Onda VI10 Elite and VI40

[Michael]

I took advantage of living in China to order a couple of tablets. I am in Shanghai so not in the dead center of tablet land (Shenzhen), but obviously Shanghai is a major market. I ordered from 360buy.com to eliminate the issues from Taobao (China's version of EBay).

To give an idea of pricing, the VI10 Elite 7" Allwinner A10 tablet was 599 RMB (less than $95) and the VI40 was 1099 (just under $175). The VI10 had the latest 1.1 baseband, and I had to flash the VI40 from 1.0 to 1.1. Both run ICS 4.03. The VI40 is a 9.7" IPS screen. Both have 1G of DDR3 and the A10 is clocked at 1Ghtz in each with a Mali400 GPU built in.

Neither comes with Google Play (market) as standard but there is an easy to run script that fixes that problem. I use a VPN here so my IP address looks like I am in the USA.

I'll post specs, benchmarks and my general impressions the next couple of days.

Michael

Ps - this post was done on an iPhone sitting in a brew pub in Shanghai and my main tablet is an iPad 2, so anything I post will be from the viewpoint of a hardware enthusiast, not as a fanboy.

 

[MaxFusion16]

which brew pub?

 

[Michael]

I was at the Shanghai Brewery on Hong Mei Lu in HongQiao. There is a pedestrian street there (called the Foreigner Entertainment Street) that has quite a few places to eat and 2 brew their own beer).

For the 2 tablets I chose, I had 3 main criteria. The first is an active and continuing support for firmwares including reasonably widespread use of the chipset, the second was a price and feature set compared to the Kindle Fire (7") and the iPad (9.7"), and the third being English language instructions on flashing and modding as I can't read Chinese.

Any quick survey of the the Shenzhen tablet makers shows how popular the Allwinner A10 chipset is. Here is a description from their website:

"Overview

With A10, Allwinner Technology will drive SoC into a brand new era of connected Smart HD which can enhance the application of connected HD SoC as well as user experience of electronic multimedia products. A10 is offering MULTI-CHANNEL decoding and 1080p encoding, MULTI-CHANNEL display with independently developed advanced frame, as well as MULTI-CHANNEL Analog TV Decoder Interfaces. What's more, power consumption can be much lower than its competitors during 1080p decoding process.

Features
• VPU
HD Video Decoding (Super HD 2160P/3D Film)

Support all popular video formats, including VP8AVS
H. 264 MVC, VC-1, MPEG-1/2/4, ...
HD Video Encoding (H.264 High Profile)
Support encoding in H.264 format

• DPU
MULTI-CHANNEL HD displays
Built-in HDMI
YPbPr, CVBS, VGA
LCD interfaces: CPU, RGB, LVDS up to Full
HD

• Rich Connectivity
USB2.0 Port
CSI, TS
SD Card3.0
10/100 Ethernet controller
CAN Bus, Built-in SATA2.0 Interface
I2S,SPDIF and AC97 audio interfaces
PS2 , SPI , TWI and UART

• Boot Devices
NAND FLASH
SPI NOR FLASH
SD Card
USB

• Powerful Acceleration
Graphic( 2D/3D)
VPU(Super HD)
APU
E-reader

Benefits

•High-performance processing and multimedia capabilities
•Outstanding Super HD 2160p/3D Film video decoder makes bunds of creative application possible
•High level of integration enables you to launch products in less time, with less effort and at a lower total system cost
•Further development Kits, including OS BSP( Android2.3.4, Linux2.6,WinCE6.0) "

In terms of what the core of the A10 is, it is a 55nm ARM Cortex A8 (usually running at 1Ghtz) married to a Mali400 GPU. Online spec sheets for A10 based tablets often refer to multi-core. The CPU is single core, the advertisements are stretching the point to include the GPU as the "multi" part of the core.

It supports and has firmware for Android 4.03 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and appears to be very compatible with many games. The video out functions also appear to be very good (more on that later).

Michael

 

[MaxFusion16]

Ahh yes, I remember that area; spent some quality time at the big bamboo nearby, one of the few places in town with Kilkenny on tap.
I ought to try this Shanghai brewery next time.

 

[Michael]

It is literally right next to Big Bamboo (which is owned by a Canadian and has poutine). Across the street is a German pub that also brews their own beer and their beer is pretty good as well.

Michael

 

[ImDonly1]

Umm... are there english versions of the 2 websites you mentioned?
How did you navigate them? Unless you understand Mandarin.

 

[Michael]

360buy.com has a few screens that are in English, but it is a Chinese company that sells into China. Same for Taobao (sort of Chinese eBay). I use Google translate and my admin.

Allwinner has a fair amount of English content on their website:

http://www.allwinnertech.com/product/A10.html

Here are the 2 tablets from a site in English. I do not endorse the business as I have never dealt with them:

http://www.pandawill.com/onda-vi10-...-hd-screen-8gb-1g-ram-hdmi-camera-p56358.html

http://www.pandawill.com/onda-vi40-...ps-screen-16gb-1g-ram-hdmi-camera-p56046.html

Michael

 

[Michael]

For the Onda 1.1 Roms, I can confirm that the following script adds the full Google Play market:

http://www.slatedroid.com/topic/30855-scripts-allwinner-a10-tablets-google-play-script/

Michael

 

[Handaloo]

Hey Michael.

Thanks for a great forum post and info.

A friend picked me up a Vi10 Elite last week and I'm quite impressed with it.

One question I did have, do you have any experience with modding the firmware on these tabs?

I've been trawling the internet for a custom rom to automatically remove the Chinese Apps and fix the google play issue by default. I've found Vi40 versions and people talking about making the roms themselves, but no guidance on the subject.

I'm fairly technical although a bit of a n00b when it comes to Android, so I'd be interested to see if you know much about this :biggrin:

ALso, my wireless is a little laggy so I'd like to see if I can improve that with an update.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Handaloo