I'm going to try out the A90 from EKEN :-)

mefxes · **Posted:** Fri Jun 08, 2012 12:51 pm

I haven't read the entire topic, but I'm just making a quick reply since I got here by "accident" while searching for different firmwares for my tablet.

I have a Eken A90 Advanced - Android ICS, 1gb ram, 16gb storage, 8000mAh for like 2 weeks now. I don't recommend it.

Screen and battery are fine: the screen is very good, good colors but not very responsive due to software, since hardware pick all the touches. Battery life is what expected to my use, 7 to 10 hours of continuous use like web browsing on wi-fi, listening to music, etc. Every other aspect is not good. Wi-fi signal is weak, weaker than my Motorola Defy. At the same room, side by side, My laptop receiving full signal, my smartphone Defy 2 bars (it's always weaker than my laptop) and the tablet not able to connect or connecting and dropping all the time. It's weirdly slow with the best FW I found so far (tested 9 yet, I'm on 10 right now), lots of stuttering in music, video playback with issues.... etcetera. I really don't recommend it.

It's good for games, anyway. But terrible to open pdf files, SLOOOOW scrolling.

Seriously, run away. I'm giving it to my girl so she can play some games...

maderin1 · **Joined:** Sun Sep 30, 2007 2:50 pm **Posts:** 20625

well i agree with most of that, i was and need to try the firmware from slatedroid by [rom] cm9 nightlies - SlateDroid.com its meant to be good, but things like WIFI on this are just terrible, i dont really get the same problem you have, yes the bars do drop a little here and there but i never loose connection or drop its just that its so slow, side by side with my phone and in the room where the router is it gets beaten hands down, its slow downloading play store apps, web browsing is slow and clunky no matter what browser, its just bad wifi hardware, it cant be used to stream iplayer etc (but thats also a problem with ICS/FLASH etc etc) and the window N50 beats it hands down on web content streaming - great size, great viewing, video play is good (not streaming), PDF is slow, games are good but for browsing and speedy web based stuff or power hungry media its a no no - currently its a angry birds games console for my partner - makes me wonder if 2.3 would be better/faster in general??

mefxes · **Posted:** Sat Jun 09, 2012 4:21 am

Thanks for your answer, It's good to know I'm not alone with my perceptions about this tablet. You described the wi-fi issue better than me. Connection doesn't drops in fact, it's simply too slow. And yes, it doesn't deal well with flash and streaming. My Defy is much better when I put them side by side on same content.

Anyway, I'm always testing to find a better situation and don't see my money going for nothing. Today I tested 2 MOMO11 Bird firmwares and ended with the second one, from may 22, which can be found and downloaded at their official website. This is a clean fw and all the tablet's functions are working (touchscreen, wi-fi, accelerometer, volume buttons, preference options... and root by busybox). I'm keeping this.

daren · **Posted:** Sat Jun 09, 2012 5:10 am

We are three for that matter

I got the T10, but the hardware is basically the same, so should be the findings.
Aside the issue with the bottom bar no disappearing during video playing (an issue I hope to be able to fix sooner or later...), I more or less concur to be above impressions.
Video performance overall is very good, but what lets it down is web browsing. "Slow and cluncky no matter what browser" pretty much nails it.
However it is an issue with the A10 chipset that affects all tabs based on it: if it's an hardware or software issue, I would guess it's probably more a software issue, as a 1 GHz Cortex A8 CPU core should be more than enough powerful for web browsing. Don't believe who tells you it's an issue due to your wi-fi connection, because it's not related to the web pages load times, but to the the *scrolling* of the pages themselves - being them fully loaded or not - and that has nothing to do with wi-fi connection quality or speed.
Of course there is always hoping that a future firmware fixes it, but I would not hold my breath for it....

All in all is a decent, not great, device for a sub 150$ price, but I'm sure it will be soon (I say 6 months at most) made obsolete by the new multicore chips both in terms of power (of course!) and in terms of price/performance ratio....that's how chinese market goes...

dragon2knight · **Posted:** Sat Jun 09, 2012 7:21 am

Wow,all this dissension about a decent tab. I have several different routers in different locations to test this on(T10a)....and I'm not noticing any serious dropouts,no better or worse than my other tabs. Browsing with the standard browser is just fine. Sometimes page loads take longer than I like...but its the exception not the norm. As for page scrolling...no lag noticed here. Sorry,daren,but you are wrong,and I've told you this before. Your router has EVERYTHING to do with your browsing experience. If your using a poorly set up router,your gonna have some poor browsing experiences. Try running some optimizing routines for your specific router(lots of guides online) and notice what you've been missing. I'm using my T10a awhile now,how long have been using your A90's? I'm telling you,they are different and then some. Dont pile all of the A10 tabs together,either. I'm about to get my second one in,and I'm sure that it will be as different as night and day to the T10a I have. Just because something dosent live up to ones lofty expectations isnt a reason to nail all versions of it....thats just wrong.

maderin1 · **Joined:** Sun Sep 30, 2007 2:50 pm **Posts:** 20625

D2K - is your tab running ICS 4.03??
regardless of the T10 my experiences are with the A90 (of which there are apparently some diff versions - not sure what they are) and i can say that side by side with a slew of other devices this is slow, both in download speed and browser/web performance, i dont know about other A10 based tabs either as i have not looked around at any other devices or whats going on with them
personally im wondering if an optomised 2.3 on this would be better, there must be a reason why ICS 4 has such a massive delay on mainstream tabs and phones?? or am i totally out of touch??

dragon2knight · **Posted:** Sat Jun 09, 2012 7:49 am

I would say this is more down to ICS than the hardware. I've used several dozen versions(custom and stock)of ICS on over 10 different tabs already,and some leave alot to be desired. I'm hearing that 4.0.4 is a nice upgrade over 4.0.3. This is always the case with android,as it progreses,it gets better. Maybe 2.3 would work better than ICS as it sits now,but you lose so much going backwards....I would never do it personally. There may be something to what some are saying about ICS being optimized for multi core processors...and it not working so well on single core devices as well.

mefxes · **Posted:** Sat Jun 09, 2012 10:35 am

I'm pretty sure that none of my slow browsing problems with this tablet are due to bad wi-fi connections. Don't make any sense pointing that cause when other hardware are browsing flawlessly side by side to this tablet. At home I have 3 computers (2 notebooks) and 1 smartphone using wi-fi, and the only slow thing is the Eken A90. Anyway, scrolling is slow with PDFs too, and they have none to do with connection speeds.

What is sad for me is that I bought it specifically to browse the internet and read pdf at my post-grad classes, but I simply can't do any one or other comfortably. Last class I bring my notebook and when finally given up browsing with the tablet, I picked my notebook and started using it. My brother asked to use my tablet since I wasn't. A little time later he was almost throwing it to the wall. At the same time I was downloading our material (PDFs) at 5000kbps on my notebook and checking e-mails on my cellphone...

dragon2knight · **Posted:** Sat Jun 09, 2012 10:51 am

mefxes wrote:

I'm pretty sure that none of my slow browsing problems with this tablet are due to bad wi-fi connections. Don't make any sense pointing that cause when other hardware are browsing flawlessly side by side to this tablet. At home I have 3 computers (2 notebooks) and 1 smartphone using wi-fi, and the only slow thing is the Eken A90. Anyway, scrolling is slow with PDFs too, and they have none to do with connection speeds.

What is sad for me is that I bought it specifically to browse the internet and read pdf at my post-grad classes, but I simply can't do any one or other comfortably. Last class I bring my notebook and when finally given up browsing with the tablet, I picked my notebook and started using it. My brother asked to use my tablet since I wasn't. A little time later he was almost throwing it to the wall. At the same time I was downloading our material (PDFs) at 5000kbps on my notebook and checking e-mails on my cellphone...

Could very well be the A90,as I dont have one,I cant comment on it.

daren · **Posted:** Sat Jun 09, 2012 5:18 pm

Sorry Dragon, but it looks like that who's wrong here is you...and, yeah, I too told that to you before

I was going to reply to your post above, but I see that the posts that anticipated me (due to time zones...

) pretty much say it all about wi-fi connections, so I'm not going to repeat the same concepts again. I can just add that if you look to the latest Novo 7 Aurora video review, you can *clearly* see what we are talking about on slow web pages scrolling.
This in turn leads to the argument on the supposed differencies between the various tabs based on the same Allwinner A10 chipset: it's been stated many times that all these tabs are based on fundamentally *identical* hardware and all firmwares are based on the same core Android port to the A10 chipset. Of course, if the latter gets improved we could see improvements on these issues as well, but given the fast pace of the chinese chipset refreshs I wouldn't hold my breath for it.
That's about differencies between A10 tabs from different manufacturers, not to say between slightly different models from the same manufacturer, like the T10 and the A90 form Eken.
However my conclusion on this tab is the same as yours: even if this is not a great tab, it is a decent one for the price it is offered, but people must be aware of it's limitations and based on this decide if they can live with them or not.

MP4 Nation Forums
Back to MP4 Nation - The MP4 Nation Blog - The Raz Special - Themes