Alldocube iPlay10 Pro Review: A Cheap Android 9 Pie Tablet

The Alldocube iPlay10 Pro is one of few tablets from China that ship with Android 9.0 Pie out of the box. Starting at around 110 US Dollars, we get a 10.1-inch full HD screen, a quad-core processor, 3GB of RAM, and 32GB of internal storage. That sounds great on paper but is it a good value in real life too? That’s what you’ll learn in this review.

By the way, the Chinese import shop GearBest send me this review unit. Usually, it costs around 160 US Dollars but often they’ve got a sale selling it for around 110 US Dollars.

Design & Build Quality

As usual, let’s start with the design and build quality of the Alldocube iPlay10 Pro. It has no buttons and no fingerprint scanner on the front. And on the back, we get a full grey plastic body. Yes, at this price, everything is plastic. And it’s pretty cheap-feeling plastic. I mean, you can’t bend it or so, but it does not feel high-end at all. It is quite thick with 8.9mm and it weighs 510g.

On the top, we get a standard headphone jack, a micro USB port, and a DC power port. I’m not sure why that’s there because the included charger is a micro USB one and I’ve only used that one. Anyways, you can take off the plastic cover around those ports and then you can access the microSD card slot. It can hold up to 128GB cards.

The power button and volume controls are located on the right side.

Alldocube included two stereo speakers and they’re placed on the bottom. As you might expect, the sound quality is not that great. It’s fine if you don’t have high expectations, but for a great sound experience, you need to connect external speakers or use headphones.

Cheap tablets often have bad cameras and that’s the case here too. The 5-megapixel main camera and the 2-megapixel front-facing camera take pretty bad photos and videos. I would use them for video chats only and nothing else.

Read: These Are The Best China Tablets

Display

The Alldocube iPlay10 Pro has a 10.1-inch IPS display with an aspect ratio of 16:10. Because it’s an IPS screen, it has wide viewing angles. And the screen certainly looks sharp enough because we’re getting a full HD resolution with 1920 x 1200 pixels. Many competitors from more famous brands offer an HD resolution at this price point only.

Especially when considering its price, the screen is pretty good overall. Again, it’s sharp enough and it also is brighter than what we often see in tablets at this price range. It does have one downside though. The screen is not laminated. There’s a small air gap between the touchscreen and the IPS layer. It means that you’ll see reflections easier – and it is a little mirror when you use it outside.

By the way, the tablet has a Widevine level of L3 which means you can’t watch Netflix in HD or higher.

Hardware & Performance

Inside the iPlay10 Pro sits a MediaTek MT8163 quad-core processor which consists of four 1.5GHz cores. We also get 3GB of RAM and a 32GB internal storage. Out of those, 6.3GB is used by the system when first starting it.

You can see in my benchmark comparison that the results are pretty low. But I should note, that it is faster in Geekbench and in AnTuTu than the Lenovo Tab E10, which is a direct competitor. You should also know that the Amazon Fire HD 10 is faster in all benchmarks, and depending on where you’re from, it costs just a bit more.

The performance of the Alldocube iPlay10 Pro is good enough for simple tasks. I’ve been able to surf the web in Chrome just fine, for example. It’s certainly smooth enough if you read news with several tabs open. That changes when you work with very demanding websites. Apps like Gmail or Twitter work decently.

I did notice a problem with YouTube. We’re getting a 1080p screen here and that means you can watch 1080p videos on YouTube. And that works fine and plays smoothly. But that is not the case when you scroll down the recommended videos or comments while watching. When doing so, there are tons of frame drops and video stutters. The audio continues to playback just fine, but the video stutters. When you set the playback to 480p, the video plays smoothly again.

Yes, this also means that the iPlay10 Pro is not a great tablet for multitasking. The split-screen view is supported, but if you watch a YouTube video and surf the web in Chrome at the same time, the video itself will stutter with everything above 480p. Again, the audio continues to play just fine, it’s just the video. Simpler apps like Gmail and Chrome run alright side by side though.

Let’s get to my gaming test. This is not a great gaming tablet, obviously. You can install games like PUBG Mobile and they do run. But the graphics look pretty bad and when there’s lots of action, it starts to stutter and you might die fast. If you want to play games, you have to choose simpler ones. But they don’t have to be super simple. Asphalt 9 runs okay, for instance. Sure, the graphic settings are set super low and the graphics don’t look good, but most of the time it’s playable.

Very simple games run fine too. I tried the Viking game Oddmar, which is a platformer, and it runs well.

Read: The Best Cheap Tablets For Under 100 Dollars

Software: Android 9.0 Pie

Out of the box, the Alldocube iPlay10 Pro is running Android 9.0 Pie. That means it is one of the first cheap tablets from China to ship with Android 9. But it’s important to note that I’m pretty sure that it’ll be stuck at Android 9 forever. Usually, no tablet in this price range gets any updates – no matter who makes it.

I like that we’re getting normal, vanilla Android. There’s no special UI on top and the only pre-installed apps are the ones from Google and a couple of basic ones like a camera app. You get all the standard features of Android 9 – including a split-screen view. You can also activate a blue light filter or use more than one account, for example for other family members.

Because it’s vanilla Android, I don’t have much to say about the software. I like it.

Battery Life

In my standard battery test, the Alldocube iPlay10 Pro got a runtime of 7 hours. For this, I’m always looping an HD video at medium brightness and turned-on Wi-Fi. That’s a pretty bad result but very common with cheap tablets from China.

Alldocube iPlay10 Pro Review: Final Verdict

Alright, that’s the end of my Alldocube iPlay10 Pro review. You’ve seen that for its price, the Alldocube iPlay10 Pro has a pretty good display and I like that we’re getting vanilla Android 9 Pie. On the negative side, it has a full plastic body which feels cheap. And while the performance is fine for simple web browsing and watching YouTube, it certainly is too slow for decent multitasking. The chipset is too slow for games like PUBG Mobile, but simpler games run okay.

Well, because the iPlay10 Pro is so cheap, it has very few competitors. And I can’t think of a 10-inch tablet that’s better with the same or a cheaper price. So, if you don’t want to spend more, it is a decent tablet in this price range. It’s fine for standard tasks, just don’t expect a premium device.

Still, let’s check out some alternatives.

The most interesting competitor is the Amazon Fire HD 10 (review). While it usually costs a bit more, you can sometimes get deals that bring it closer to 100 US Dollars. Its performance is noticeably better, and you get a laminated screen. However, you’ll have to live with Amazon’s custom version of Android.

Depending on where you’re from, the Lenovo Tab E10 (review) can cost around the same or might even be a bit cheaper. You certainly will get better support and warranty from Lenovo, but the tablet feels quite slow and it has an HD resolution only. If you want a cheap 10-inch tablet, I just think the Amazon one is the cheapest you should go for a really decent experience.