Ramos W41 - 4-core tablet at an affordable price.

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

Of the well-known, but little-spread in Chinese products, the Samsung Exynos 4412 chip has been used - 4 Cortex-A9 cores with a frequency of up to 1.4 GHz, the Mali 400MP4 GPU.

The fate of the Freescale i.MX 6 Quad chip presented last year (4 cores Cortex A9 1.2GHz, Vivante GC2000 CPU) is still foggy. My colleague vvzvlad already wrote about the Ampe A10 Quad tablet. A very promising chip, but the Vivante GC2000 GPU did not receive good developer support, which is why there are problems with 3D games.
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From the new screens we are expected:
9.7-inch tablets with IPS screen resolution of 2048x1536 pixels.
10.1-inch tablets with a screen resolution of 1920x1200 pixels.
And from the novelties in the Chinese market - 9.4-inch tablets with a screen resolution of 1280x800.
The main problem of all tablets manufactured in China is the quality of the screens. In the case of 9.4 inches, manufacturers chose the right solution - use a proven screen produced by LG Display for the Sony Tablet S.
At the moment, tablets with a diagonal of 9.4 inches are only 3. 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), the Pipo M8 on the RK3066 can be referred to as “obsolete”. Of interesting remains the tablet Ramos W41, about which will be discussed in this review.

Specifications

Model: Ramos W41
Chip: Actions ATM7025
CPU: Cortex-A9 1.1GHz ,, 4 cores
GPU: 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 cardboard box:


Behind the general characteristics of the tablet:


In the box is a compartment for the tablet:


And under it a compartment with accessories:


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


Charger 5V / 2.5A:


Long instruction in Chinese:


From which we learn more detailed characteristics:


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


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


The tablet is made in a strict design:


The volume buttons and the power button are on a level with the body, which makes it a bit difficult to use. From the interfaces there is a microUSB port, a microSD memory card slot, a headphone input, a charger input. HDMI is missing.




Front 0.3MP camera:


Rear 2MP camera with interpolation up to 5MP:


Behind there is a metal insert, on which prints are easily left:


Also located behind the speaker:

Quite loud, at maximum volume, the vibration of the case is felt.

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

Screen

Different screen sizes of tablets are suitable for different needs. For example, 7 inches is ideal for constant carrying with you and serves as a universal tool for work and leisure. 9.7 "or 10.1" is no longer 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 this 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 screen brightness and color saturation.





Viewing angles:

Wifi

The signal level near the router is quite good:

Hardware

Let's look at the characteristics of the 4-core chips to be used in the tablets in the form of a table:

Chip	Technical process	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 looks like a 28nm Rockchip RK3188 chip with a 1.8GHz CPU frequency and the popular Mali 400MP4 overclocked GPU running at 533 MHz. On this chip, several tablets are already planned, which will go on sale in early to mid-March.

But back to our Actions ATM7025 chip produced by Actions Semiconductors, the main alleged problem of which may 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 the ATM7025 and 1.5 GHz ATM7029. The official website of the manufacturer 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 tablet Ramos W41. After each test, a summary table with the test results for the following tablets will be provided:
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 with testing using Antutu version 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 approximately 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 takes the lead in the CPU test, Actions ATM7025 grazes the rear with a total score of 2800 points.

Linpack:

	Ramos W41	Ampe A10 Quad Core	Cube U21GT
Singe thread	27.03	33.96	35.98
Multi thread	62.84	114.04	91.717

The rather strange results in the 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

The Mali 400MP4 performs well with the Nenamark 2 test.

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 bypasses all.

Summarizing the results of synthetic tests, we can conclude that you should not rely on them. They are too unpredictable to make conclusions about performance. After a firmware update, the results should be better. For example, on the firmware of January 9, Antutu 3.1.1 scored a total of 5700 points, and already on the firmware of February 2, the result exceeds 10,000.

Video

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 in the next firmware they will fix this problem.
The usual 1080p and 720p are played without problems:

Games

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


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

Software

Pre-installed Android 4.1.1:

Working hours

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


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


Antutu Tester results:

findings

pros

+ great screen
+ battery life
+ price

Minuses

- 3D gaming compatibility issue
- lack of HDMI, Bluetooth

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

Price

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

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