N-One NPad Pro review. Widevine L1 compatible

　N-one's "NPad Pro", which supports Widevine L1 and supports cellular communication, was provided for around $145 . I will review it while touching on the finer points.

Product introduction

　Let's start with the official specs of the NPad Pro. NPad Pro is equipped with "Unisoc T616" consisting of 2 GHz Cortex-A75 × 2 and 1.8 GHz Cortex-A55. It is a SoC that is often seen in Chinese tablets. I can't say it's high performance, but I'm wondering how far I can fight.

　On the other hand, the storage, which tends to be small, is relatively large at 128GB, and the execution memory is 8GB. Furthermore, it also supports external storage with a microSD card, so you won't have to worry about running out of space.

　In addition, despite this price, it claims to support Widevine L1, which is necessary for viewing various video distribution services with high image quality, with some exceptions. If this isn't a scam, it's worth it as a handy entertainment device.

　Furthermore, it supports cellular communication and dual nano SIM. Unfortunately, the corresponding band has not been localized, and in Japan, platinum bands other than Softbank lines are not available, but since it also supports GPS, it can be expected to be used as a car navigation system.

　A simple spec table is as follows.

OS	Android 12
SoC	Unisoc T616
memory	8GB
capacity	128GB
screen	10.36 type (2000×1200) IPS LCD
camera	13 million pixels
front camera	5 million pixels
Battery	6600mAh
size	246×160×7.5mm,440g
LTE	B1/B3/B5/B7/B8/B20 B38 B39 B40 B41

　The selling price on Amazon is 33,900 yen, but you can constantly purchase it for around 24,000 yen due to coupons and time sales.

design

　Let's start with the design. First of all, from the outer box ... I thought, but there was a problem immediately. The seal that seals the box was peeled off halfway, and the outer box was also slightly soiled, and the protective film attached from the beginning was scratched. Well, there are no scratches on the body and there will be no problem. Cheap Chinese tab, it's suddenly spicy and good.

　The bundled items are a maximum 20W charger and cable, a SIM pin, and a very simple quick start guide for Japanese. A film about the SIM card slot is attached on the back.

　The layout of the buttons on the main unit is a little confusing at first glance. Most of the functions are concentrated on the side where the camera faces up when held vertically, followed by the power button, volume button, reset button, and USB Type-C port. It feels like a "reset button in Reiwa", but in the cheap Chinese tab it is "there is".

　The bottom is beautifully bare, with two speaker holes on each side and a SIM slot on the right side. I don't see an ambient light sensor for automatic brightness adjustment . Since there is no such setting on the main unit side, it seems that there is no function to automatically change the brightness of the screen.

　The main body color is gray, and the design doesn't make you feel that high-end, but what surprised me was the main body material. The one-piece metal body has an excellent feel. It may be only for this time of year, but the body is cool and cold, and it makes me want to touch it from time to time. Fingerprints tend to stand out on the back of plastic or glass, but this device is discreet and comfortable.

　Also, the screen size of the tablet is 11 inches, but the NPad Pro is 10.36 inches. Compared to the Xiaomi Pad 5 owned by the author, the housing is literally one size smaller, and combined with its lightness, it can be easily held with one hand.

　The Technical Conformity Mark is posted on the sticker. However, I am concerned about the input voltage. NPad Pro is said to support 18W PD charging, but the sticker says 5V = 2.0A, so I suspect speed fraud. We will verify this later.

spec

　The installed SoC is UNISOC T616. Whether it is the mainstream of inexpensive Chinese tablets, recently we have seen a relatively large number of terminals equipped with the same SoC. It consists of Cortex-A75 × 2 and Cortex-A55 × 6 at 1.8GHz, so you can't expect high performance.

　First of all, Geekbench to measure CPU performance. The latest version of Geekbench 6 has a score of 437 singles and 1573 multis . It should be noted that Geekbench is not compatible with each version, so it cannot be compared with the scores of the old version of Geekbench 5, which is currently in circulation.

　Well, this score is equal to or slightly higher than OPPO Pad Air, which is sold in Japan for less than $277. OPPO Pad Air is a tablet equipped with Snapdragon 680, and it is a little surprising that it has achieved better performance than this.　AnTuTu v9 benchmark score is 245,931 points. This is also a score side by side with Snapdragon 680.

Function and Operability

　The preinstalled OS is Android 12. If you turn off dark mode, the settings and lock screen will be a pale color that matches the color of the wallpaper. There is almost no customization, and the editing and sharing menus at the time of screenshots are still alive.

　The feeling of operation is generally comfortable without feeling particularly sluggish or painful scenes. You can use it without stress if you shorten the animation scale playback time than the developer option. YouTube can be played at 1080p, and as will be described later, you can watch it without any complaints in a good communication environment.

　Having said that, I wouldn't recommend it for gaming. When I had a friend who is good at rhythm games play it, the frame rate dropped noticeably on high-difficulty scores that put a load on it. If it is a lightweight 2D game, there will be no problem, but it seems better to regard 3D games and music games as something that can not be played satisfactorily.

　By default, the tap sound is played, but it is recommended to turn off the tap sound because the delay is quite severe. Vibration doesn't feel that much of a delay, but it's undeniable that it's unstable, such as the feeling of vibration becoming irregular when a load is applied, such as immediately after startup.

　Also, the NPad Pro is equipped with GPS. Although it was a short period of time, when I used it as a car navigation system, I felt strange deviations immediately after starting up, but after a while it disappeared and I was able to perform guidance normally. It seems to be usable enough as a car navigation system.

Display/video playback

　The display is IPS liquid crystal 10.36 inches, resolution is 2K (2000 × 1200) aspect ratio 4: 3. It is a glare liquid crystal, and the color development is moderate. It's hard to ask for visual beauty in this price range, but if you're sleeping on YouTube, you won't mind it at all. I don't even feel uneven brightness.

　There is also an overwhelming viewing angle, which is a feature of IPS liquid crystal, and you will not feel any difference in color even if you look at it from an oblique direction.

Widevine L1 does not necessarily support Amazon Prime HD

　Also noteworthy is that it claims to support Widevine L1 even though it is in this price range. With this, you can enjoy the contents of major video distribution services except Amazon Prime in high definition.

　If you check the corresponding Widevine from the DRM info app, you can see that it is firmly compatible with Widevine L1.　What is more worrisome than that is the notation of "BMAX". I guess it's OEM.

　Going back to the topic, with Amazon Prime Video, even if the device supports Widevine L1, HD playback is only possible on specific devices specified by Amazon. NPad Pro was no exception, and playback with high image quality was not possible.

　There is some information that ``If you participate in the beta version of Amazon Prime, you can play high quality images even on devices that support Widevine L1 and do not support HD playback,'' but when I verified it, HD playback did not change. I can't do it. If it's not HD quality, the image quality will degrade significantly, and the experience will be unnecessarily affected.

Connectivity

mobile communication

　NPad Pro supports 4G communication and has dual SIM slots (one of which is exclusive with microSD). The supported bands are not localized for Japan, so the only ones that can be used satisfactorily are SoftBank affiliates and Rakuten Mobile, which struggles to cover the whole country with only its own Band 3 line.

　The author has not contracted an SB line, and Rakuten Mobile is a contract with eSIM, so it cannot be verified. I had no choice but to measure with the main line DoCoMo, OCN Mobile. The result was measured at 10:00 am on Saturday, grabbing band 3 and down 14.7 Mbps. The Pixel 6 Pro, which was measured immediately after, grabbed Band 19 and communicated at 200 Mbps.

Low Wi-Fi sensitivity

　Next is Wi-Fi. Unlike cellular communication, this is a very important factor because it is directly related to comfort. Here we will compare it with the Xiaomi Pad 5, which costs $285 at the time of purchase. The same model supports up to Wi-Fi 5 (ac) like NPad Pro.

　For reference, the author's home environment is a Wi-Fi 6 router (TP-Link AX73) with a 1 Gbps course, and the measured value for wired is about 350 to 500 Mbps. It's a very fast environment for the plan.

　First of all, from the best conditions for the tablet. Measurements were taken in the room where the router was placed, in a place with almost no obstructions. NPad Pro is 247 Mbps down, while Xiaomi Pad 5 is 381 Mbps. Although there is a speed difference of 1.5 times, it is still sufficiently fast, and it is a speed that is not particularly troublesome for daily use.

　On the other hand, when measuring in the room farthest from the router, the speed naturally drops to about 40 Mbps. Although Xiaomi Pad 5 is also slowing down, it still marks less than 100 Mbps.

　When watching YouTube in this environment, I felt a slight delay in loading after seeking to the range that was not loaded in 1080p. I feel that the Wi-Fi antenna strength is insufficient because there was almost no stiffness when seeking in the room where the router was placed.

Bluetooth codec too poor

　The last is Bluetooth. NPad Pro is appealing Bluetooth 5.0, but the Bluetooth version is marked as "unknown" in developer options and cannot be confirmed. Also, the codecs that are important for using wireless earphones are not listed on the sales page, and all options are grayed out.

　I connected the WF-1000XM4, a completely wireless earphone that supports SBC/AAC/LDAC, set the connection method to sound quality priority from the dedicated app Headphones Connect, and checked the codec, but as expected, it stayed at SBC.

　SBC is a codec that is 100% compatible with Bluetooth-enabled devices, in other words, the minimum codec. It is not suitable for those who are particular about sound quality in wireless.

An in-camera in which the user in front is reflected in the center

　Of course, it is also the in-camera of the tablet. Poor image quality, of course. However, NPad Pro adopts an in-camera arrangement for web conferencing, which has been increasing recently, and when the terminal is turned sideways, the in-camera is at the top of the main unit. Let's examine the benefits of it.

　Image quality in the first place. The stuffed animals were photographed with the in-camera using a timer in the shooting box, so the composition differs for each photo. Here are the results taken with the NPad Pro. No explanation required. The background around the stuffed animal has color transfer, and the background that should be the same color is not stable.　Next is about the composition reflected in the in-camera. The Xiaomi Pad 5 has a sideways camera like a typical smartphone, so when there is a person in front of the device, the composition is a little sideways.

　In response to this problem, some tablets such as the iPad Pro solve this problem by extracting the person from the ultra-wide-angle camera, but for other tablets, unless the position of the face and the tablet are shifted, the discomfort cannot be wiped out. put away.

　NPad Pro, which is positioned at the top when the camera is held horizontally, and Xiaomi Pad 5, which has the camera on the right side when held horizontally, verify the image of a person when the device is placed directly in front.

　When the Xiaomi Pad 5 is placed directly in front of the terminal, the face inevitably fits in the left half of the screen, while the NPad Pro has a slight human error, and you can see that the face is located almost in the center. . The image quality is bad, but it's nice to be able to see it properly from the front. If you really want the image quality, you can solve it by connecting an external camera.

Subtlety

　It has a certain amount of processing performance, and although Twitter and YouTube can be operated without stress, there were some dissatisfactions when using it mainly in terms of software, probably because it is a small manufacturer. to introduce.

Lack of adjustment, stupid speaker minimum volume. there is a solution

　First of all, the most obvious problem is the speaker volume problem. Similar comments can be found in Amazon reviews. This symptom, specifically, "the volume of the speaker is too loud even if the volume is set to the minimum". The quad speakers, which were placed appropriately, became the enemy. Insufficient adjustment.

　The following video compares it with the quad speaker Xiaomi Pad 5. The NPad Pro has a fairly loud volume with just one press of the volume button (internally 3 steps), and the muting is quickly approaching even if you try to adjust it, while the Xiaomi Pad 5 is so small that you can barely hear it. Volume.

　The problem with this is that the ear is close to the tablet, such as "watching videos while sleeping". Even if you try to adjust the volume, it's already loud enough even at the lowest level, and depending on the content, it's a level that can't be watched.

　The solution is extremely simple, just " lower the volume with the equalizer app ". If you lower all ranges equally to the limit, you will be able to adjust the volume to a level that is not noticeable even in situations where your ears are close.

　I managed to get by with such a primitive solution. This app with a straightforward name "Equalizer" is very convenient because it can automatically change the equalizer settings depending on the output destination.

　The content itself is comfortable to watch with the quad speakers. The bass is weak and gives the impression that it lacks power, but the power of the four speakers is great, and it doesn't give the impression that it's stuck.

Underoptimization for Android

　NPad Pro is equipped with Android 12. To be honest, I wanted it to have "Android 12L" optimized for large screens. This is because there are some adverse effects caused by putting Android 12 optimized for smartphones on a tablet with a large screen without customizing the UI.

　First of all, there is the size of each application in "recently used applications". Most recently used apps are displayed in a single display. iPads and Xiaomi tablets display apps vertically and horizontally, but I never thought that the lack of information would be so dissatisfying.

　Also, it is stressful that there are no functions that are common in major smartphone manufacturers and high-end tablets, such as "double tap to turn on the screen when the screen is off" and "swipe up with three fingers to home screen". With 3-button navigation, it's a hassle to reach for the bottom button, and with gesture navigation, operations other than going back are just as annoying as 3-button navigation.

　Well, I'm pretty picky about the convenience of device operation, and I'm aware that I'm sticking to ``operating the device with the least amount of laziness,'' so it's great for people who don't use the device that much. I wouldn't fault it. Comparing it to a device with double the price difference itself is a mistake, and it is a dissatisfaction that users who do not have a tablet may not even notice.

　As for the trivial point, I was also caught by the point that "when connecting Bluetooth earphones, the screenshot sound penetrates the earphone and sounds on the speaker". In the first place, making a sound when taking a screenshot is an anachronism in itself, but if it reverberates around you, it can be a situation where you may be suspicious. However, the screenshot sound and camera shooting sound can be muted in silent mode . This point is good.

Suspicious battery-related behavior

　In the design section, I introduced that "the sticker that the input is 5V2A is attached even though it claims to support PD18W charging". Here, I will explain battery-related problems including that problem.

　First, when I verified it with a 22W compatible PD charger, when the remaining battery level was low, it was stably charged at around 15W and was able to be charged at a reasonably high speed.

　On the other hand, when it approaches full charge, the charging speed drops sharply, and the USB current checker drops to 2-3W. Although it was displayed as "(charging) 16 minutes until completion", charging was not completed even after 30 minutes. This is the same trend with the included genuine 20W charger, and in my environment, I couldn't charge it at high speed. The problem that always occurs "Wi-Fi battery usage is not at a level that is high". Trying to restart or charge after the battery is exhausted does not solve.　Also, I feel a little uncomfortable with how the battery drains during use. When the remaining amount is abundant, it seems that the remaining amount has decreased by a few percent in an instant, but even if it is used after that, the remaining amount display does not decrease and stabilizes. I often see behavior like...

　In the review of NPad Plus, it was introduced that the battery life during standby was attractive, but the NPad Pro did not seem to be particularly so, and the power went off after leaving it for about 2-3 days. It's not just annoying, but the experience is about the same as a smartphone. There is also a slow charge near full charge, so it may be better to use it around 70%.

Overall review

　Users who use high-spec smartphones and tablets on a daily basis may notice minor dissatisfaction, but the processing performance and the texture of the housing are reasonably good, so it can be said that it is a device that can be used satisfactorily. I feel　It looks good for YouTube, browsing, and as a car navigation system.