Expro x1 by IRULU, a small, modest tablet

Not long ago, I was asked to write a little review of IRULU products. I decided to give it a try out of curiosity.
A quick warning: this is a very basic tablet, but I’ll test it just like all the others.
And of course, there’ll be a teardown.

First, here are the specifications.
Operating system: Android 4.4.2
Processor: AllWinner A33, 4-core Cortex-A7
GPU: Mali-400 MP2
RAM: 512 MB
Internal storage: 16 GB
microSD card slot
Display: 7-inch TFT
Resolution: 1024 x 600
Cameras:
Front: 0.3 MP
Rear: 0.3 MP
Wireless networking: WiFi: 802.11b/g/n
3.5 mm headphone jack
microUSB port with OTG support
Battery: 2800 mAh
5-point multitouch
Dimensions and weight: length x width x height: 193 x 121 x 9 mm
Weight: about 270 g

I can already imagine the comments: “Did Kirich finally build a time machine and bring back a tablet as a demonstration? :)”
No, unfortunately I haven’t built a time machine yet, and this tablet is from our very real present. :(
But let’s take things in order; there’s a time for everything.

I had no complaints about the packaging at all: air-cushion padding, a box made of thick cardboard sealed in plastic, and the tablet in two bags, one soft and one regular.


The package contents are very basic, though I’ll come back to that later.
1. Multilingual manual; no Russian.
2. A brief getting-started guide in English and a USB-to-microUSB cable.


Since the package contents are sparse and there’s no power adapter included at all, let’s move on to the subject of this review: the IRULU Expro x1 tablet.
In addition to the main protective film, there’s a shipping film on the display with some fairly brief instructions on what to tap, where to look, and whom to call if tapping doesn’t work or the display doesn’t show anything.

In any case, the manufacturer has tried to provide as much information as possible, but it’s all in English, so quite a lot of people will only understand the phone number.


All right, let’s remove the shipping film and take a look at the outside.
The tablet is quite small, though given the screen size, it could have been even smaller. The case is entirely plastic, but I have no complaints about the ergonomics; it’s actually quite comfortable.


I noticed something unusual that I rarely see on other tablets. The screen is set slightly below the case, leaving a bezel about 0.5–1 mm wide around the edge. That means if you put the tablet face down on a table, the screen won’t get scratched.
For such a simple, budget device, this little detail turned out to be quite handy.

I tried to show this raised edge in the photo, but unfortunately, photographing black on black isn’t easy.


The volume buttons and headphone jack are on the right edge of the case.
The power button, power jack, microUSB port, and microphone are at the top right (the microphone is at the far right in the photo).


The front camera is also set slightly into the case and has a protective film over it.


The back of the case is simply smooth—not soft-touch or glossy, just ordinary smooth matte plastic.


At the very beginning, I mentioned the included cable, and above I mentioned the power jack.
The thing is, while preparing this review—or, more precisely, sorting through the photos—I noticed the tablet has a power jack. That’s not surprising in itself: it comes with a regular microUSB-to-USB cable, and I simply hadn’t noticed the separate jack.
Why the manufacturer didn’t include another cable, thereby depriving users of a rather important advantage—a separate power jack—is a mystery to me. I remember people often struggling with special USB hubs so they can charge and use their tablets at the same time. This one has everything it needs, except the cable.
The jack takes a thin plug, like the ones used on Nokia phones.


At the bottom left (when holding the tablet with the screen facing you) is the speaker. I can say it’s quite loud and sounds pretty good, which was a pleasant surprise. What I didn’t like is that the tablet plays a short tune when it starts up, and there’s no way to turn it off. Since the speaker is quite loud, this can get annoying at times.
The second camera is also on the back. I initially wanted to take a few photos to show how it takes pictures, but I can tell you right away: the resolution is 640x480. I think you can guess the rest—even my old Siemens M75 takes better photos.


I have no complaints about the weight either. Since the case is plastic, the tablet isn’t very heavy—just 270 grams, a little more than a modern smartphone.
This matters if you’re buying a tablet for a child, since holding a heavy model can be difficult.


For comparison, here are devices with different screen sizes.
A 5-inch smartphone, the tablet under review, and an 8.9-inch tablet. I took the photo so you can see not only the size of the devices themselves, but also at least some of the screen area.


First boot—nothing unusual, except for a little startup tune :)
By the way, the tablet boots fairly quickly, especially considering it has just 512 MB of RAM.


Next, I ran various tests and moved on to taking it apart, but I’ll post the teardown before the test results. I’ve mentioned before that I try to take things apart after testing, “so as not to compromise the results”—or, more accurately, to keep the experiment clean.

The tablet is very easy to open, thanks to its plastic case. I inserted the opening tool’s blade and simply ran it around the perimeter.


The WiFi antenna is mounted in the upper-left corner, and the speaker is glued to the back cover. The speaker contacts are additionally insulated with glue.


There was a foil shield on top of the board, with an extra layer of some material I couldn’t identify. It doesn’t really matter, though.
In any case, peel off this foil—which also serves as a heatsink—and you can get to the tablet’s internals.
Aside from the abundance of cloth tape, it looks reasonably neat, though you can tell it’s a budget device.


1. The tablet is built around an AllWinner A33 SoC. This processor was announced almost three years ago, and of course you could say it’s weak, very weak, ridiculously weak—if it weren’t for one small detail. I once reviewed a small computer called the CubieTruck, which used an even weaker A20 (dual-core), yet ran a perfectly desktop-grade Linux without any problems. So it’s all relative and depends quite a lot on software optimization and... cooling. In this case, the cooling is rather weak, and the tablet’s case gets noticeably warm under load.
2. It has two Samsung RAM chips, which is pretty good—not necessarily for speed, but presumably at least for reliability.
3. The flash memory isn’t an unbranded part either; it’s made by SKhynix.
4. WiFi is based on an RTL8703 chip from the equally well-known Realtek. That said, chips from this company are commonly used in tablets and TV boxes, so there’s nothing new here.


I also found these on the board:
1. Presumably an accelerometer.
2. A multichannel power management controller
3. A touchscreen controller
4. An audio amplifier and a backlight power converter.

The only thing I couldn’t find was an audio chip.


Both cameras are connected to the same ribbon cable, but as I said, in this case they’re more like camera emulators, since the image quality is downright sad.


The tablet is powered by a lithium battery rated at 2800 mAh. It’s the “old” type, i.e. 3.7/4.2 V, rather than 3.8/4.35 V, which is more commonly used today.
The capacity is obviously low, but that wasn’t what I was trying to assess here. I wanted to see whether it matched the 2800 mAh capacity stated on the product page.


I desoldered the battery from the tablet and connected it to a battery tester. I’ve explained before why I test battery capacity this way.


The result was actually a little higher than claimed: 2883 mAh instead of 2800, or 10.67 Wh instead of 10.36.
I used a simplified test procedure: charge to 4.2 V, stopping at 100 mA, then discharge to 2.8 V at 1 A. I initially set the current to 1.4 A, or 0.5C, but after 5–10 minutes the battery protection cut off the cell, so I had to reduce the current to 1 A.


That’s it for the teardown. Now we can move on to further testing and a look at the software.
But first, a few words about the screen. The specifications say it uses a TFT panel. Yes, this isn't an IPS display, but a much simpler TFT—and unfortunately, a particularly poor example of one.
In portrait orientation, everything looks relatively decent, but in landscape the colors are completely inverted at a viewing angle of just about 45 degrees.


For comparison, here's a photo next to a phone with an IPS panel, albeit a budget one too.
By the way, remember that the resolution is 1024x600, or 1.7:1, not 1.77:1 like 1280x720 or 1920x1080. That makes the screen noticeably narrower than the one on the same smartphone.


As I mentioned above, the image looks fine in portrait orientation, although the brightness is a bit low. Even with it set to 100%, I wish I could turn it up another 20–35%.
I could wrap up the screen description here, if not for one more thing—and unfortunately, it's another unpleasant one. This tablet could be used as an e-reader, but its narrow viewing angles cause a problem even in portrait orientation, though of a different kind. The colors don't invert and everything looks fine, but since we have two eyes, each sees a slightly distorted image, in opposite directions. As a result, reading in portrait orientation quickly tires your eyes. It's a bit like watching 3D without glasses.
The best position for this tablet is landscape, without tilting it too far away from the screen's central axis.


That's it for the hardware. We can move on to the software and performance tests.
First, a few words about the initial setup. There were lots of questions, suggestions, and tips on how to make everything better and more convenient. I'd never seen anything like it before.


Then it offered to download a whole bunch of software, most of which wasn't really needed. Be careful: some items are selected by default. Since I wanted to test it as close to its out-of-the-box state as possible, I deselected everything.
Well, I suppose it's not a bad idea in its own way: you turn on the tablet for the first time, it offers you a bunch of options, you download everything in one go and don't have to think about it again. But personally, I'm not a fan of... piles of useless software.


More tips... :)
Quite a lot of apps come preinstalled. I'll briefly go over them later.


Yes, folks, this runs Android 4—not 5, 6, or 7, but a rather old version 4. Still, I think it's probably a better fit for this processor, especially with just 512 MB of RAM.
The 16 GB of flash storage might help make up for the disappointment of having so little RAM. I was a little surprised to see this RAM-to-storage ratio; you more often come across configurations like 1/8, 2/16, or 2/32.
When I try to update, I get a notification saying everything is OK and there are no updates available.


The display settings cheered me up a little with the option to use wireless displays, although I doubt anyone will actually use it.
I also noticed quite a few running processes, some of which seem unnecessary to me.
I have to give credit to the file manager, though: it's genuinely simple and easy to use.


CPU-Z.
Again, there's nothing new here, so the screenshots are mostly "for the record." While I was at it, I happened to notice that the battery is somehow listed as LiFe, but we already know that's not the case.


Given how budget-friendly this device is, I expected it to support only two touch points, as usual. But it turned out to be a little better: the test shows five touch points, and I didn't notice any particular problems with the touchscreen in everyday use either.
There's effectively just one sensor: the accelerometer, unless you count the microphone as a sensor.

To avoid adding more screenshots, I also included the RAM and flash speed test here. The test refused to check the SD card.
Well, what can I say? It's slow: 678 MB/s for RAM and 17/12 for flash. You can also feel this in everyday use as a certain sluggishness.


As expected, AnTuTu gives a relatively low score: 15,600 in version 5.2 (it's hard to see; I noticed too late) and 14,000 in version 6.


Geekbench doesn't exactly impress with its scores either, and I couldn't install version 4 at all.
I also used this test to check battery life, especially since the processor was originally marketed as low-power. In reality, though, it lasted only a little over three hours with the screen at maximum brightness. In normal use, I think you'd get around four hours of video playback, probably no more. If you want to play games, you can probably expect closer to 2.5–3 hours, which is still rather short.


The battery charge graph looks a little odd. After the battery is fully discharged and the charger is connected, the reading jumps straight to around 60%, then rises gradually.


AnTuTu Video—well, it’s clear that we shouldn’t expect miracles here. You can forget about “high-end” formats right away, although I doubt many people are going to watch 4K video on this device. I gave it a try, and for the first time saw my test episode of House in Full HD .MKV display the message “This format is not supported.” But as far as I know, things are much simpler with basic formats, since most of them are supported in hardware and should therefore work.


When I started the usual Epic Citadel test, I honestly wasn’t sure it would even run.
But it does run. It stutters a bit, of course, but works without any visual artifacts.
It scored 44.8 in High Quality and 22.8 in Ultra, which I think is pretty good. For the most part, it only manages this thanks to the low resolution, which is reduced even further by the bottom button bar.


I ran this test just out of curiosity, but it also completed without any problems. After tests like this, though, the tablet takes quite a while to “recover,” since loading a program like this means unloading pretty much everything possible from memory.


The Cinebench test ran without any problems, but the tablet couldn’t handle 3DMark. It downloaded an update and then nothing— the test simply wouldn’t start properly, unfortunately.
On the plus side, I checked the Wi-Fi performance, and the results were quite reasonable. The tablet can easily see my access point from anywhere in the apartment, although it doesn’t deliver good speeds everywhere. Still, the fact that the connection is fairly stable and the reception is decent is encouraging.
The results in the screenshot are in the reverse order from how I usually present them in a review, so here’s a quick explanation:
1. About 1.5 m from the router
2. The room next to the one with the router
3. About 6 m from the router, with interior walls in the way.
4. About 11 m away, with quite a few obstacles.
5. 12 m away, with load-bearing and interior walls in the way.


That’s it for the tests. Now I’ll move on to the preinstalled software.
You may have noticed a small circle in the screenshots. It’s actually a quick-access menu for a few functions. You can customize it as needed by adding or removing items. It’s quite handy, though it can be annoying in some apps.


There are quite a few Amazon apps, including access to the store, the Kindle reader, Amazon Video, and so on. Some of the content is paid, of course, and accessing anything requires an Amazon account.


There’s also some kind of messenger and a news reader, although about 99% of the news is about politics, which feels rather out of place against the rest of the interface.


There’s also a YouTube app, and it works great. You probably won’t be able to watch Full HD, but otherwise I think it’s more than adequate.


And finally, games.
We all know that a 2014 processor is unlikely to deliver anything spectacular, so realistically you can expect games like the ones shown in the screenshots.




I think the tablet could probably handle Need for Speed, but Asphalt is a no-go. I did try installing it, of course. Then the game said there was a new version, updated itself, and then refused to start properly, just freezing.

And as a little dose of positivity, here’s the original translation of the exit confirmation in the file manager :)


So, what can I say in summary about this device? Let’s start with a list of pros and cons.
Pros.
Convenient case with screen protection
Wi-Fi that’s perfectly usable
16 GB of flash storage
Dedicated power jack for the tablet
Relatively well-thought-out software
Sturdy packaging

Cons
TFT panel instead of IPS, and a very low-quality one at that
Just 512 MB of RAM
Slow RAM and flash storage
Low-capacity battery
Low-resolution cameras
No power cable included

My opinion: When I first turned the tablet on, I actually liked it, mainly because of its “user-friendly” software, which I personally found quite convenient. The second pleasant surprise was the Wi-Fi, which worked perfectly well: it not only immediately “saw” my access point, but connected to it without any problems. Unfortunately, that was where the good news ended.
The first disappointment was the very poor-quality display. The image looks acceptable only in landscape orientation, and even then only at fairly narrow viewing angles. Brightness was much the same story, so I had to set it to maximum.
The second thing I noticed was occasional freezing, especially after (and sometimes during) demanding tasks. This isn’t a software issue or a fault; it’s simply a lack of RAM. An extra 512 MB would have made a big difference.
And, of course, there’s the battery. Three to four hours of battery life is still not much, at least in my opinion.

In short, it’s clear that the engineers put effort into the software and used decent branded components, but then spoiled it all with a poor display and too little memory. I can live with mediocre cameras, since I wasn’t expecting miracles, and with a small battery, even though there’s room for a larger one. But the rest...

However, after writing the review, I happened to find a genuinely useful purpose for this tablet. At home, I’m used to listening to online radio, usually 101.ru. As it turns out, this tablet works pretty well for that, since it has:
1. Relatively decent sound.
2. Wi-Fi sensitivity good enough for reliable use anywhere in my apartment.
3. A separate power jack, which means the USB port is free for connecting flash drives.
4. OTG.

And for this use, the tablet doesn’t need a high-quality display, a large-capacity battery, or high performance.

Now all I need to do is find a power supply, a small Class D amplifier rated at about 2 × 5 W, and a couple of speakers, put it all in a suitable box, and I’ll have an Internet radio with a 7-inch screen. Anyway, if I get the time, I’ll give it a try, just for fun :)

Originally, I was planning to review a slightly different tablet from this company. It costs a bit more, but has a 1280 × 800 IPS display, 1/16 GB of RAM/storage, a 4000 mAh battery, and a 2 MP camera. It also has a more clearly defined target audience, but for some reason the seller decided otherwise.

The review sat in my drafts for quite a while because I was waiting for a reply from the manager and, most likely, a price reduction. But nobody has replied to my emails, so I’m publishing it as is. Sorry about that.

That should be everything. I hope you found the review useful; I tried to be as objective as possible.