Ramos W41 - 4-core tablet at an affordable price

A year after the release of the Rockchip RK3066 and Amlogic 8726-MX dual-core chips, Chinese manufacturers are again updating their chip fleet.
So, this year we are waiting for such 4-core solutions:
Allwinner A31 - 4 Cortex-A7 cores with a frequency of up to 1.4 GHz, PowerVR SGX544MP2 GPU.
Rockchip RK3188 - 4 Cortex-A9 cores with a frequency of up to 1.8 GHz, Mali 400MP4 GPU.
Actions ATM7029 / ATM7025 - 4 Cortex-A9 cores with a frequency of up to 1.5 GHz (1 GHz in ATM7025), Vivante GC1000 + GPU.

Of the well-known, but not very common in Chinese products, the Samsung Exynos 4412 chip was used - 4 Cortex-A9 cores with a frequency of up to 1.4 GHz, Mali 400MP4 GPU.

The fate of the Freescale i.MX 6 Quad chip introduced last year (4 Cortex A9 1.2GHz cores, CPU Vivante GC2000) is still vague. My colleaguevvzvlad already wrote about the Ampe A10 Quad tablet . A very promising chip, but the Vivante GC2000 GPU did not receive good support from the developers, which is why there are problems with 3D games.

Of the new screens we expect:
9.7-inch tablets with IPS screen resolution of 2048x1536 pixels.
10.1-inch tablets with a screen resolution of 1920x1200 pixels.
And of the new products on the Chinese market - 9.4-inch tablets with a screen resolution of 1280x800.
The main problem with all tablets made in China is the quality of the screens. In the case of 9.4 inches, manufacturers have chosen the right solution - use the proven screen produced by LG Display for Sony Tablet S.
At the moment, there are only 3 tablets with a diagonal of 9.4 inches. These are Pipo M8 on RK3066, Ramos W42 on Samsung Exynos 4412, Ramos W41 on Actions ATM7025.
The price of Ramos W42 is quite high (~ $ 250), Pipo M8 on the RK3066 can be attributed to the "obsolete". Of the interesting remains the Ramos W41 tablet, which will be discussed in this review.

Specifications

Model: Ramos W41
Chip: Actions ATM7025
CPU: Cortex-A9 1.1GHz ,, 4
GPU cores : Vivante GC1000 +, 2 cores
Screen: 9.4 "1280x800, IPS, LG Display
RAM: 1GB
ROM: 16GB
Wifi 802.11 b / g / n
Bluetooth : no
GPS: no
Battery: 6000mAh

The trend is the same as last year - the tablet is used only as a "sofa" multimedia device. No 3G and GPS.

Appearance and equipment

The tablet comes in a box made of thick cardboard:


At the back, the general characteristics of the tablet:


In the box is a compartment for the tablet:


And underneath is a compartment with accessories:


Accessories: headphones, USB cable, OTG cable, charger with adapter:


Charger 5V / 2.5A :


Long manual in Chinese:


From which we learn more detailed characteristics:


Additional covers were made of PU leather (decent quality) and headphones Ramos RX100.


Headphones 32 Ohm, 18Hz - 22KHz. The wire is rubberized, which does not give a chance to tie the headphones into a bundle. Sound quality at the Sennheiser MX 170 level.


The tablet is made in strict design:


The volume buttons and the power button are on a par with the case, which makes them difficult to use. From the interfaces there is a microUSB port, a microSD memory card slot, an input for headphones, an input for a charger. HDMI is missing.




Front 0.3MP camera:


Rear 2MP camera with interpolation up to 5MP:


There is a metal insert on the back that easily prints:


The speaker is also located at the back:

Quite loud, the case vibrates at maximum volume.

Weighing 535 grams, the tablet can be held with one hand, the frame around the screen is wide, the visible part does not close with the finger:

Screen

Different tablet screen sizes are suitable for different needs. For example, 7 inches is ideal for continuous carrying and serves as a universal tool for work and leisure. 9.7 "or 10.1" is not so convenient and more suitable for home use.
9.4-inch screens for Chinese tablets can be called a novelty. Ramos W41 has an IPS screen with a resolution of 1280x800 pixels. On such a screen, it is comfortable to watch movies, play games, and edit various documents.
Let's see a visual comparison of the screens 7 ", 9.4", 10.1 ":


It is worth noting the high brightness of the screen and color saturation.





Viewing angles:

Wifi

The signal level near the router is not bad:

Hardware

Let's look again at the characteristics of the 4 core chips that will be used in tablets in the form of a table:

Chip	Process technology	Architecture	CPU frequency	GPU
Actions ATM7029 / ATM7025	40nm	Cortex-a9	1.5GHz / 1GHz	Vivante GC1000 + 1100MHz (2 cores)
Allwinner A31	40nm	Cortex-a7	1.4GHz	PowerVR SGX544MP2 400MHz (2 cores, 4 threads)
Rockchip RK3188	28nm	Cortex-a9	1.8GHz	Mali 400MP4 533MHz (4 cores)
Samsung Exynos 4412	32nm	Cortex-a9	1.4-1.6GHz	Mali 400MP4 400MHz (4 cores)
Freescale i.MX6 Quad	40nm	Cortex-a9	1.2GHz	Vivante GC2000 533MHz (4 cores)

An interesting option is the 28nm Rockchip RK3188 chip with a 1.8GHz CPU frequency and the popular overclocked Mali 400MP4 GPU running at 533MHz. Several tablets have already been planned on this chip, which will go on sale in early to mid-March.

But back to our Actions ATM7025 chip manufactured by Actions Semiconductors, the main alleged problem of which could be compatibility with 3D games due to the use of the new Vivante GC1000 + GPU.
Information about this chip is not yet available both in the English version of Actions Semiconductors and in Chinese .
There are 2 new chips from Actions: ATM7025 and ATM7029. At the moment, of the known differences is the frequency: 1 GHz in ATM7025 and 1.5 GHz ATM7029. The manufacturer’s official website does not specify which chip is used in the Ramos W41. And judging by the information from the brochure - the younger model Action ATM7025 is installed, which operates at a frequency of 1.1 GHz



Let's go directly to testing the performance of our Ramos W41 tablet. After each test, there will be a summary table with the test results for the following tablets:
1. Ramos W41: 9.4 "1280x800, ATM7025, 1GB RAM, 16GB ROM
2. Ampe A10 Quad Core: 10.1" 1280x800, Freescale i.MX6 Quad, 1Gb RAM, 16GB ROM
3. Cube U21GT: 7 "1280x800, Rockchip RK3066, 1GB RAM, 16GB ROM

Let's start by testing with Antutu versions 3.0.3 and 3.1.1.

Antutu 3.1.1:

	Ramos w41	Ampe A10 Quad Core	Cube u21gt
RAM	1508	1928	1651
CPU INT	3130	3040	1419
CPU FLOAT	2154	2236	443
2D	918	670	1172
3D	2073	1568	3567
Total	10362	10018	9061

The performance of the Actions ATM7025 and Freescale i.MX6 chips is about the same. Rockchip RK3066 is a little behind.

Antutu 3.0.3:

	Ramos w41	Ampe A10 Quad Core	Cube u21gt
RAM	2209	1981	1516
CPU INT	3173	3154	1864
CPU FLOAT	2275	2308	1425
2D	916	656	1187
3D	1774	1676	3570
Total	10895	10149	10428

Qudrant 2.1.1:

	Ramos w41	Ampe A10 Quad Core	Cube u21gt
CPU	5571	9192	6828
Memory	1340	2793	4061
I / O	4433	3976	6534
2D	817	193	1051
3D	2238	2512	2459
Total	2800	3733	4187

Freescale i.MX 6 Quad breaks the lead in the CPU test, Actions ATM7025 grazes the back with a total score of 2800 points.

Linpack:

	Ramos w41	Ampe A10 Quad Core	Cube u21gt
Singe thread	03/27	33.96	35.98
Multi thread	62.84	114.04	91.717

Quite strange results in Linpack - 2-core Rockchip bypasses 4-core Actions. The results of the i.MX 6 Quad are more like the truth.

Nenamark 2:

Ramos w41	Ampe A10 Quad Core	Cube u21gt
42.3 fps	35.6 fps	57.1 fps

Mali 400MP4 does a great job at Nenamark 2.

Vellamo:

	Ramos w41	Ampe A10 Quad Core	Cube u21gt
HTML 5	881	998	1410
Metal	228	317	474

Vellamo "does not recognize" 4 cores and Rockchip RK3066 goes around everyone.

Summarizing the results of synthetic tests, we can conclude that relying on them is not worth it. They are too unpredictable to draw conclusions about performance. After a firmware upgrade, the results should be better. For example, on factory firmware from January 9, Antutu 3.1.1 scored only 5700 points, and already on firmware from February 2, the result exceeds 10,000.

Video

In the new 4-core chips, Allwinner A31, Actions, Rockchip RK3188 added support for playing video in 4096p format. To play this format in the system there is a special player. But I was not able to play a test video in this format, maybe this problem will be fixed in the next firmware.
Familiar 1080p and 720p play without problems:

Games

In Fruit Ninja, up to 8 simultaneous touches allow you to make slides, when using 10 points at once, the slide no longer turns out to be long.


But with 3D games there are problems. Some may not start, and some have problems displaying textures. But there are those that work just fine. For example, Need for Speed ​​Most Wanted:

Software

Preinstalled Android 4.1.1:

Working hours

Test results under the following conditions: 30% screen brightness, continuous downloading of files via Wifi, about 80 minutes of downtime:


When watching a video (720x400), screen brightness 50%, sound through headphones, Wifi turned off, the tablet worked for more than 8 hours:


Antutu Tester results :

conclusions

pros

+ excellent screen
+ battery life
+ price

Minuses

- the problem of compatibility of 3D games
- lack of HDMI, Bluetooth In

total, for a small price we got a tablet with a high-quality screen, and if the developers will support Vivante GC1000 +, we will get the most optimal 4-core tablet.

Price

The price of a Ramos W41 tablet is ~ $ 170 including shipping.
Prices of the comparison tablets: 10.1 "Ampe A10 Quad ~ $ 200, Cube U21GT ~ $ 100.

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