High Quality Tablet,13.3",Android 4.1
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful.
By J. Reid
Worth the price ... with caveats.
The key feature for me was the 13.3" screen. I needed something to better read magazines and large format documents. I know the screen has one of the lowest pixel densities (about 117ppi), but the 13.3" screen is no worse than many standard laptop screens, and indeed is the perfect size for reading magazines in a PDF form. Switching orientation is quick and smooth.
The screen is big, so the battery drain will be great. I found the the battery lasted over 7.5 hours looping video (I did and overnight test on a low brightness, wifi off) and I was very happy with that. Reading magazines though it was much shorter, around 5 hours, which I found strange. Perhaps I left the wifi or BT one, I am not sure - or I played one too many AngryBirds. In any case, the 10,000mA battery is sufficient though not outstanding by any measure. The battery lasts at least 2 days if you do not use the browser much and only allow it to fetch email, and occasionally red it. Compared to my original Samsung Galaxy Tab (the granddadddy of 7" form factor) it beat it hands down.
This sports a RockChip RK3066, dual core, clocked at 1.6. After research (and my own Anatutu test) I found that it outperformed the Tegra 3. Now, this doesn't mean the tablet outperforms other Tegra3 tablets, and I don't think it does, but on many tasks it works sufficiently and it is nice to know that they upped the power of this cheap tablet. I am having moments of freeze screen though which I have not yet solved. (Perhaps a rouge app I loaded)
The App memory is 1GB, with an additional 8GB onboard for data & media. You can also move some apps onto this memory if you run thin on the 1GB. Then there is the miniSD slot for additional data space.
The build quality of the tablet is very good. There is very little flex in the unit, with well built edges. The 2 USB ports do indeed work with keyboards, mice, and thumbdrives. You do need to use the included adaptor (USB On The Go "OTG") to plug things in of course. I only got 1 USB port to work with memory, and both to work with other devices. Using a mouse on a tablet is a bit odd, but it does provide precision when needed. It even had enough juice in the USB port to power an attached keyboard with backlit keys. You can trickle charge the device using a USB port (cable not included).
The SD slot is a good tight fit, and memory cards are read without issue (I tested up to 32GB). The headphone jack provides no surprises and the power jack is a mini DC connection for a quicker charge. There is a microHDMI jack which mirrors the device display. None of these jacks has any covers.
The wifi connects without issue (though it does drop when the screen is off - fixed below) and speeds are fast. I stream using PLEX and videos render great. The speeds on this are twice that of my Galaxy Tab.
This is a pure Android homescreen experience, with no extra clutter or skins added. Full Play Store access and Google sync.
The installed Browser seems to freeze up often. I am not sure what is causing this yet, and it may be an app I added. But all apps are from the Play store, so this may be a mystery. The included browser appears to be a renamed Google Chrome.
I could only get 1 usb port to read memory, but that isn't a real issue for me. If you needed this to transfer files between thumb drives, it could be though.
The screen pixel density is low, so depending on what you need this for, you may have better luck with a smaller tablet that has a higher resolution.
This thing is HEAVY. It weighs (my scale) 2.7 pounds. Nearly as much as my ultra book. For an additional cost, I might consider instead a 13" ultra book that flips into a tablet since they weigh about the same.
The built in Stereo speakers, though big slots, have a very weak tinny sound. I don't expect much from a tablets speakers, but my Razr Maxx HD phone is nearly twice the volume with more bass. I am very dissappointed in the sound.
The WiFi shuts off every time the screen goes off. I changed the sleep, timeout and "always on" settings to no avail. I heard this affects some Jellybean devices and found an app that locks the wifi on (Advanced Wifi Lock, worth the 2 bucks). I set it to stay on for 20 minutes after the screen goes dark, and to turn back on immediately when the screen comes on. It works perfect.
The power jack is non-standard. Shame they didn't use the USB connection for the wall wart instead. However, it does charge quick for a 10,000mA battery and can charge it in a few hours. The jack wiggles a little bit too, so BE CAREFUL when using this plugged in.
The screen brightness range is very limited, though I will only use this at home, it is just too big and heavy to take about daily. I might take it on a trip though for entertainment. The screen also has a very narrow viewing angle. Scenes drop off with a slight tilt, and dark colors tend to blend into all other dark colors at even the slightest angle. This is advertised as something everyone can huddle over and use together (games, pictures, movies, etc). But unless you all bump heads together, someone will lose out on clarity. The screen resolution at 1280 x 800 though is just fine for what I need it for. (The specs here are wrong, it is NOT 1920x1080)
The back of the unit has KOCASO splayed across in white silk screened 2 inch lettering. Very bold and ugly. The dark brush aluminum backing is elegant and well built until you see this awful logo advertising. There is also a sticker covering a text mistake, and a misspelling. I may try to cover all this up with a skin.
This Kocaso M1400 (aka GX1400) 13.3" Android Jellybean tablet is worth the low price paid. But do not expect a fast slick tablet with any innovations other than a supersized screen. If you need this for reading large format documents, or watching media, this is a good choice. In fact, I have read more magazines this weekend than ever before! The Google Play store is a good start to look for individual issues or subscriptions. Some magazines are found for free by the publishers in PDF form (chock full of ads of course).
But, if you need a speedy tablet, or one that is truly portable and you expect to carry it around, look elsewhere.
I've rated this 3 stars for tablet performance, build and features, but added a star for low price and that currently it is a rare breed of monster.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
By Carlos J Davila
First off the description say screen is 1920 x 1080 that is wrong its 1280 x 800.
when used just for tablet basics I was very surprised how well it worked. I don't experience much difference between this dual core and my quad core galaxy note 10.1. using internet, playing media and general usage. This device works as well or better than my old Asus Transformer tf101. Lots of apps give me the dreaded "not compatible with this device" message. I keep putting off rooting but maybe that would let me install those apps. Airdroid "not compatible" is a good example why I want to root.
I bought this to read comics and large pdf books. comixology and perfect viewer work great. I do need to contact perfect viewer developer due to rare crashes. uncompressing a cbz into a folder using one of the many free android unzip apps and using perfect viewer as a straight up image viewer resolves the crash problem.
viewing angle for the LCD are really bad. lucky for me holding it in portrait with ports on top works. Its not friendly for two people sharing a book. I cannot recommend it for reading to children bedtime stories. The speakers really don't work period. I use bluetooth or headphone jack. You can watch a short youtube video but forget those speakers for movies or music.
The worse thing about this screen is that pressure from normal style holding brings some of the circuit board in contact with the internal backside of the LCD and causes the kind of ripples you would get from putting finger pressure on a desktop LCD monitor. The problem isn't everywhere just on the bottom quarter left hand side when in portrait or top quarter left when in landscape.
I am going to open the device and add my own shielding. I just haven't done enough research yet to decide on what material should I use. Plain folded paper might suffice. I want something that will last and not need replacing.
I would recommend this tablet for a comic book lover 'cause it cheap and does the job. I don't recommend this as a main tablet. Even if it was perfect in hardware it is very heavy for long use.
amazon.com still carries the toshiba excite 13.3 which is better than this and can be used as a main tablet. its much lighter and has a GREAT IPS screen. The toshiba excite 13.3" 16:9 ratio means that comic book pages are exactly in size like in real life. If the Excite 13.3" was 16:10 ratio then I would never recommend Kocaso even at 1/2 the price.
Update June 13:
Usage wise after rooting things are good. I installed "fullscreen" an app that removes the android system bar and makes some books fit even better. I tried opening the device itself to follow through on my plan to add some kind of padding or shielding to stop my ripple or puddle problem. The device was strongly glued together so I stopped for fear of breaking something. Deciding to continue on another day i replace the two screws and started the tablet. Incredibly this fixed the problem! It looks like my particular tablet was glued too tightly together and so the slight pressure from behind was magnified. Being root-able and fixable I increased my rating to a full 5 stars. For the price this is now a great bargain. I would have payed $200 more just to get a good IPS screen, more memory and a better type of connector for recharging.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
By I. welch
plus:
this device has literally almost twice the physical screen size as an ipad.
it is cheap at under $300...
but it feels really well made
the screen is IPS
the power adapter is nicely small.
using an ARM, it runs cooler and fanless.
it does work!
minus:
the resolution is too low at 1280x800. I thought some 13" notebooks had similar resolutions, but somehow Android is just not as good at displaying fonts. so, the fonts really do look fuzzy. I do not have an apple retina fetish. the old iPad 2 was just fine IMHO.
the screen is not very bright. it is great at night for reading in the dark. but even in a well-lit indoor room, it's too little.
like all tablets, the screen is glossy. this makes reading indoors even harder.
the capacitive touch layer over the display has minor issues. it's clearly not resistive low-quality. but just trying to scroll down sometimes doesn't register. sometimes it thinks I am using two fingers, not one.
the sound is modest and not directed towards the listener. think iphone.
the power source is not USB.
all tablets are directional. the power switch is on a particular side. the webcam is on a particular side. why do they all look so identical that I have to guess which side is which? couldn't there be a "hint"---like a colored tab on one side?
others:
on the box, it says that the unit weight is 1350g. this seems right. in comparison, the ipad is about 700g. twice the screen, twice the weight. it feels modestly heavy, but not too badly so. it is very usable on a comfortable couch. but I would not go above this size and weight class.
the CPU feels ok. not fast, not slow. it bogs down on ad-heavy pages.
8GB of space should be more than enough.
android 4.1 could be updated...
video skype seems to work.
in sum, if this device had cost $50 more and instead had a brighter 1920x1080 display, it would have been a 4-star winner. add a little better capacitive layer and CPU, and it would have been 5-star. as it is, I think the impending Nexus 11 and lack of marketing doom this device to remain a temporary "also-ran."
buy it if you are vision impaired (and resolution matters less than size), and if you want to use it as a tablet primarily in the eve. for these situations, there is nothing better on the market.
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