We’ve got another set of affordable Android ICS tablets on our hands — a 10-inch Bmorn V99 and the samller, 7-inch Bmorn V16. Catch our full review of these two tablets after the break.
Design and Construction
V99
The overall design of the V99 actually resembles that of the 7-incher
Ainol tablets that we’ve previously reviewed. From its rounded edges
down to its black shiny plastic back complete with labels which attracts
fingerprints like there’s no tomorrow, the V99 is in our opinion
NOVO7’s bigger brother from another mother.
A quick tour on the tablet’s sides will reveal a total of 5 shiny
silver buttons. One for Power, Home and Menu and two for the volume
rocker.
Alongside the home button are a set of ports for microSD, micro-HDMI,
micro-USB OTG (which I assume means On-The-Go), a regular micro-USB
port, charging and two holes for Reset and Mic.
Situated laterally across the other side of the Power button is the 3.5mm audio jack.
On its back are the device logos and small labels for the
corresponding ports, holes and buttons. Those labels proved helpful to
ease some of the confusion brought by the 5 buttons, 5 ports and 3 holes
found on the tablet.
And oh, don’t miss the inconspicuously placed 2MP camera also found
at the back of the slate. Now there’s something we don’t see quite often
on ChinaTabs (that didn’t sound right). Since they’re in to labeling, I
just wished that they also labeled this part or put like a mark or
something just to indicate that there’s a camera there.
In addition to the rear camera, the tablet also has a front-facing snapper for your camwhoring and/or video chatting pleasure.
V16
For the V16, although small, delivers more good looks compared to its
older brother. It’s also curved around the edges with the front of the
device is solely for the screen and a tiny front-facing camera. On the
upper right of the device (on landscape) you’ll find the power button,
volume rocker, and the return button. On the left is the headset jack,
microphone, micro USB and micro SD card ports.
Turn it on its backside and you’ll realize why the V16 looks better.
Instead of glossy black, it has an anodized metal back case in a
brownish-gray finish. There you’ll find the speaker grill and a textured
piece above it which to be honest, I don’t really know the purpose of.
Overall, it’s thinner and looks better.
Display
The V99 sports a 9.7” LCD Capacitive Touch screen display with a
screen resolution of 1024 x 768, which is what we typically get from
Chinese tablets.
There’s really nothing out of the ordinary with the tablet’s screen,
just the bare minimum. From watching movies to reading e-books, the V99
pretty much gets the job done indoors with plenty of room to spare
thanks to its screen size. Just don’t bring it outdoors because
legibility can be an issue.
For the V16 you’ll get a 7-inch, 800×480 pixel resolution, TFT
capacitive display. Not exactly high-resolution so pixels are very
evident.
Audio
We’re pretty disappointed with the sound output from the V99’s
speaker as it is far too soft for comfortable listening. We suggest
plugging a pair of earphones when you plan on listening to your tracks
or watching a film with this tablet.
For the V16 I’d give the same suggestion, although the sound is very audible, it sounded like it’s coming from a tin can.
Performance
Another downside to this tablet is that it is only equipped with a
single core 1.2GHz All Winner A10 processor with MALI 400 for GPU. This
is the same processor used in the Ainol NOVO7 Aurora and NOVO7 Advanced
II. But for its price, we really can’t expect too much. The performance out of it was rather poor as shown in the benchmark results.
Usually we use to perform three benchmark tests (AnTuTu, Quadrant
Standard and NenaMark) on each device that we review but we were only
able to perform Quadrant on the V99 because the device is not compatible
to run AnTuTu. We’ll talk more about software compatibility later on.
For the V16, AnTutu gave it a score of 2,696, above the Sony Ericsson X10i but below the Samsung Galaxy S.
Quadrant Standard gave it a score of 1,707, surprisingly scoring higher
than the V99 but still placed itself at the bottom of the charts.
OS and UI
The Bmorn V99 originally shipped with Gingerbread. But to make it at
par with its competition, the newer models will have ICS pre-installed
on it. But rather than do the tablet good, we think that the OS upgrade
actually made the tablet worse. This is by far the worst Ice Cream Sandwich build we’ve seen on a device.
Here’s why — there’s an intolerable lag even on the most simplest of
operations. Most of the time, we try to give a slight consideration to
the device that we review, especially when it comes to lag. Frankly,
this tablet’s lag is off the charts. We’re not sure if it’s the
hardware, software or both that causes this, but bottom line we find it
too laggy.
We think that the OS is not fully optimized on the device which is
evident on the indicators such as battery bar and WiFi signal. There
were inconsistencies in the status being shown and the actual status.
For instance, I placed my Huawei Wi-Fi hotspot directly on top of the
V99 but the Wi-Fi bar is only showing 2 bars.
The V16, however, gave us a cocktail of mixed emotions. It’s not that
laggy compared to the V99 but when it does, it really makes itself
known. Out of my 5 games with Fruit Ninja, it stalled 2 times which
forced me to exit the game and restart it. Once it became laggy but
keeps on playing anyway.
Temple Run works well. Out of 5 games it only lagged once. Although
the gyro doesn’t work well even after tweaking the Accelerometer
coordinate system. So no tilting maneuvers on this one.
Do other stuff such browsing, social networking, movie and music playback, and it runs smoothly 95% of the time.
Virtual Keyboard
As with any other device with a big screen, typing is expected to be a
breeze and Bmorn V99 shouldn’t be an exception to that. But with the OS
issue that we’ve experienced, even typing can be a pain in the neck
because the tablet has a bad habit of not registering keyboard taps. For
the 7-incher, expect it to be a bit cramped. No lags were experienced
so all keys register with perfect timing.
Camera
One of the few things that this tablet has going for it is its
camera, or two cameras I should say. This is a rare feature for Chinese
tablets because we’re used to seeing just one camera (front-facing) and
sometimes even none. Both of the cameras in this device are 2MP. Not
really the best snapper in town but should get the basic job done.
We did however encounter an issue when we used both cameras for
Skype. It was erratic. Our guess is that it has something to do with the
app, not being optimized for the device or it’s just the device to
start with.
Nothing much to be said about the V16 as it only has a 0.3 megapixel
front-facing camera. If there’s one thing to be said about it is it’s
too grainy.
Battery Life
As we mentioned earlier we didn’t really have a good read on the
tablet’s battery life because of the unreliable battery status being
shown by the OS. So we just decided to play a bunch of movies and see
how far it can go. We averaged about 2 and half 720p movies with Wi-Fi
on in a single full charge, which is actually pretty decent. Here’s a
screen shot of the battery status after normal use.
Notice the message Battery usage data not available at the top. You’d
have to get used to that. Anyway we’re banking on this screenshot for
the actual battery life but we decide to attach this just to give you a
visual idea of the V99’s battery life.
For the V16, even with the 3500 mAH battery, it only lasted for almost
two days with constant WiFi connectivity and 6 hours-worth of movie
playback.
Hardware Configurations
Bmorn V99 specs:
9.7 TFT capacitive LCD @ 1024×768, 132ppi
1.2GHz All Winner A10 processor
Mali 400 GPU
512MB RAM
16GB internal storage
up to 16GB via microSD
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
2MP rear camera
2MP front-facing camera
Android 4.0.3
243 x 190 x 11.8mm (dimensions)
Bmorn V16 specs:
7-inch WVGA TFT capacitive display @ 800×480
Allwinner A13 1GHz processor
Mali 400 GPU
512MB RAM
8GB of internal storage
up to 16GB via microSD
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
1.3 megapixel front-facing camera
3500mAH Battery
Android 4.0.3 ICS
190 × 121 × 10mm (dimensions)
370g (weight)
Conclusion
This tablet is one of the cheapest 9.7-inch tablets we’ve seen so
far. In our opinion, the Bmorn V99 will have a tough time competing
against other Chinese tablets with a slightly better engine under the
hood that are already out in the market.
In addition to the lacking hardware component, the ICS build on this
device is by far the worse we’ve seen from a tablet to say the least.
Apart from the 2 cameras and decent battery life, there’s not much going
for this tablet.
With the V16’s case, we can pretty much say the same thing. Although
it works it still needs a lot of improvement, especially if it wants to
compete with other 7-inchers out there that can perform a lot better.
