Alcatel A30 Tablet - Review 2022

Inexpensive Android tablets are substantially vehicles for mobile media consumption, and the Alcatel A30 (not to exist confused with the phone of the same name) embraces this idea. At $125 it costs a little fleck more than like slates, but offers cellular connectivity on T-Mobile and solid bombardment life, forth with features like dual-band Wi-Fi and an IR equalizer. That said, there are no parental controls or curated content for kids, which you often find in this toll range, and the back speaker is tinny. It'southward still a solid bet for the price, but if you don't need cellular connectivity or access to the Google Play store, the Amazon Fire Hard disk eight is a stronger option, and our Editors' Choice.

Design, Display, and Connectivity

The Alcatel A30 is a sturdy slab of black plastic with a textured dorsum panel. Measuring eight.3 by 4.ix by 0.4 inches (HWD) and weighing 12.7 ounces, it's a bit heftier than the Lenovo Tab3 8 (viii.3 by 4.ix by 0.iv inches, 11.6 ounces), but nearly on par with the Burn down HD 8 (8.4 by 5.0 by 0.4 inches, xiii ounces). Information technology feels sturdy, even though it's not rugged or rated for official drop resistance. There'due south no creaking or flex to the trunk, and if you utilise a protective example I wouldn't be worried about giving information technology to a child.

You lot'll find both a 3.5mm headphone jack and a micro USB charging port on top of the tablet, along with an IR equalizer that lets you use it as a remote control when using the pre-installed CloserTV app. The right side has a clicky power push and volume rocker, and the left has a flap that gives you access to a SIM and microSD carte slot, the latter of which worked fine with a 256GB menu.

In that location'south a single mono speaker on the back, in the bottom right corner. It'south not very loud and the location makes it very easy to accidentally conceal it with your hand. The Fire HD 8 and Tab3 eight both have ameliorate-sounding front end-facing stereo speakers.

The A30'due south viii-inch, 189-pixel-per-inch, 1,280-past-800 IPS display is pretty standard at this toll point. It matches the HD viii and Tab3 8, giving you fairly well-baked text and video that's free from pixelation except on close inspection. Colors can seem a niggling washed out when viewed from the side, simply looking directly ahead you won't take an issue. Screen brightness is on the dim side, even so, and I had trouble seeing it outside even at maximum effulgence.

The tablet has cellular connectivity, a extremely rare feature at this toll point. It'southward bachelor on T-Mobile and supports LTE bands 2/iv/12. We tested in midtown Manhattan, where we recorded strong network performance with 19.2Mbps down and an unusually high 23.68Mbps up. Additional connectivity options include Wi-Fi on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, as well as Bluetooth 4.1. The A30 worked well continued to the 5GHz router in PC Labs, with good range and reliable double-digit speeds.

Processor, Battery, and Camera

The A30 is powered past a Qualcomm Snapdragon 210 processor clocked at 1.1GHz. It'south a pretty basic chipset that scored 21,363 on the AnTuTu benchmark, a measure of overall organisation performance. This is a fleck less than we saw on the Mediatek-powered Tab3 8 (25,407). We weren't able to run the test on the Fire HD 8, as it isn't available in Amazon'due south app shop. On Geekbench, the A30 did relatively well, scoring 636 single-core and 2,598 multi-core. That's better than the both the Hard disk drive 8 (629/ane,687) and the Tab3 8 (668/1,877) when information technology comes to multi-cadre functioning.

The tablet benefits from having 2GB of RAM, letting it practise a decent amount of multitasking. That said, you'll still meet a fair bit of stuttering and hangups when switching between apps and opening new ones due to processor constraints. The camera app was particularly prone to freezing upwardly, requiring it to be closed and reopened before it was usable over again. Playing demanding games isn't possible.

Run into How We Examination Tablets

Battery life is skillful. The slate lasted for 6 hours, 15 minutes of total-screen video streaming over LTE at maximum screen brightness. That'south better than the HD viii (iv hours, 42 minutes) and the Tab3 eight (5 hours, 47 minutes), both of which we tested over Wi-Fi.

The A30's matching 5-megapixel front and back cameras are decent. They don't capture the sharpest images, but in decent lighting, they're passable for photos and video conversation (720p at 30fps). Auto exposure isn't very good, though, and low-light prototype quality is grainy.

Software

The A30 comes running Android 7.1.1 Nougat, making it a lot more upwards to engagement than most tablets in this price range. There are some visual changes to app icons, but they're small, and the rest of the UI remains the same every bit stock Android.

There'south little in the way of extra features. Aside from the same IR blaster, yous can enable split-screen fashion from the notification shade and run 2 apps simultaneously. I big omission is a children'due south style with parental controls, which is a common feature these days. That said, you could always download parental control apps from the Google Play store, something you lot tin't do with Amazon's tablets, equally they lack Google Play access. Amazon has its own app store, but it doesn't have quite the same selection you'll become with Google Play.

There's some bloatware, including CloserTV, NextRadio, Messenger, Twitter, Uber, and WPS Office. Of them, only Messenger and WPS Role can be uninstalled. Nevertheless, it's not a ton of actress software, and out of 16GB of full storage, nine.7GB is available. It'southward a decent amount of space for installing apps, and if you need more room you tin can always use a microSD card.

Conclusions

For $125, the Alcatel A30 is a footling pricier than tablets with similar specs, merely you go the benefit of cellular connectivity, a feature that isn't common at this price range. Add to that 2GB of RAM, a decent display, an IR blaster, and good bombardment life, and you lot have a solid media tablet. The Amazon Fire HD 8 remains our Editors' Option thank you to its stereo speakers, built-in parental controls, and lower price, but the A30 is a great alternative if you want admission to the Google Play shop or need cellular connectivity. There's as well the 7-inch Amazon Fire 7 for merely $50, though performance takes a hitting.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/review/16344/alcatel-a30-tablet

Posted by: moorertholonever.blogspot.com

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