Onda V972 Review with SuperNova Rom
Hey guys, I just wanted to make an in-depth review for this tablet. Also, I wanted to make this review to help others who are interested in this tablet
and wanted to know the pros and cons that I had experienced with this tablet,
but also some tips and tricks for those who already own one. If you guys have
any questions let me know below in the comments! So here it goes!
Introduction:
Onda to me was an
unknown brand name, but with further research I saw they been making budget
tablets for a while. The Onda V972 is their budget tablet answer at iPad and
other premium Android tablets in the market. The Onda V972 retails around
$249-300 depending which vendor you buy from. Can this budget tablet really
hang with the big dogs? Well read on and see!
Contents:
When I
received my V972 the contents that come with it include: V972 Tablet, Micro USB
cable, A/C adapter, Screen Protector (Already applied) and a Manual.
Design:
At
first glance, we see that this tablet resembles an iPad from head to toe.
Differences include the missing home physical button and the plethora of ports
on the right side of the tablet when holding in portrait. Other than that the
dimensions are pretty similar, with the V972 being slightly thicker, but same
screen size at 9.7 inches. The aluminum casing on the back gives the
tablet a premium look and feel. Speaking of the premium feel, the tablet in my
opinion is very well built for budget tablet. When holding in portrait the top
has 2 buttons which are Power and Home. First time for me seeing the Power and
Home button placement like that, it was weird at first, but I soon got used to
it. The left and right side of the tablet is left black with no buttons or
ports. While the bottom side of the tablet, Onda seem to cram
everything on it. The bottom has all the ports available on the V972 which
include: Stereo Speakers, Mic, Micro USB port, Micro Sd slot, Mini HDMI, and
3.5mm headphone jack.
Charging is
through the Micro USB port. This was a plus in my book because I really
hate propitiatory chargers. With a micro usb cable it is easy to
replace, but the usb A/C adapter must be at least 12w or it won't charge.
Pretty much look for the iPad usb A/C adapters because they are
compatible with the Onda. Then we get to the back of the tablet which includes
the Onda logo in the center and a 5mp camera on the top left. Overall the
design is very simple and elegant, but then again it looks like an iPad which
doesn't bother me.
Rating- 9/10
Display:
Awesome!, is the
word I describe the display of the Onda V972. Well it should be awesome if it
uses the same display panel found on the Retina Display iPads. Resolution is at
2048 x 1536 pixels, and the display panel is an IPS display or what Apple calls
Retina Display. This just means the tablet has a very wide viewing angles.
Color reproduction were pretty accurate, I'm no professional in determine how
close it is to true RGB, but to normal consumer I think it is pretty darn good.
It is not saturated like the AMOLED displays, but still very colorful and
vibrant. The table can get very bright, but not bright enough to view outdoors.
Luckily mine came with no dead pixels so that was a plus since this is a budget
tablet straight from China I didn't know how the quality control is. But
luckily I thought with this particular tablet everything seems to be well
made.
Rating- 10/10
Performance/Functionality:
The V972 comes with an Allwinner A31 quad-core processor clocked
at 1ghz. The GPU is a PowerVR SGX544 8 Cores, Ram is at 2gb, Flash storage
is 16gb (also comes in 32gb). Navigating around the Android 4.1 was not as
snappy as I thought it would be. Even after updating to the newest firmware it
still freezes here and there. After installing a third-party launcher like Apex
or Nova, it was a lot snappier, but still froze a couple times. Since the
tablet came pre-rooted I decided to look around the forums for custom roms and
behold they were two. I decided to use Steve Mar's SuperNova rom. Let me tell
you how much of a difference this tablet became. I felt I was using my
Transformer tf300 tablet, that was how stable and smooth the OS was. Everything
just worked smoothly and perfectly compared to the stock firmware. Obviously if
you had no experience with installing Clockwork Recovery and custom roms do not
rush and try to install it because you can brick your device; so do it at your
own RISK! Also with the Phoenix Utility Suite the Onda V972 is practically unbrickable,
but you never know so always be careful. Back to the V972, some apps through
the Play store were incompatible with the tablet but you can always side load
them in so that was not a problem. I also overclocked the cpu to 1156Mhz and set
to performance mode with SetCpu just to make things run a little faster. Web
browsing with the stock browser of SuperNova was fast and smooth, I had little
trouble surfing the web. With a pretty powerful GPU gaming worked with little
problems. I tried the Zombie Frontier and it worked flawlessly. I am not much
of a tablet gamer but, I tried the Mass Effect game and it worked pretty smooth
also, which is a very graphical intensive game. Watching 1080p movies were a
blast with this tablet. Using Dice Player I was able to watch everything and
anything. Every movie played smoothly, audio and video were all in
sync. Multitasking was pretty acceptable, with a little slowdown here and there,
but I could live with it. The touch screen registered my finger very well, with
occasional glitches, but what touchscreen doesn't have hiccups occasionally.
Lastly the stereo speaker were pretty decent. Speakers are usually a weak spot
for tablets and it is no different here. Obviously if you want to listen to
music just plug in your pair of headphones or ear-buds. In the end if you
want this tablet to really work smooth and fast install the SuperNova rom, it
makes a BIG difference from the stock firmware.
Stock Firmware 1.35 Rating: 5/10
SuperNova Rom 3.1 Rating: 9/10
Internet/Connectivity:
The
wireless card inside worked pretty well. When testing I had zero drops in Wifi.
The Wifi connection was pretty solid and signal usually show all bars or 1 bar
missing, never I had anything lower. No bluetooth or GPS came with the Onda
V972. So if that is important to you look elsewhere.
Rating: 8/10
Battery Life:
Have an outlet nearby at all times. Battery life was pretty bad I got
about 4-5 hours from continuous use. But on standby with occasional uses to
surf the web, using some apps, and light gaming, I got 18 hours from one
charge, but that came from very little use of the tablet and it staying on standby
most of the time. But on a normal basis where I use the tablet here and there
and on 1 charge I got about 12 hours, but that was from light use, I do not
heavily use this tablet other than for surfing the web and checking YouTube
videos. When I watch a movie I usually have it plugged in. But with a quad core
processor and the HD display I can understand the battery won't last long. I am
sure though with future updates Onda can improve the battery life, because I am
sure somewhere in the firmware it is not managing the battery life too well.
Rating: 7/10
Conclusion:
Onda
really got a winner with this tablet. Other than for the not so great stock
firmware, it really is a great tablet. Once I put SuperNova on it, I used the
tablet as a daily driver. Using it the check the web, Youtube, Facebook,
Tumblr, Twitter, and Flipboard. Plus there is a pretty decent support for the
Tablet in terms of making it better thanks to Devs like Steve Mar. I really appreciate the work he did, it really made this tablet work like a real tablet should. In the end,
for $260 (how much I paid for it) a tablet with HD IPS display, Quad-Core, 2gb
ram, and 16gb storage I really can't complain much. Everything I need a tablet
to do all works on this Onda V972.
Overall Rating 8/10
