_relation

TMTablets September 16, 2014 um 7:13 pm

I have the Hisense Sero 7 pro. Am I highly impressed, usually. Now, I got mine new, though at $129. It does everything you say, and I would also say the GPS is great. The Bluetooth works very well.

Three things I don’t like about it. in order of least to perhaps most important. It has a hard time finding my home wifi? More than any other tablet I own, (The TM I used stands for "Too Many" Tablets. 😉 Yes, it gets hooked up eventually.

The second thing, which made me pause in picking up a refurbished one. I think you can actually burn one up, if you you give it a verbal command that it doesn’t understand. If my memory serves, I gave it command for a camera action it couldn’t execute and it started to get hot as a pistol! I turned it off. Since I have tried any verbal commands since I first bought it, I almost forgot that nasty action. I don’t find the battery lasts more than 5 hours on the Internet.

Lastly it has nothing to do with the quality of the tablet at all –I would say it is high quality– but I’m uncomfortable having a tablet from a company that doesn’t even have the facade of Capitalism. Hisense is a government-owned company of mainland China. This just doesn’t appeal to me.

So, have I jumped up and down on the Hisense after I found out about the above? No, it does just work too well. As I said I almost bought a refurbished one besides except for remembering verbal commands that seem to activate the self-destruct mechanism. Perhaps this is why so many refurbs of this tablet are out there. Anyway, if you picked up a new one just develop amnesia about the details of the company. 😉

Nate Hoffelder September 17, 2014 um 1:09 pm

"a company that doesn’t even have the facade of Capitalism. Hisense is a government-owned company of mainland China."

I would say that it has the facade of capitalism; it sells goods to the US and other countries. But even so, I don’t see how it being a state-owned company is bad; in some countries this was (and is) not uncommon. For example, British Airways, British Petroleum, and much of the UK steel industry used to be owned by the UK govt.

Furthermore, under the US system of capitalism, the corporations own the government. I don’t see how that is better than the Chinese system, where the govt owns the corporations.

Mike September 25, 2014 um 6:04 pm

So, what you’re saying is that you don’t actually have the tablet and your review is based on your subjective view of E-Fun? I know there are some companies that I would completely avoid based on several instances of crappy performance from two or more of their products (Samsung for home theater and blu-ray players and RCA for….well, basically everything). But I would never create a bad review for one of their products without extensive personal use based on my bias against the company’s previous products.

Nate Hoffelder September 25, 2014 um 6:55 pm

I’m glad you left this comment. I went to pull together links to my past coverage of E-Fun so I could show you why I didn’t like them, and i discovered that I haven’t reviewed one of their tablets since 2012. I honestly hadn’t realized it was so long ago.

My opinion is based on the comments left here and on other tablet forums, and while I stand by my original mild recommendation, I can see that I need to get an E-Fun tablet and review it. I need to confirm that my opinion is still valid.

Nate Hoffelder September 30, 2014 um 8:19 pm

Okay, my unit arrived and it both confirms and refutes my original suggestion.

For one thing, the screen hurts my eyes. For another, the specs were wrong; there is only a single speaker and the CPU clock speed tops out at 1.3GHz.

But I also just ran an Antutu benchmark test; this tablet scored in the 22,000 range. That’s higher than the Hisense Sero 7 Pro.

I’ll post a full review this weekend or the next.

Nate Hoffelder September 9, 2014 um 9:30 pm

Speaking of the spec sheet not being the tablet, the CPU speed comparison is a false comparison. The MediaTek chip is not nearly as good as the Tegra chip from Nvidia. One is a budget chip; the other was a premium CPU at one time.

TMTablets September 17, 2014 um 12:34 pm

I already gave a couple of reasons why I don’t want to plug Hisense too much, but it does have an excellent GPS, even NFC which I have yet to try out, and some people have put in 64 GB cards, you can check the Hisense forum on that. I wish it was made by Asus for the price that I got for. 🙁


lolman September 19, 2014 um 2:37 pm

does the nextbook have a 3.5mm jack ?


Kerry October 4, 2014 um 8:40 am

I got the tablet and I’m commenting with it now. Couldn’t be more pleased. Adequately does movies, email, music, etc. My last tablet was a google nexus 7 (2013) and if anything this one performs better. Broke the screen on the google box or I would still have it. Specs really do matter to me. Performance, performance, performance and don’t pay out the nose in this economy.
From my perspective, this tablet is hands down the best value on the market. You may disagree if you try to use this thing for a camera, which I never have. I have a perfectly good smartphone for that.
Yes, it does have a 3.5mm jack.


tina November 11, 2014 um 3:32 pm

Does it have the ability to do Flash? Some sites and items I do require Flash and my friend’s tablet doesn’t have Flash and can’t show those sites.

Nate Hoffelder November 11, 2014 um 6:28 pm

Yes, but Adobe won’t let you download Flash anymore. You’ll have to download it from sites like XDA forums.


Write a Comment