Alldocube X Neo test - this year's best Chinese tablet

With this tablet and the AMOLED display, they showed a fity to Xiaomi.

Alldocube X Neo - Introduction

I know I’ve described it several times before, but I’m forced to repeat myself. It is very rare for me to pick up my head when I hear about a new Chinese gadget.

And no, that’s not because Chinese tablets would be bad, just because it’s such a catch. Decent crafts - in most cases - but that’s pretty much it. In an average mid-range machine, we find an 8 or 10-inch IPS display, an eight-core MediaTek processor, 4 GB of memory, and better yet 64 GB of storage. And we don't usually dare to dream of mobilnet, because most of the machines are made for the Chinese market, so the domestic 4G is forgetful.

So, with a new tablet, it’s hard to surprise me unless…

Sometime a month ago, I was confronted with a new machine that made my mouth properly open. Alldocube as a manufacturer was not unknown to me. Although Teclast is considered better, I prefer Alldocube machines. Somehow less Chinese.

So far, I’ve only seen lower-end or maximum mid-range machines from them, but now they ventured higher and launched a high-end gadget. But not just any, but one that makes a techman like me pee himself out of beauty. One that Xiaomi’s current best tablet can salute with downcast eyes.

Packaging and accessories

White hard cardboard box with large silver X Neo inscription. If this packaging doesn’t inspire confidence, then nothing. You know what you ordered, you know you have to have a high-end tablet in it, and yes, the box already confirms that.

There aren’t many accessories, though, though, there could have been more if I hadn’t rushed into the purchase. The basic package includes a SIM tray needle, a charger and a USB cable, and a screen protector is glued to the machine. So that's it and no more.

And how could there have been more accessories? So that I do not rush to buy.

The machine appeared, you could press the pre-purchase button, and I was one of the first to buy it. After about 12 hours, the introductory campaign started, where a keyboard and case were added as gifts. Well, it didn’t happen to me, but I was so happy that I was able to tell members in our Facebook group to buy it quickly, so several of them also got a gift package worth about $ 80-90.

That's how I went.

External

The Alldocube X Neo is a 10,5-inch machine, meaning the housing is also relatively large. It has exactly 24,95 x 17,54 cm sides, so it can’t be said to be one-handed. On the other hand, its thickness, more precisely its thinness, is only 7,2 millimeters, and its weight is not much, it weighs only 491 grams, so it does not tear our hands off.

When viewed from the front, lying down, the SIM tray is at the bottom left, followed by the Type-C connector, with a speaker grille above it, and the headphone jack connector at the top. At the opposite edge is another speaker grille, above it is the volume control and the power button. At the top are the microphones and at the bottom are the contacts for the optional physical keyboard.

On the obverse, on both sides, the coffee is quite narrow, about 8 millimeters, and at the top it can be about an inch and a half. On the top coffee we find the light sensor, next to it the front camera. Only the back camera is on the back and some Chinese text welcomes us.

The material of the house is, of course, glass at the front, the metal cover at the back is complete. The assembly is flawless, does not crack or crack. If I really want to get involved in something, it would be a very small wobble of the volume control, every other point is as one would expect from a company’s premium, or so to speak, flagship product.

Hardware

Well, this chapter will be the one that reveals what makes this machine top notch!

The central unit, for example, is not MediaTek, but Qualcomm, the eight-core Snapdragon 14 MSM660 Plus, manufactured on a 8976-nanometer bandwidth. It’s not today’s piece, but the Xiaomi Mi Pad 4, for example, is built on it. The 8 Kyro processor cores and the maximum core speed of 2,2 GHz are basically enough for everything. The integrated Qualcomm Adreno 512 is responsible for speeding up graphics tasks. The latter unit is what really embosses it, and in 3D programs it can also push down much newer MediaTek central units.

The memory is LPDDR4X type, capacity 4 GB, operated by a two-channel memory controller, clocked at 1866 MHz. The eMMC-based storage has a storage capacity of 64 GB. The latter, of course, can be expanded with a memory card, up to 256 GB.

Next up is the display, but one I haven’t seen on a cheap Chinese tablet yet. Well, let’s not take Huawei here, but the price is a completely different category, let’s say we can count a double multiplier in the lower voice.

So, as I wrote in the introduction, the average Chinese tablet has an IPS display. This is so true that until now there hasn’t been a tablet without it. At most the resolution changed from machine to machine, the cheaper ones knew full HD, the more expensive ones 2K resolution.

The Alldocube X Neo is the first low-cost Chinese tablet to feature an AMOLED display. I don’t think this should be over-explained, its quality goes light years ahead of any other widespread and affordable solution, but it’s not so cheap yet that it can even fit a mid-range Chinese machine.

(I'll note in parentheses here that Samsung's upper-mid-range tablets have an AMOLED display, only they cost about twice as much as the Alldocube machine)

The resolution is not the usual full HD, i.e. 1920 x 1080 pixels, but 2,5K, i.e. 2560 x 1600 pixels. This plethora of pixels is housed in a 10,5-inch panel, so the pixel density is also great at 287 ppi. Image quality, color accuracy, contrast ratio, viewing angles are incredibly good. The machine has been awarded the DCI-P3 certification, which essentially means that it meets the standard criteria defined by the Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI). As a result, the image is richer in detail, we get colors that are closer to reality, and the display can display more colors than usual. If that wasn’t enough, it’s good to know that the NTSC color space coverage is 105 percent, and of course we get HDR as well, just to make everything really flawless.

I hope everyone is starting to understand what makes this machine high-end, but we’re not even close to the end of our capabilities.

The picture is followed by the sound, at least the speakers. I have some uncertainty about this, because the advertising material highlights that there is a dual speaker, that is, if we look at the picture when laid down, there is one on the right and one on the left. However, I can't find the word stereo anywhere. It would be a little weird if two of the speakers sounded mono, but I don’t dare describe it as stereo either, because what if it isn’t.

We have a camera in front of the back, though, these are the most helpful for keeping in touch with the internet, as there is a 5- megapixel sensor on the front panel. Let’s say the tablets haven’t been photographed so far, nor does the X Neo change that. Of course, you don't have to cry, because with the 8 megapixel camera you can still take 8 x 3264 pixel pictures or record FHD videos at 2448 frames.

One more interesting thing is that, but due to the category of the machine, the Wi-Fi 5 network interface is expected to be dual-channel, so it also supports the 2,4 GHz mode in addition to the older 5. Another good news is that Bluetooth is already 5.0, which will be really gratifying for those who already have such a standard headset or earphones.

Speaking of radios, there are two types left out. One is mobilnet, i.e. 4G, the other is navigation.

Regarding the latter, it is worth noting that for most tablets, the manufacturer is satisfied with the support of the GPS system. Well, I haven’t seen one to support four satellite systems on a Chinese tablet, including Xiaomi, for example. This is the case with the Alldocube X Neo. In addition to the American GPS, we also find the Russian GLONASS, the Chinese Beidou and the European Galileo. One word ends in a hundred, no one will have a problem navigating!

Another piece of good news. After the many Chinese tablets on the market that can be inserted into a SIM card, it is just superfluous because they do not support the home network, now here is this machine, which in turn is. Sure, anyone who buys the X Neo can use the 4G mobile network at home at full speed because we get support for the B20 800 MHz band. You can put up to two SIM cards in the SIM tray anyway, at least when no memory card is used.

What's left?

We didn’t talk about the sensors, though here are some of them, even if not as much as in a phone. We also get a gravity sensor, a gyroscope, a proximity sensor and a brightness sensor. The latter means that the context-sensitive display brightness adjustment can be set, which, through AMOLED, is good for consumption.

If you are already consuming. In the web store, the battery is written as 8000- on the manufacturer's side with a capacity of 7700 mAh. No matter which one we believe, the point is how much charge it has anyway, and there will be no error in it, as the tests below will show. In the meantime, it’s also important to get a QC3 quick charge for the big battery.

And by the end, some icing on the cake, let the other delicacies come. Although the USB Type-C format, the headphone jack has not been spared either. This is good because it allows us to listen to the FM radio with a wired earpiece, which is also not left out of the package. Last but not least, it is important that those who want to also have voice or video communication thanks to the SIM card are given a dual microphone to hear what they are saying on the other side as well.

End of chapter. I hope you don’t have any questions left, you already know why I fell in love with this machine in an instant!

Reviews

The table below shows my usual measurements. The performance during the games is shown by the Antutu and 3DMark points, the everyday use was scored by the PCMark program.

There was no big surprise in terms of performance, as my Xiaomi Mi Pad 4 also uses this processor, so I knew what to expect. The Alldocube introduces the X Neo as a tablet for gamers (too) and has the power to match the gamer token.

In the first column, there is Teclast's current state-of-the-art machine, which is better known in Hungary as well, in which another MediaTek chip is working. You can see it’s stronger in PCMark, but as rendering becomes important, i.e. in Antutu and 3DDMark, Snapdragon pulls you away from the rival.

I also tested the uptime. I used the PCMark battery test for this. Before starting this, I charged the battery to 100 percent. The test starts and continuously loads the processor. During the test, the brightness was 100 percent, Wi-Fi was turned on. According to the test results, under the above conditions, i.e. with a continuously running test, the machine sank from 7 to 14 percent in 100 hours and 20 minutes.

As I wrote above, there are different data on battery capacity in the web store and on the manufacturer’s site, but it doesn’t matter anyway, the 7 and a quarter hour operating time should be bottled at 80 percent dive!

Use and experience

The machine is good to hold. The materials are good, good to hold, and anyway, it's all in one. There is no flaw in performance, the picture quality and the AMOLED display are simply amazing. When my partner saw it, he remarked that he had a good picture of a beef, even though he had seen some tablets with me, and I will say, he had never said that he liked this or that. Of course, the fiftieth point after the same machine has something to say.

I don’t usually play, but I do a lot of internet, I use Facebook a lot because of my work. I correspond a lot, chat a lot, and in my free time I listen to music and watch movies, even if I’m not motoring right now.

The Alldocube X Neo is, of course, perfect for average online tasks, as you would expect from an iron-equipped machine. We can also use it for listening to music, although I would be less likely to recommend it. Don’t get me wrong, compared to an average tablet, it doesn’t sound bad, in fact, it’s quite dynamic, it has a drop deep in it, but it’s still not the hardware on which it’s a pleasure to listen to music.

But what’s perfect, and you can’t think of a better one, is watching movies. The picture is flawless due to the AMOLED display, and the sound effects are of the right quality for this experience. It reminds me, Netflix is ​​compatible with the structure, it’s important to me, but I guess I’m not alone with that.

As I wrote, I don’t play, but since the sound, the picture, the strength of the hardware is okay, it’s probably not a problem with that either.

What I really regret, as I wrote above, was that I didn’t wait after the release so I didn’t get a gift keyboard. I’m thinking about buying it, but the $ 65 price is still holding me back. Due to the large display, I can also type on the on-screen virtual keyboard with both hands, although I can only type with 4-5 fingers, but it is also more than anything.

I have already written about the uptime during the tests, I think what we get is perfectly sufficient. If you do not use it continuously, turn off the brightness, adjust the dark subject, even with intensive use, there is enough capacity for a full day. And being able to watch movies on it for up to 7-8 hours on a single charge is enough.

I tried the navigation using Waze, I don't really know what to write because nothing interesting happened while using it. It worked, not on the wrong track, in a word good.

Of course, I also tried mobilnet and telephony. The former worked fine, although at the end of the world, at the edge of the village, the speed was not steel, but it was more than acceptable for what I got. This will obviously be better in an area with normal coverage. The phone call is perfect, the built-in speakers are perfect for the voice, the caller said I could be heard flawlessly as well, so it’s likely that the dual microphone will do its thing too. So, if you want an extra-sized phone, you can also use the X Neo for that.

I’ve already written about the resolution of the cameras, not about their quality yet. While the camera settings give up quite a bit, there are all sorts of profiles for white balance, there’s face tracking and similar subtleties, I think these cameras aren’t primarily for photography, they’re much more helpful for keeping in touch with the web.

A few words about the software. The machine is running Android 9. This is a basic Android with minimal changes, the security package at the end of last year. There is currently no newer version of the software available, though there is nothing wrong with this nine either, at most we may be a little saddened by the date of the security package.

More importantly, of course, the machine speaks Hungarian, I found only one English menu item in the menu.

The basic Android also knows quite a lot, but if you don't like the interface, you can install another launcher. There’s no complaint about knowledge, there’s a dark theme, automatic eye-saving, blue-light-free night mode, and of course, Google’s services are also available to us, unlike on unfortunate Huawei devices.

And at the end of the chapter, a few tips-tricks.

I don't know why, but USB file transfer is off by default, but USB debugging is on. Theoretically, even with the latter turned on, you could copy files between your tablet and desktop, but I couldn't.

The solution is as follows:

1. Go to settings, open the bottom menu item called System.
2. Click the top, About Phone menu.
3. Scroll to the bottom where Build Number is displayed.
4. Click on it (5x in principle) until it says that you are already a developer.
5. Then go back to the menu one by one (System) and look for Developer Settings. Open it!
6. Turn off USB debugging, then scroll down to find and click the Default USB setting.
7. Select file transfer as the default and you're done!

Summary

Now let’s get to the dirty material first, just to have some basis for comparing how expensive or just cheap the Alldocube X Neo is.

The cheapest AMOLED display machine on the Product Finder is the Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e. This machine is almost the same as the X Neo in almost every way, with a few points at least better than that. For example, the proci is newer, the camera is 8 megapixels instead of 13, but the battery capacity is smaller, for example.

The lowest price of the Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e is 122 thousand forints, but the price tag is more for 140 thousand plus for non-noname dealers.

And how much does the Alldocube X Neo cost? Not less than 76 thousand forints. This is 46 thousand cheaper than even the cheapest Samsung price, but if we look at the prices of normal stores, the difference is already 70 thousand forints.

Whoever buys Chinese machines, the point is, he buys and does it because he gets the same performance at a much cheaper price than if he bought it from a reputable manufacturer. In the case of tablets, the only problem so far has been mediocrity, that is, although we got machines with good capabilities, we didn’t get very good ones. Alldocube X Neo grinds out this chip.

For my part, for now, no matter how much I loved it, I would gesture a tearful pope for the Xiaomi Mi Pad tablet and throw it up in a classified ad, and the X Neo would be my new favorite for a while. How long, they could only tell at Xiaomi, but until they release an AMOLED tablet, I will be unfaithful to them.

The Alldocube X Neo lived up to my expectations, I don't mind for a minute that I voted for it, it's worth every forint and it will serve what I spent on it.

The king is dead, long live the new king, Alldocube X Neo!

You can buy the new AMOLED tablet here:

Alldocube X Neo tablet 4/64 GB

If you buy it with a keyboard, you can add it to your cart here:

Alldocube X Neo tablet 4/64 GB + keyboard

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