[Android General] robbbzilla:
I just got my Cube talk 9x. I really like it. I know it is old about two years but for me it is new. I have been wanting an octa core tablet just because I am a nerd and just to experience it on a tablet. I do not like Samsung Tablets and certainly did not want to spend that kind of money. I already have an Nvidia K1 and I really like it for a lot of reasons but I wanted a bigger screen and an Octa core processor with longer battery life than my Nvidia. I love the Nvidia but the battery life leaves a lot to be desired.

I did not want to spend a lot of money, $200 being my limit. As you can imagine that does not buy much in larger format tablets. First I started with the cheap amazon octa cores with the Allwiner a83t and the likes of Dragon Touch. Thank God for Amazon prime returns! Those devices were just awful and the Allwinner A83t was not a good processor. I was very wary of buying a tablet direct from China. Heard some horror stories but I took a risk anyway.

Had a bad experience with Gearbest.com but had the Cube talk 9x enough to know it was a good device even though the first one was defective. Dealing with Gear best turned into a PayPal claim.

I tried Geekbuying and had a much better experience.

So now I have my Cube and I received new March 17th update. Of course I was hoping for Lollipop but no. Still on KitKat but I have to say it is very smooth. Very stable build of Android. Ram usage seems very well optimized.

So what makes this tablet special? Well for the cost only one other tablet in this size range has the same amount of ram which is the Lenovo tab2 a10. The Lenovo is nice with a 64 bit quad core cortex a53 media tek processor clocked at 1.7, full HD screen. However the Cube has a 32 bit octa core cortex a7 clocked at 1.7 and a retina screen. The Cube is made from a solid Aluminum body while the Lenovo is plastic. The Cube also has gorilla glass 2 while the Lenovo just has glass. Acer has a new 10.1" tab with a mediatek 8151 cortex a53 octa core processor and 1 GB ram and a 1280 x 800 screen. Unfortunately the low res screen and 1 GB of ram really hurt the user experience. The acer also feels cheap and is full of pre loaded apps. I bought the Acer only to return it because of the glitchy or defective WiFi and other things I mentioned.

Of course you could spend a lot more and have a super experience but I just can't justify $500 or more on a tablet. My computer costs about that much.

The Cube seems really well made. The updates after 2 years since it's release from a no name company is impressive as some of the brands I have had above barely udate their tablets. I still think Cube should release Lollipop but KitKat works well.

This tablet has the 1.7 GHz octa core processor, 2 gigs of ram, retina screen, 3g, 16 gig ROM, stereo speakers at the bottom of the tablet, 10,000 mah battery. Pretty impressive specs even for an older device. The limitations of the of the device are the 32 bit a7 cores used are better for power efficiency than performance. The newer mediatek 8151 which has the newer cortex 64 bit a53 cores perform much better while still being rather power efficient. For example the Acer with only 1gb or ram scored over 37,000 points on Anutu while the talk 9x with double the ram scored only 28,000 points roughly. Acer did a very good job of optimizing the ROM on their tablet. The Cube T9 has the newer octa core processor but it was over my price range.

However this tablet stock unrooted performs really well. There was not a lot of junk apps installed and most apps give you an option to install to SD card. Really the only drawback to this tablet is the partitioning. Seems like a common practice on the tablets from China. Not sure why. A horrible practice. You can root the device and try to repartition it but you could also brick the device in the process. The mediatek tools at not the easiest for me to use so I am not going to go there. Specially when the tablet runs great .

So I highly recommend this tablet with a couple of caveats. It is at the end of its life so it is really cheap but if you think it will be updated to Marshmallow or N you can forget it. Lollipop could happn but I would not hold my breath. The 2 gig app limit really sucks and there is no easy way to solve the problem.

So if you are looking for an amazing device for a good price I do not know of a better deal anywhere. Is the Octacore hype. Personally I don't think so. Sure there is marketing hype but the Octacore really feels snappy while the huge battery makes it last!

There are not a lot of these devices left. Seems Cube is now focused on dual boot tablets with Intel processors. I wish they would come out with a new octacore processor android tablet like the Nvidia x1 or the newer cortex a53 octa core from mediated. The t9 if you can find it would perform even better but the build quality and aluminum frame just really make this an enjoyable experience. If you want one I would act now.