You probably know the brand Allview already from us, since we reviewed quite a bunch of their tablets. This is a Romanian company that brands several slate models under the Alldro brand, but now they have a new series called Viva. Viva is more focused on ultraslim designs and high performance and the first model we’ve tested from this range is Allview Viva Q8.
This product was launched in July 2013 and it’s a quad core 7.9 inch slate with an iPad Mini-like design. The price tag is $240 and the device measures 7.5 mm in thickness, while weighing just 357 grams. The slate has dual speakers at the bottom and it adopts an ultraslim case, with an aluminum back. There are no physical volume buttons here, but we have virtual ones.
The tablet has good grip, it sits well in the user’s hand and it’s easy to hold with one hand. Overall, we like the design, in spite of the obvious temptation to call it an iPad Mini clone. On the hardware side, we get an IPS LCD screen with a 7.9 inch diagonal, a 1024 x 768 pixel resolution and 4:3 format. There’s a Cortex A7 1GHz quad core processor here, a Power VR SGX 544 MP2 8 core GPU included as well and 8 GB of storage. There’s a microSD card slot with support for up to 32 GB and the product is available in black or white.
There’s no GPS or Bluetooth here, but we do get a G sensor, WiFi, a 5 MP back camera and a 0.3 MP front shooter. We’ve got 1 GB of DDR3 RAM inside and the CPU is of the Allwinner A31S kind. The battery here is a Li-Polymer unit with a 4000 mAh capacity and 3.7 V. On paper the battery reaches 4 hours of usage and 130 hours of standby. It takes 4 hours to charge the battery via microUSB in our tests, the battery lasted 4 hours in video playback mode with 50% brightness and WiFi on.
On the audio side I have to say I’m a bit disappointed, because of the volume. This is not a loud tablet, but it has decent bass, zero vibration and zero distorsion. The sound is slightly muffled and we totally regret the lack of volume buttons. By the way, Soundcloud doesn’t work on this device, for some reason. On the video part, we’ve got an IPS LCD screen with a 7.9 inch diagonal and a 1024 x 768 pixel resolution with 4:3 format.
The screen is bright, achieving 370 lux units, while the Galaxy S4 hits 250 lux, so pretty impressive. The pixels are of the RGB Stripe kind and there are some display options in the Settings area. They are Smart Color and Intelligent Backlight, that will optimize the brightness and colors for a more efficient power usage. There’s a 4K video player preinstalled on the slate, with a sort of Pop Up Play option included.
The screen’s colors are natural and we’ve got wide view angles, so overall this is a very good screen. Just a little mention here: the Allview Viva Q8 is in fact a rebranded Onda V818 Mini slate from China. As far as the camera is concerned, we’ve got a 5 megapixel sensor with autofocus, Full HD 30 FPS video capture, automatic exposure control and fast snap for burst shot of 10 pics per second.
The sensor used here is an OV 5647 from OmniVision. We get panorama, effects, exposure and white balance settings, plus time lapse and overall the picture and video quality is quite surprising. Allview Viva Q8 runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean and it reaches 35.8 degrees Celsius after 15 minutes of gaming, which is not that bad. Bad news include the fact that Google Music, Chrome and Soundcloud don’t work on this device.
We decided to also perform some benchmarks and compare the Allview Viva Q with the ASUS MeMo Pad HD 7 and the Acer Iconia A1, both with Mediatek CPUs. In Quadrant we scored 2626 points, 1300 points less than the other two models, while in AnTuTu we were close, with 12k points, about the same score as the Acer and ASUS units. In NenaMark 2 we actually scored better, with 61.1 FPS, compared to the 46 FPS of the ASUS MeMo Pad HD 7 and the 51 FPS of the Acer Iconia A1. In Vellamo we got 1285 points, getting beaten by both models, with ASUS MeMo Pad HD 7 achieving 1476 points.
In 3DMark we scored 4915 points, past the 3162 points of the ASUS MeMo Pad HD 7 and the 3100 of the Acer unit. We liked the fact that there’s a Quick Boot option on the tablet and it actually works. The browser is not exactly the fastest in the world, also proved by the score of 1608 points achieved in BrowserMark 2.0.
The experience is pretty much stock Android 4.2.2, with a dual swipe area at the top, one for notifications and the other for toggles (connectivity and such). There’s lockscreen widgets and some bundled apps that are actually nice: Bitdefender and Office Suite. We also tested the game Riptide GP2, that worked just fine on the Allview Viva Q8.
Now it’s time for the verdict. Here are the Pro aspects of the device:
- nice design
- good screen, good view angles and brightness
- OK gaming abilities
- Android 4.2.2 on board
- quick boot feature
- no lag
- nice camera
- OK price and battery
And the Cons:
- disappointing audio
- no physical volume buttons
- microUSB charging
- 8 GB of storage
- apps that don’t work: Chrome, Soundcloud, Google Music
Allview Viva Q8 gets a 9.5 out of 10 for design, 9.3 for hardware and 9 for OS and UI. The final grade is 9.26 out of 10 and this has got to be the best sub 10 inch tablet with a Romanian branding.
