There hasn’t until now been any really good cheap/budget Android tablets for the price, not like a few years back. For this very reason my coverage has been slim, not wanting to put my self through a few days of testing and reviewing dated Android 8 or 9 “Craptabs” with 2GB of RAM and poor displays. Lucky for us the Alldocube iPlay 20 is out and also the Teclast P20HD coming (Same spec but with a nonlaminated display).
00:00 – Intro & spec
00:59 – Unboxing
01:37 – Build & design
03:26 – Screen
05:10 – Android 10, benchmarks & performance
08:48 – Youtube & 16:9 content
09:18 – Voice calls, audio & loudspeaker sample
10:21 – PDF files and eBooks
11:31 – Gaming performance (COD & Mobile legends)
12:21 – Front camera sample
12:54 – Recap with Pros & Cons
It has a great screen, bright, fully laminated with Gorilla Glass!
The iPlay 20 surprised in many areas, the screen is a great fully laminated 1920 x 1200 16:10 IPS. I didn’t expect this and it’s maximum brightness of over 460 nits. Touch accuracy and response is also very good.
The iPlay 20’s screen is fully laminated and bright. 470 nits peak. A great screen for once. And it can game, but light titles like Mobile Legends (Pictured)
The speakers aren’t too bad for once!
Other surprise, the speakers sound louder and with a touch of bass were most and terrible these are okay for once. And finally, Android 10 is on this tablet, but don’t ever expect to get an update. That’s part of the reason these tablets sell for cheap Alldocube is likely to never update it. That is a setback for some and the lack of Widevine level 1 support.
Netflix can be installed of Google Play but you’re stuck watching streaming content in SD, while on a 1200p screen isn’t the end of the world it’s the same HD or FHD looks so much better of course. Youtube runs at 1080p60 without a hitch and the performance isn’t bad overall. If you multitask to the max you’ll reach the UNISOC 8 cores limits quickly but clear the RAM and don’t full it too much the tablet performs well. PDFs and eBook are great on this tablet and gaming is possible. Light engine titles like Mobile Legends run fine even on higher settings, but demanding titles like Call of Duty Mobile will even on the lowest setting get a few stutters here are there.
The battery is 6000mAh, and it gives us a modest 8-9 hours max screen time at 200 nits of brightness. All up I think for the price this is the best offering for 2020 and it has 4G support with LTE Bands 20 and 28, GPS, FM Radio others are lacking.
The Alldocube iPlay 20 sells for $114.99 USD with coupon BGiplay20TH here.
iPlay 20 Specs:
- 10.1″ 1920 x 1200 IPS 470 nits max fully laminated with Gorilla Glass 3
- 4GB RAM / 64GB (Pro version has 6GB and 128GB)
- Android 10.0
- Spreadtrum SC9863A 1.6GHz CPU Processor
- Dual nano-SIM LTE bands:
FDD:B1/2/3/5/7/8/20/28
TDD: B38/39/40/41 - Dual Band 2.4GHz / 5.0GHz WiFi
- GPS
- FM Radio
- Bluetooth 4.0
- 455 grams 8.5mm thick
- Plastic frame, metal rear body
- 2MP front camera
- 3MP rear camera
- 6000mAh battery
Wolf
I had some major issues with this tablet cause it was not able to offer “Hotspot” functionality.
It took me ages to find it out cause I had been using hotspots on android hundreds of times and on dozens of devices but this one was a different story.
You can set it up use a password or not and then your clients like a phone or laptop do what ?
They can not find or see the tablet hotspot, nothing. Regardless what kind of client, tablet, TV, raspi : no device was able to detect “iplay20” ssd the wifi network name.
But then months later when I already had purchased a new one, a Teclast 30 with keyboard I suddenly saw on the Teclast T30 in my mobile home a network with a very strong signal, but a hidden one without a name.
And then I start to check my iplay 20 cause this was the only device running there too as the “master template” I wanted to copy to the T30.
And here I found something strange: I never used hidden SSD since I had a lot of troubles back in 2015
But by default the iplay 20 seems to kick in a button if you start to setup a new hotspot on the iplay 20: hide networkname
And that caused the whole trouble over 2020 why I had been pretty disappointed for the first time on Chris recommendations but finally it was my fault to not get behind that detail in one of the submenus.
So be carefull if you enable hotspot as usual and read not every option or feature in these menus cause you might end up in troubles or lost when your clients are unable to detect the iplay 20 network you are needing to share the internet connection.
I had also played around with bluetooth internet sharing in the meatime but that was also a bit strange compared to a normal hotspot.
Good luck and let us hope that the next guy will be supported by google search and find this hint.
Due to german UI I can not explain the details or add a screenshot but you should check very carefully the hotspot settings word by word while you set it up. It can also be the result of a translation issue only for germans but I found the behaviour strange afterwards cause I spend 200$ for a Teclast t30 to get a useable Tablet …. that I had gotten before cause the iplay 20 can do that job..
Fortunatelly the T30 with the keyboard is a lot better in every regard and worth its money so I will sell that iplay in 2021 again.
Rob
Thanks. Why aren’t you sure about Chuwi? I see that Chuwi HiPad X has the Mediatek P60 CPU, along with 6gb RAM, 128GB storage and Android 10. Is any of these brands (Teclast, Chuwi, Alldocube) more rteliable than the other?
Chris G
@robby Teclast T30 is the fastest of those ones. The iPlay 20 Pro should also handle it fine. Not sure about the Chuwi.
Rob
Hey, Chris! What would you recommend between this Alldocube iPlay 20 Pro, the new Chuwi Hipad X and Teclast T30? Or any other tablet around $200? I m not familiar with any of these brands and I don’t know how reliable they are. I would be using it mostly for zoom meetings and usual office tasks.
Chris G
@beta2 No HDMI out via Type-C Yes the 6GB model should be a little smoother.
Beta2
Hi, would Alldocube iPlay 20 Pro (6GB RAM) be give some improvement to the performance?
If I understand from the review, there is not HDMI out over the USB C connector?
Olivier Barthelemy
They’re factory-installed already. Both the seller’s pictures and some of the users’ pics in reviews show the PlayStore etc…
Julio
How would you install Google Play / Google Services to this tablet?