Friday, August 24, 2012

Ainol Novo7 Fire DualCore 7" HD-IPS Tablet

Introduction:

The Ainol Novo7 Fire (Novo7 Flame in English version) 7" Dual-Core HD-IPS Tablet is one of the most anticipated China Tablet for many of Ainol fans across the world. Due to its popularity and huge community support, it is considered as one of the most exciting Tablet aside on Google Nexus 7. Specification leakage are being discussed all-over the internet two-months prior to its release date. Finally, Pandawill.com now offers the Ainol Novo7 Fire for as low as US$155.99 including FREE shipping to almost all countries world-wide.  They offer Buyer Protection for PayPal and some Credit Cards users as-well. Upon purchase confirmation, they test the full functionality of the Tablet before sending the package through international couriers like Fedex for free. Please spend some time and enjoy reading the article. Thanks.

Specifications:
  • AMLogic-M6 1.5GHz Dual-Core CPU with Mali400 400MHz Dual-Core GPU
  • 7" 1280x800 HD-Resolution IPS with 5-Touch Capacitive Screen
  • 2.0MP Front-Facing and 5.0MP Rear-Facing Camera with LED Flash
  • Wi-Fi B/G/N, Bluetooth 2.1, Accelerometer, Light Sensor and G-Sensor
  • 1GB DDR3 RAM, 16GB Storage with microSD Slot upto 32GB
  • 5000mAh 3.7V Battery Capacity, Magnesium-Aluminum Alloy Shell
  • Pre-installed Google PlayStore and other Essential Applications
  • Android OS 4.0.4 IceCreamSandwich. For more details please click HERE
The product specifications itself are already pretty awesome for $155.99 Tablet. Ainol really did a great job incorporating some of most user preferred specification while still maintaining low cost. I can tell that Ainol Novo7 Fire can compete directly on some known and expensive Tablet brands without losing its edge against other cheap China Tablet brands. Let’s proceed on checking the Ainol Novo7 Fire build quality.

Workmanship:


Honestly, I am amazed by how Ainol improved its build quality. Without any idea, looking on the Tablet itself will makes you think it is built by those big Tablet players like Huawei or Samsung until you notice the small "Ainol" word on the bottom of the screen. You can view the Internal Build Quality of Ainol Novo7 Fire HERE.


Ainol introduced several hardware upgrade and changes for the Novo7 Fire including the 7" 1280x800 HD-IPS Capacitive 5-touch LCD panel. The LCD panel really looks good, no visible backlight or bleeding. It uses Glass screen to protect the LCD and prevent unwanted scratches as well. 2.0MP front-facing camera above the screen is just in the right place to capture self-photos or use as webcam for Skype video-call. Beside the camera is the Light Sensor which is kinda new to Ainol Novo7 Tablets.
The Brushed Magnesium-Aluminum Alloy shell makes the Tablet appearance more elegant and classy to hold. The design of the back shell looks like a smaller version of Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 to me. Just above the metal shell lies the 5.0MP rear-facing camera with auto-focus and LED flash which can capture high-quality photos and records HD videos. On the bottom-corner of the Tablet is the  ultra low power Piezoelectric mono-firing loudspeaker which can produce incredibly amazing sound quality.
On the top-right corner of the Tablet are the high-durability Alps buttons for Power, Volume Rockers, and Home key. Ainol made minor improvement here by totally removing loose and rattling keys found on their previous Novo7 Tablets. The button keys are also well placed, they are accessible even when the Tablet is on Landscape or Portrait mode. Ainol Novo7 Fire thickness measured about 10.6mm only while weighing 339grams. That makes this Tablet portable and very comfortable to use. By the way, nice sleek-round edges too.
The left side of the Tablet is dedicated to Tablet Interface. Ainol never failed to add the most user-needed interface for such cheap Tablet. 1x miniHDMI 1.4, 1x microSD slot upto 32GB max, 1x microUSB Host-OTG, 1x 3.5mm Headphones port, 1x 5V-2A Charger port, and the tiny Microphone hole. The ports does not block each others, you can plug the Tablet into a Widescreen TV and use it as media player while using a USB flash drive. It can also charge through USB or on native Charger ports. You can even connect the Tablet to PC to browse its content.

Performance Benchmark:


As expected, Google Nexus 7 armed with a powerful Nvidia Tegra 3 Quad-Core 1.3GHz CPU with GeForce ULP GPU easily outperforms the Ainol Novo7 Fire with less processing cores. In everyday use, this benchmarks are irrelevant as both will perform better in the eyes of the users. We still don't know how Ainol Novo7 Fire will compete against Google Nexus 7 if both has stable Jelly Bean 4.1 OS. But I don't expect there would be a huge changes.

One minor issue on Ainol Novo7 Fire was the minor overheating of the back-side when running at Performance Mode (1.5GHz). Similar Tablet with AMLogic-M6 chipset like ONDA Vi30 DualCore doesn't seems to have this issue, it might be a kernel optimization issue. Ainol's ICS firmware offers three CPU mode; 1.Power Saving - 800MHz, 2.Normal - 1.2GHz, and 3.Perfomance Mode - 1.5GHz. At Normal CPU mode, the tablet is still very responsive although it might suffer a little bit on Heavy 3D Gaming. Nevertheless, we hope that Ainol will fix this on future firmware release.

Additional Improvements:
  • HD Resolution IPS Screen - as discussed above, its really great and comparable to other expensive brands, text are much clearer, images are very vivid making the Novo7 Fire suitable for reading e-Books or Magazines and watching HD Movies. You can even use the Tablet outdoor, thanks to its IPS Screen technology which other expensive brands also use. However, don't expect too much as it doesn't have Super AMOLED screen that defy the Sunlight. Around 30% view-able @ maximum brightness under the Sun is still good though.
  • 5000mAh Battery Capacity - much larger than any other 7" China brands has to offer. A fully charged battery could last 7hrs of Wi-Fi Browsing, Video Playing, and Gaming under optimum settings.
  • Bluetooth 2.1 - most Ainol fans has found answers to their request. Now Ainol included a built-in Bluetooth 2.1 to their Novo7 Fire. Users can now use Bluetooth Headset for listening musics, or browse your Mobile Phones and PC to copy its content and vise-versa.
  • Light Sensor - this feature auto-adjust the Tablet's brightness depending on the environment. Quite a good feature to have.
  • Improved Wi-Fi Antenna - one major update from the Wi-Fi antenna that were also used on Ainol Novo7 Aurora-2. It now has Aluminum Foil placed on the Wi-Fi metal antenna which was missing on Novo7 Aurora-2, result; poor Wi-Fi range. Novo7 Fire's Wi-Fi should now perform lot better with its improved Wi-Fi antenna.
The Cons:
  • Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.4 - Android OS ICS-4.0.4 isn't bad, but Google Nexus 7 showed us how good Jelly Bean 4.1 experience is and made us to crave for that Android OS be installed on our Android Tablets. Ainol doesn't have such great support when it comes to latest firmware, other China brands especially Tablets with Rockchip RK3066 CPU offers stable Jelly Bean 4.1 as stock firmware.
  • Minor Overheating - like we mentioned above, this could be fix by an optimized kernel on Ainol's future release firmware. Leaving the tablet at default Normal CPU mode is recommended.
  • No built-in GPS & 3G - well, this isn't expected on such cheap device like these China Tablets. Including this feature would make the Ainol Novo7 Fire a complete Tablet a normal users could have. It does support External 3G using several list of USB-3G Dongles via OTG-cable.
The Deal Breaker:
  • No Gorilla Glass Screen - although Ainol's Novo7 Fire uses scratch resist Glass Screen, it doesn't protect the LCD or Touch Digitizer from accidental breakage due to some user negligence. It may seems to be too much to ask for a US$155.99 Tablet but having a Gorilla Glass Screen feature would be great.
If you don't mind dealing with above Cons, Ainol Novo7 Fire is definitely a bang 4 buck Tablet. It offers almost all the needs of most Android Tablets fans without asking too much to their pockets. Just try to put extra precautions not to accidentally sit above the Tablet or have it drop. Its still a Gadget anyway, it is supposed to be use and not abused. Regarding Jelly Bean 4.1 updates, we'll have to wait 1~2 months or worst for Ainol to completely release a stable Jelly Bean 4.1 OS for Novo7 Fire. Android community developers might get it in advance like CM10 custom firmwares which is based on Android OS 4.1 Jelly Bean, but for the meanwhile we have to bear the itch.

Video Review: courtesy of Pandawill.com

15 comments:

Anonymous said... at August 28, 2012 at 1:15 PM

test...

Anonymous said... at August 28, 2012 at 9:43 PM

Hi, did you already get the tablet? When will the review be ready?

Anonymous said... at August 30, 2012 at 9:32 AM

Some of your 'deal breakers' are only 'cons' not 'deal breakers'.

4.1 is out so it's guaranteed ainol will release soon.
GPS and 3G are redundant for most users.Those who get a tablet will most likely have a smartphone, which means there will already be GPS and 3G access.

Gorilla glass might be a deal breaker for some, as would the overheating issue.

I'd wait til the overheating is fixed before buying.

Anonymous said... at September 1, 2012 at 12:14 AM

Tablet support 3G dongle.

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Anonymous said... at September 3, 2012 at 10:11 AM

only screen and battery improvement from Aurora II

ivanz said... at September 3, 2012 at 10:21 AM

Improvement from Aurora-2

1. Battery beef-up to 5000mAh
2. Screen resolution gets 1280x800 HD
3. Built-in Bluetooth 2.1
4. 5.0MP Rear Camera with LED Flash
5. Light Sensor
6. Brush Magnesium-Aluminum Alloy Shell

Blue Rain said... at September 3, 2012 at 10:52 AM

How long does the battery run on full charge under normal usage?

ivanz said... at September 3, 2012 at 11:05 AM

It could last full day under Light usage... That means you're not using the Tablet continuously.

My Aurora-2 with 3700mAh battery last more than one day under optimum settings... Light usage including periodic web browsing, email reading, some games... the rest, I leave the Tablet @ Standby mode...

Anonymous said... at September 4, 2012 at 11:22 AM

bluetooth and gps

ET3D said... at September 4, 2012 at 7:03 PM

Thanks a lot for this summary of the Fire. I'm tempted to buy it but I think I'll wait a little longer and see what updates bring.

ivanz said... at September 22, 2012 at 10:43 PM

Big News... Pandawill.com cuts the price of Ainol Novo7 Fire (Novo7 Flame English Version) from $165.99 to $155.99

Unknown said... at October 1, 2012 at 7:56 PM

i just bought ainol novo 7 flame/fire.
could you help me here how to root the ICS 4.0.3 OS here?
thanx a lot

ivanz said... at October 5, 2012 at 9:44 PM

Hello Anda Irwin,

You can ask Novo7 Flame experts at Slatedroid.com

Visit the Ainol Novo7 Flame section here:

http://www.slatedroid.com/forum/385-ainol-novo-7-fire/

Unknown said... at May 8, 2013 at 5:13 PM

Before you Update ask there website, friend of mine after he upgrade from ICS to Jelly Bean he lost the WIFI

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