Ainol Novo 7 Paladin Review

We put the Paladin through a couple of benchmarks and if you will see the corresponding images, you won’t be too impressed with the scores. But, we’ll remind you that these don’t really tell the whole story because we had Magic Code (detailed explanation about it in the Misc. Apps section) enabled and the apps weren’t optimized to give a precise score. Native applications that support the MIPS architecture give a much clearer rendition in that respect. 

Benchmarks not that impressive

Media

The media interface wasn’t really inspiring and didn’t look anything like what we would have expected on stock ICS. In fact, it was exactly similar to what we have seen on the gazillion Gingerbread running tablets we have reviewed in the recent past. A little change in the looks wouldn’t have hurt anybody, Google.  

Anyway, back to the main section. Media playback via headphones is brilliant and the inbuilt equalizers work like a charm. The speakers are extremely loud as well and that’s a big plus, if you’re using the tablet as a personal media player. 

Media interface

1080p video playback is smooth and all our test videos ran smoothly on the device. Besides the usual ones, the default player supports a crazy amount of formats, including AVI, RMVB, FLV, MKV in the video department and FLAC and OGG in the audio department. Something that the similar steeply priced Galaxy Tab 620 also has.

The screen may not have as crisp a resolution (800 x 480 pixels) like the higher priced tablets, but honestly, at this price tag, we’re not complaining one bit. If you are just wanting to use this device as a PMP, we’ll save you the trouble of reading up till the verdict - it’s one of the cheapest and the most advanced PMPs at this price bracket.

Connectivity

The Paladin doesn’t have Bluetooth, GPS or a 3G SIM card slot, but it tries to make up for that with the inclusion of USB OTG and 3G dongle support. Obviously, Wi-Fi is present as well. The inbuilt browser didn’t support flash, but HTML 5 support means you’re pretty much future-proofed. Also, according to the spec sheet, the next update could get Flash support as well.

Connectivity options

Though Facebook (and a lot of other apps) wasn’t natively available for the Paladin, we managed a simple work around and the app, works and feels just like on any other Android tablet. The onscreen keyboard supports haptic feedback and owing to the thin bezel, typing is a lot easier and comfortable than the other seven-inch tablets. With ICS, screenshot has been enabled by default, so a simultaneous press of the power and volume down button enables you to get screen grabs. Barring the lack of Bluetooth, it had everything we needed, but nothing we wanted (DLNA, WI-Fi direct anyone?).