Tablets by stefan @ 2013-09-18
The Thor Quad MX is an entry level tablet from iconBIT, featuring 8GB of internal memory, 1GB of RAM, a quad-core CPU at 1.2GHz from Actions (ATM7029) and a Dual Core Vivante GC1000+MP GPU. This gadget performs decently when browsing the web or for chat activities, reading books and office activities. 3D games do not work so well so we would advise on sticking to the less-intensive 2D versions.
At first we would like to thank iconBIT for offering a sample of their NetTAB THOR QUAD MX NT-1006T mobile phone for testing and reviewing.
"iconBIT team is focused on multimedia solutions for content recording, storage, editing and playback: music, photo and video... Our ultimate idea is to integrate effective and easy way an "digital lifestyle" environment around modern open platforms and hardware components. At home, on the road, or while working -- iconBIT didn't push You towards one exact product, but ensures freedom of selection among best possible technologies and solutions, at best price/performance/feature value."
Optimized for Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean)
Quad-core Actions ATM7029 CPU at 1.2 GHz
10.1” (1280x800) high resolution IPS display
Dual-core GPU Vivante GC1000+MP
The NetTAB Thor Quad MX tablet from iconBIT was built in order to cover the entry level segment and features a quad-core ARM processor at 1.2GHz, a dual-core Vivante GC1000+MP and also an IPS 10.1’’ with capacitive touch. The tablet is shipped inside a medium-sized cardboard box, which is fully sealed:
The main product highlights are represented with small pictograms on the top side of the packaging:
On the back side of the box we get to see a schematic of the tablet, but also a list of the product specifications:
After lifting the top cover, we will reveal the main product, sitting inside a plastic mold and also covered by a transparent plastic bag:
On the bottom layer we will find the rest of the bundle:
Besides the power adapter and the USB cable, we will also get a small Quick Start Guide:
The power adapter is rated on the output 5V at 2.5A:
The other end of the cable comes with a slim jack plug:
Inside the Quick Start Guide we will find more information regarding the tablet functionality:
The NetTAB Thor Quad MX tablet is quite wide and comes with a screen resolution of 1280x800. Initially we have a transparent protective film attached in order to avoid damages during shipping:
On the same side we will get to see the frontal 0.3MP camera:
The lateral frame of the tablet is made of black plastic:
Here we will be able to find the Power On/Off button, Volume +/- and Escape buttons:
Nearby we have the microphone port, along with the DC-IN hole:
The TF-Card slot, HDMI port and USB port are under a removable cover:
Next to the cover we have the audio jack:
On the back side of the tablet we can see the black metallic cover along with the inscriptions of the button/port functionality in the respective positions:
The tablet comes with only one speaker:
The back camera comes with a 2MP sensor and the quality is not too great:
After booting up the tablet we will be directed to the desktop and we can see some of the shortcuts of the preinstalled applications:
This tablet has the most 3rd party applications preinstalled compared to all samples we have checked out so far:
We will try to cover some of them (except the preinstalled games); the stock Android browser loads pages with decent speeds, but if we have a page with a lot of media, the scroll won’t be very smooth:
One of the document reader applications is EBookDroid, which tries to imitate a little the IOS-related app:
A well-known and powerful file manager is ES File Explorer:
With ES File Explorer and MX Player we have tried and succeeded to playback HD content over the LAN, with no hiccups:
IMDB application will offer us details on the latest movies and we can always watch the trailers:
We also have Instagram and Flickr preinstalled on the tablet; both require an user account for accessing the main interface and content:
A free version of Kingsoft Office is handy when we want to read different .doc files, spreadsheets, presentations and so on:
Moon+ Reader is a similar application to EBookDroid and from it we can also access online libraries for purchasing more content:
Google Translate is quite handy in many situations:
VLC Beta will receive an update right after we log in with our Google account from Play Store and is the second choice to watch media files along with MX Player:
Yahoo! Weather application is customizable and can show the live weather for the desired location:
Youtube application is pretty explanatory and runs well in both windowed and full screen instances:
Zedge is an application which connects to the database of the website with the same name and from it we can pick up new wallpapers, ringtones for further personalization:
Finally, we have the well-known Settings menu, which is customized differently depending on the manufacturer. We have the Wi-Fi menu which lets us connect to the nearest networks; from here we can also specify if we want to leave the connection on while on standby or not, to save battery power:
Data Usage menu will show the current traffic for the currently installed applications:
We have more options available from the More… menu:
From the Sound menu, we will be able to modify the volume level, the default notification sound, enable/disable touch sounds or the screen lock sound:
The Display section comes with specific settings like Brightness, the ability to set custom wallpaper, modify the sleep timer, font size or calibrate the accelerometer. From here we can also customize the HDMI interface:
From the Storage menu, we will be able to see the remaining internal and external storage space:
The Battery section shows us the processes which have been eating up its resources so far:
From the Apps menu we can find more in-depth information regarding the currently installed applications:
The location services can be also enabled from the next menu:
The Security section contains the usual options:
The same thing we can say of the next menu, Language & input:
From the Backup & reset menu we are able to backup the data to Google servers, perform an automatic restore or perform a factory data reset:
The next menus are Date & Time and Accessibility, which contain the stock menus; besides that, we can see more options in Accessibility like Enable quick boot or System performance:
The governor can be selected from the System performance menu:
Miscellaneous functions can be enabled via the Developer options menu:
Finally, we have the About tablet menu, where we can check out the model number, Android version, Kernel version or the build number:
To test out the performances of the iconBIT NETTAB THOR QUAD MX NT-1006T tablet, we have installed some freeware benchmark apps from the Internet in the internal memory (did not transfer them to the SDCARD). Afterwards, the applications were ran one-by-one, and we recorded the final results; the obtained scores were also compared with the previously tested systems, to spot the performance differences.
Despite the fact that the Thor Quad MX tablet features a large IPS screen with good viewing angles, the tablet itself was thought from the start as an entry-level gadget, for budget oriented customers. It is driven by a quad-core ARM CPU at 1.2Ghz from Actions (ATM7029), which can be also found in some Ainol tablets and the video interface is provided by the Dual Core Vivante GC1000+MP. We have tried to monitor the CPU speed during high loads and seen that the CPU was not performing at the maximum frequency, but was capped at 1GHz. This is surely a software issue and the manufacturer has promised to look into it.
The tablet was shipped with the 4.1.1 Jelly Bean release of Android and regarding the overall user experience we had some mixed feelings. While the browsing experience seems faster in some cases compared with the NT-0901S we have looked upon previously, in 3D games and benchmarks we had some issues. As some examples we could remind about Carmageddon, which did not run at optimal frame rates and from time to time some textures were disappearing and were replaced by black areas; also, when we ran Epic Citadel the FPS was extremely low at the intro animation and right before the benchmark start-up menu was shown, the tablet was almost freezing and we had to exit the application. We have tried two different versions of Antutu, 3.4 and 4, both having the same behavior: after the application loaded, we were thrown back to desktop without any error. Despite this, the tablet did not create any difficulties when playing much simpler 2D games like Angry Birds Friends.
The tablet uses a plastic frame and the back side is made from aluminum; compared to the NT-0901S which had all the back cover made from solid aluminum, the Thor Quad MX had much better Wi-Fi signal reception. While we think that it is a good idea to have some ports protected by the lateral plastic cover, we would have put the USB connector outside since it is used frequently and this might lead in a premature wear of the cover assembly.
Regarding the battery life, we could obtain about 16 hours while using the tablet for benchmarking, watching video clips, some gaming.
The NetTAB Thor Quad MX tablet can be bought online for about 200 Euros.
We would like to thank again to iconBIT for making this review possible!