First Impressions of the Innovatek InnoSoul Android Tablet
My latest endeavor in plumbing the depths of budget tablets is a 7″ Android 4.0 tablet that my competition found on Amazon last week. It’s from a company that I’ve never heard of (though I do see that Innovatek does offer some consumer electronics).
This tablet piqued my interest because it fell into the $99 price range and shipped with specs that appeared to be better than either the Polaroid PMID701 or the IdolPad.
I cannot say for sure yet whether this is the better tablet, but after fiddling with it for an hour I do think it’s work a closer look.
The InnoSoul is a 7″ budget Android tablet, but the specs are somewhat better than I expected. It’s running the latest version of Android on a 1.5GHz CPU. The screen is the usual 800×480 with a 5 point capacitive touchscreen. My model is the $109 one with 8GB Flash, not 4GB, and it also has an excess of ports and slots, including USB Host, HDMI out, speaker/mike, as well as a 1.3MP webcam.
It doesn’t appear to have come with the necessary cable, but the specs boast that this tablet can support 2160p video playback for all formats. It also reportedly supports 3D Android games, though I’m not sure how I’m going to test that. One detail I can confirm is that this tablet ships with Android Market installed. As soon as I got it set up (a bumpy process), it updated itself to Google Play, which was nice.
At first glance the build quality is decent. It falls somewhere in between the PMID701 and the IdolPad, and I don’t see any obvious shortcomings. The touchscreen works slightly better than on the PMID701 and it is attached better than the one on the IdolPad.
But I have noticed a quirk which might put some users off. It looks like the developers forgot to hide or remove one of their dev tools. This tablet tracks your use of the touchscreen with a line. It also reports the (x,y) screen coordinates in a row across the top of the screen. It’s strange, and I don’t know that I want to put up with it.
Update: Scroll down to the comments for instructions on how to turn this off.
I’ve installed a couple apps (Aldiko and Angry Birds). Aldiko works fine and Angry Birds performed slightly better than it did on either of its competition.
All in all, this is not a bad tablet. It cost a little more but I have the feeling that the performance might justify it. I’m looking forward to posting a review on the weekend.
Specs
- Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
- CPU: A10 1.0GHz
- RAM Memory: 512MB
- 7″ screen, Resolution: 800×480
- 5 points capacitive touchscreen
- 8GB Flash storage
- microSD Card
- speaker, mike
- Mini USB and USB port
- HDMI out
- g-sensor
- Wifi
- 1.3MP webcam
- Dimensions: 195mm x 120mm x 14mm
- Weight: 0.7lbs
Specs
- Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
- CPU: A10 1.0GHz
- RAM Memory: 512MB
- 7″ screen, Resolution: 800×480
- 5 points capacitive touchscreen
- 8GB Flash storage
- microSD Card
- speaker, mike
- Mini USB and USB port
- HDMI out
- g-sensor
- Wifi
- 1.3MP webcam
- Dimensions: 195mm x 120mm x 14mm
- Weight: 0.7lbs