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Global & sourcing - Mobile & Wireless China Sourcing Fair

Location: Asia World-Expo, Hong Kong, China

Time: April, 12 -15

Mobile & Wireless China Sourcing Fair is Asia’s biggest Mobile & Wireless show which is held twice a year in Hong Kong. Today is the first day of the show, and I am here sharing with you what I have seen.

Topic 1: Windows Tablet

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There are really a huge number of windows tablets being shown this year, all using identical hardware – Intel Atom Bay-Trail Quad-core processor and 2GB RAM, so there is no wonderful surprise here, but I did find some standouts.

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RAMOS i10pro

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RAMOS i10pro is among the first Bay-trail tablets to be able to house both Windows 8 and Android. The only tricky thing is that whenever you want to switch to the other OS, a reboot is needed.

The 10.1-inch IPS display (1920*1200) looks amazing, but I am concerned about whether the Bay-trail Z3740D processor is able to power that many pixels without recurrent hiccups and delays. I would say it performed well during the 2 -3 minutes on my hand.

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The colorful back shell really gave the tablet and younger and more premium feel.

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The RAMOS i10 can also be connected to 3G network by using a HUAWEI 3G dongle, but there only a dongle slot on board, the users need to purchase the dongle themselves.

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Most of the tablet maker only installed an unlicensed version of Windows 8.1 on their tablets, but there are a few manufacturers which manage to keep their tablets still affordable after including authentic Windows 8.1 and Office.

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And some manufacturer hope to woo the buyers by some more attractive design.

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There are also many more portable 8-inch Windows tablets, but few of them are as good looking as the Acer Iconia W4 or the Lenovo MiiX 8.

Topic 2: 3G Calling Tablets

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Almost all the tablet makers are now incorporating phone functionalities into some of their tablet products, and MediaTek solutions are always their No.1 choice. A lot of the booths are showing Octa-core tablets with full phone functionalities, but the real standouts are from Acube.

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1) Acube Talk 69

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The Acube Talk 69 is arguably the best-looking Chinese 3G tablet, with clean design, solid build, and an astonishing 6.9-inch Full HD IPS display, it is really one of the most attractive machines at the show.

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The Acube Talk 69 is running stock Android 4.3, but will be updated to Android 4.4 Kitkat before its mass production. The MediaTek MT8392 Octa-core processor has no trouble handling the tasks smoothly on the Talk 69.

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The tablet is very slim, and the metal rim gives it a cool and premium feel.

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The back of the tablet is almost identical to that of the SONY Xperia Ultra, I am personally a huge fan of that design.The 2MP Front-facing camera and 8MP rear-facing camera should do very well with capturing decent photos.

2) Acube Talk 98

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The Acube Talk 98 is probably the most ambitious product Acube has ever released, some of the features are just seemingly too aggressive to put into a 3G calling tablet. 5MP front-facing camera/13mp rear-facing camera, 9.7-inch retina display, Octa-core processor and 2GB RAM.

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Fortunately, the tablet is not as heavy as it seems, as the chassis is partially plastic.

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The rear-facing camera feels good on the 2048*1536 display, and the tablet is as fast as the Talk 69 in terms of overall speed.

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Ainol is also showing their Octa-core 3G tablets, but I didn’t have time to take a closer look at their offerings, the only thing I know is that their products range from 6 inches to 10 inches.

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Most of the other manufactures only show replicas of their Octa-core 3G tablets as the real ones are not made yet.

Topic 3: Wearable Digital

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Following the trend brought by Samsung Galaxy Gear and Sony Smart Watch, countless wearable digital products are showed at different booths, but in the sense of hardware and experiences, I haven’t seen any noticeable improvement from SmartQ’s Zwatch, which was released last year. And I still don’t find these things appealing enough for me to dig into my pocket.

Topic 4: 2014 tablets with 2013 solutions

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As the leading tablet solution providers such as Rockchip and Allwinner failed to deliver their new flagship chipsets on time, most of the tablets still use the 2013 solutions in them, which means that the Rockchip RK3188 and Allwinner A31 are still the dominant solutions for the tablets and TV boxes shown at the fair.

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Having said that, there are an increasing number of manufacturers which start to use the Intel X86 chipset as the major solution for their flagship device.

Topic 5: Waterproof

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Another focus at the show is that many tablets are now given water and dust proof functions. But unfortunately, Vido, the least reliable tablet maker in China, is again the pioneer in this. But I have to say this looks quite interesting, and I wonder what is really going to come out of this.