The Android Tablet Thread
Other
I just thought I start a thread purely for android tablet discussion rather than have multiple threads for the same thing.
My main tablet is a Doogee T30 Pro bought from Amazon which is great but recently say an offer for a 12GB, 256GB tablet on Amazon with bluetooth keyboard and mouse for £59.99 as a lightning deal and as a second tablet would be useful I thought I would go for it.
The actual tablet arrived and appeared very poor quality. A quick investigation showed the tablet had 6GB of memory, 128GB of storage (despite showing 256GB on the info page when you go to store anything on the tablet it is 111GB remaining). A system info util showed 4 processors despite the Amazon advert claiming 8 core. This could be an issue with the system info util but I doubt it. Totally mis-sold tablet which of course is going back. When operating the tablet it was very slow almost struggling to keep up with itself. It appeared to have a Rockchip chipset. The firmware had been hacked to give false information. I was 99% sure it would be a fake tablet when I bought it but just in case it actually did match its spec I didn't want to miss out.
What amazes me is so many positive reviews for this tablet which is clearly mis-sold and very poor quality. I should add before I bought the Doogee T30 Pro from Amazon I had another no brand tablet from Amazon which I paid £54 for and had for just over a year. That was brilliant and had a unisoc processor but unfortunately developed a fault and refunded but that was a cheap tablet with a great spec and I was really pleased with it but the one I am returning is garbage quite frankly. Android tablets on Amazon is completely unpoliced it seems, no attempt at accurate descriptions for many sellers. Actually seems worse than Aliexpress except at least with Amazon returns are normally easy.
I've now reset the tablet ready to be returned but before I did so I ran a utility called something like CPU X to see what chipset was at the heart of the tablet and again it came up with the Rockchip reference, one was a Rockchip 8 core chip however it was clearly getting confused as there were only 4 cores so it had another reference in the listing which was Rockchip 3066. It's clear the firmware was stating a false chipset but the utility was trying to work out exactly what chipset it was and guessed RK3066 but I don't think it was that chipset either. The utility simply couldn't work out exactly what the chipset is because the firmware is hacked to show false information which conflicts with the actual details of the chipset when tested.
It's like the 256GB storage. You see that in the main settings but as soon as you try to use the storage to make sure it doesn't corrupt itself you only have 128GB otherwise it would keep writing over existing data when it gets full and the tablet would be bricked.
This is the tablet;
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CTQ24K2K
I've written a review on Amazon but doubt they will publish it as I find negative reviews that point out products are falsely described are not allowed by Amazon.
If you have bought a tablet from Amazon why not use a utility like CPU X and other system info apps to see what it says about the spec and how it compares to how the tablet was actually described. Generally the more system info apps you try the more info you collect. Remember there is no contract of sale if an item is falsely described so you should be able to return it in theory even out of the guarantee period if performance has been poor and you only just realised the description was fake.
These fake android tablets are normally sold by marketplace sellers not Amazon themselves although some may be delivered through Amazon's warehouse and delivery service.
BonzoBanana I would never buy anything technical from an Amazon marketplace trader (or indeed Ebay or Temu ) , I simply would not know (as you do ) if it were as advertised .
In the past I have bought blunt Chinese shavers(ouch!) , false leather wallets and belts , "professional " knives and scissors - for professional read poor quality and blunt .
I buy a lot from Amazon when there is a genuine price reduction but do not ever believe their "reduced from " blatant lies . Latest purchase a heated gilet for £14.99 which I am very pleased with , however I see identical ones posted 3 or 4 times every day on here for £40 , £50 even £80 !! always reduced from ..... up to £180 an obvious porky . Sadly such are upvoted by 20 or 30 members .
There are bargains to be had on Amazon but very few appear on here amongst the flood of "non deals" . As always members must understand the "real value" of what they are buying and not be fooled by the totally made up "reduced from " prices shown .
So many fakes doing the rounds.If I buy something that doesn't match the page description then back it goes cos it's defying trade description so illegal in my book.That said ,Japan/China/India make most of the goods anyway which are usually white label goods sold on at higher prices . I nearly always take my chances and buy Asian goods which are often twice as good and half the price.
Is this the tablet you purchased before Christmas, I think I remember your post about it
martinlufc5637 No that is a different tablet which is a Doogee T30 Pro and its absolutely fantastic but because the spec was so good on this one for the price I thought I would try it as like to have one tablet permanently setup on my exercise bike but this is no bargain its complete rubbish and nothing like the description, it is completely mis-sold on Amazon marketplace.
I think most items sold cheap are old technology , stuff they want to get rid of
Unless you are technically minded you would think you have a bargain
telmel I did have a tablet which I bought about 18 months ago for £55 from a marketplace seller on Amazon and while not as good as the Doogee T30 Pro it was really, really good and I was very happy with it. There are some bargain tablets on Amazon marketplace as well as the terrible ones. It feels to me like 90% are garbage products but that is just a guess by me. This is the tablet that was very good until sadly it went wrong but was refunded. I was very pleased with the performance of it though.
telmel Unfortunately the screen failed or at least the touch sensitive functionality failed. It would no longer respond to finger touches on the screen.
I honestly don't trust unknown brands anymore if I want to use them for years to come and are reliable. I love my Pixel 7a so I might eventually buy a Pixel tablet.
However, since the Amazon budget tablets are so good I don't have a reason to. When they do switch to Linux (means of locking their OS even more) then yeah I'll switch to a Pixel tablet.
PhilipMarc I had a Amazon fire tablet which I won on hotukdeals comp. It was an honest spec at least but a horrible tablet, slow, limited memory, forced adverts and restricted access to normal android apps. I sold it within a month of getting it as had no use for it.
BonzoBanana If you don't log in to your Amazon account and debloat it, there won't be any ads.
To watch videos/YouTube and to listen to music I'm very satisfied with it. Mine's a Fire HD 8, Gen 10.
PhilipMarc I realise you can get around those restrictions. I used to use a firestick on a TV but now use a android TV so don't need an extra dongle. It is relatively easy to get around Amazon restrictions but at the time there was talk of Amazon doing their own more customised version of Fire OS which would be more restrictive and difficult to hack but as I don't have any Amazon devices like that now I don't know what the current situation is.
Amazon have just refunded me for the fake spec tablet after I dropped it off at the post office yesterday so I've got my money back on that. I have pretty much zero confidence that any marketplace tablet seller is giving an accurate description of their tablets now.
I'm still very happy with my Doogee T30 Pro though bought from Amazon Warehouse/Reuse. It's powerful enough to emulate some Switch games at full speed although of course that is in portable mode, its not strong enough to emulate at docked performance level. The GPU is about 300 Gflops but CPU performance many times stronger and 8GB of very fast memory.
Cancer Research are selling a few new Doogee T30 Pros on ebay, 226583575571, worth a look if you are after a very high spec tablet comparable to tablets that typically sell for a lot, lot more. Even at its normal price £160-230 its a great price so a really good offer here. These are using a state of the art 6Nm fabrication process, 8GB of memory (none of it virtual memory although you can use virtual memory up to 15GB. It's a phablet too so you can take it out and about. Very high quality 20MP camera sensor with 1440p video recording to match the screen resolution. It's great to assist Cancer Research too. There are two left currently.
Recently upgraded my Doogee T30 Pro to Android 14. I hesitated before because you lose compatibility with some older apps compared to Android 13 and I have some paid apps that I bought years ago that don't seem to be updated, often the developer abandoned them and created a whole new app that they could charge again for. However to be honest most of those apps are easily replaced by free options now. Android 14 is definitely better than 13 I feel for the GUI experience.
Join for free to get genuine deals, money saving advice and help from our friendly community
Chief Bargain Hunter
