The second Atom X5 Z8350 powered tablet to arrive for review, Pipo’s W1 Pro. It’s been a while since I looked at a Pipo tablet from them, the last Pipo piece of tech I reviewed was the disappointing Pipo W10 hybrid mini-pc. So this tablet is configured with Windows 10 Home for now, but I do think Pipo will later have a dual OS version of this. Other specs are the typical ones, 4GB DDR3 RAM, 64GB eMMC (Sandisk) with Wireless N and BT 4.0 my biggest concern looks like battery life as it has only a 6000mAh cell where most other brands have 8000 or 8500mAh.
It’s going for $196 including the keyboard and stylus over at Banggood.com with coupon df7360.
But the good thing about the W1 Pro is the keyboard dock (Transformer style) and the active 1024 pressure level stylus is included in the box. Most companies like Chuwi, Cube and Teclast sell them separately. Unboxing and first look video below:
First impressions:
- The build quality and finish is a clear step down from the likes of Chuwi, Cube or Teclast
- 10.1 inches means the keyboard isn’t huge, but typing on it isn’t as bad as I thought. The keys have an okay feel to them
- 1920 x 1200 IPS screen Pipo have used in the last 3-4 tablets is bright, sharp and non-laminated. Some PWM flicker is showing but only on camera.
- The stylus looks like the HiPen, or Teclast X2/X3 stylus. It takes a AAAA battery and that’s included inside the pen.
- The keyboard feels a bit plasticky, it’s light weight and the hinge mech is made out of plastic.
- The power and volume buttons on the left side are made of plastic and feel cheap.
- The eMMC is a SanDisk branded one.
- Touchpad is small and not the greatest, it does have left and right buttons within it. Gestures supported.
- Type-c cable and power adapter included. The type-c port supports data and charging.
- No standard sized USB ports on the tablet, but there are two USB 2.0 ones on the keyboard
- The stylus accuracy seems good, supports palm rejection but the hover feature of the pen isn’t so great. The hover distance is too short away from the screen to actually work properly.
Crystal Reinl
My W1 Pro tablet was delivered completely dead. It does not start or do anything. The only thing I can see is a small blue light when USB charger is attached. I tried charging the battery overnight but it made no difference. How can i do?
Dale
I ordered one of these from BangGood and it has been an interesting experience. It took 6 weeks to get it (to Canada) so that wasn’t a good start but I did get it in once piece. There was a scratch on the back at the top for no apparent reason – so quality control wasn’t great – and I received an EU charger instead of a US charger. Finally, the keyboard touchpad buttons stopped working after a couple of days. The touchpad itself works but the buttons don’t seem to work unless you lay it flat on a hard surface and then they work sporadically. Not sure if they’re all like that. I asked for a replacement and I’ve spent 3 weeks playing their games over e-mail – they want me to take it to a local shop to get it fixed…of course I said that was unacceptable. Still waiting to see if they’ll send me another one.
As far as the tablet goes, it’s actually decent build quality I thought. The color and metal back are nice, the beveled edges make it look even better. It came with Windows 10 AE and I upgraded it to a preview build from Microsoft’s insider program with no trouble. I tried a 128 GB Sandisk card but it didn’t work, which surprised me a bit. The 64 GB Lexar card is working fine though. I was able to install a full version of Office 2016 and I still have about 36 GB free on the internal drive and about 45 GB on the SD card with Steam and a couple of games installed. Older games like Rise of Nations works great!
I had some trouble installing the microSD card – it’s actually a tray so you have to use a paper clip or pin to eject the tray and insert the SD card – that was strange. I chatted online with someone from BangGood and they responded right away and told me what I needed to do. There are no instructions whatsoever included in the package.
Most things run pretty well…the upgrade to Windows took a couple of hours but I wasn’t really surprised by that – disk access is fairly slow for a full upgrade but I don’t notice it as an issue when I’m using it for everyday use.
The screen is quite good – it’s a shame they don’t laminate it as it really affects the viewing angles and gives the screen a bit of the “screen door” effect but straight on, it’s bright, the color is good and the resolution is great! The pen works pretty well…I don’t use that much anyway but I was able to draw some pictures and write out some notes and recognize my handwriting in OneNote so it works similar to the Surface Pro 4 I use at work.
The battery isn’t great but I don’t use it for everything – I have a Galaxy Tab S tablet I use for videos and other work – so with casual use, I can get most of the day’s work I need out of it.
Hopefully, I can get a replacement keyboard but everything else works fine – I think it’s a decent deal for the money. The closest I can find locally is an Acer with a 1280×800 screen, 32 GB storage and 2 GB RAM – or an Insignia with a 1920×1200 screen, 32 GB storage and 4 GB RAM. I can’t see trying to manage Windows on 32 GB RAM! And the 4 GB makes a big difference. So…until they upgrade their screen, storage and RAM, this is still the best bet for a convertible/tablet.