Cheap China tablets almost have a reputation for themselves. In this context, many manufacturers tend to provide excessively exaggerated specifications in the sales advertisement or even directly in the operating system in order to deceive the customer. The frustration was great when, after a delivery time of four weeks, he received a carelessly packaged cheap tablet that advertised with 128 GB of memory, but in reality, with a lot of luck, it only had an eighth of that. And so the opinion was established among many people that tablets should perhaps be bought from well-known manufacturers such as Samsung and Apple.
A device that does not correspond to these prejudices is the Alldocube iPlay 50. The tablet from the Chinese manufacturer promises a number of goodies for the low price starting at 108 euros. The tablet offers a 10.4-inch IPS display, a 6000 mAh battery and pure Android 12. The test shows that the device performs rather moderately, especially in the first point, but it can score in other areas. The following lines show what these are.
Design
Number one praise. The design of the Alldocube iPlay 50 can be summed up as “cheap, but high-quality”. At first glance, it doesn’t appear to be a tablet with a purchase price of less than 150 euros. The front is glass – not plastic, which is actually not a given at the price – and the back is clean, beautiful aluminum. It feels good in the hands, it’s supple and surprisingly not too cold. We only know this choice of material and design from high-quality tablets and iPads – a major advantage of this device.
The small camera is embedded in a small highlight on the back at the top left, and there is also a plastic edge on the left side that enables radio signals to be received. The audio jack, which is embedded in the lower right corner (if you look at the device from the front), is in an exciting position. The ports and speaker are also located below, with the three buttons at the top. The slot for the SIM card and microSD card is on the right edge. By the way, the edges of the display on the front are not really thin, but they are not unacceptably thick either, all in the green.
The device dimensions are 24.6 × 15.6 × 0.82 centimeters, the tablet weighs 475 grams. In combination with the high-quality design, it feels elegant, but is not too heavy to be held in one hand. Only the case creaks a little too much on the right side, but this shortcoming is probably limited to our model.
Display
After unpacking and setting up the Alldocube iPlay 50, one or the other may scroll through the menus, install one or the other app, play a game or watch a few videos. These people should quickly notice that something is wrong. It didn’t take us five minutes out of the box to realize that it all felt a little “bland”. Unfortunately, the iPlay 50’s 10.4-inch IPS screen suffers from chronic color fading, like it’s been washed a few times in the washing machine. The device smiles at us with the large and sufficiently bright panel indoors, but on closer inspection the display is too much fun.
After all, the panel has a solid resolution of 2000 × 1200 pixels, which is just about an adequate resolution for a 10.4-inch tablet. In addition to the really washed-out colors, we were also bothered by the low overall brightness of the panel – not really high at 345 cd/m², although it has to be noted that very few in this price range do it better. In addition, the display panel is not clean at the “rounded” corners, but cut unevenly, as if someone tried to cut it by hand with scissors – probably also due to the price. Another disadvantage is the lack of Widevine Level 1 support – this means that content on Netflix and Co. can only be streamed in SD quality, i.e. 480p. Free platforms like YouTube are not affected. The viewing angle stability is pronounced and pleasant to look at.
Camera
There are few places where tablet manufacturers like to save as much as on the camera. For us, this is a negligible criterion, even in contrast to smartphones. The iPlay 50 has exactly one lens on the front and back. The main camera on the back has a resolution of 8 megapixels, which is not exactly stunning, and the resolution of the front camera is 5 megapixels. You don’t really have to say more than that the resulting photos are useless. But other inexpensive tablets don’t do it any better either. The colors are similarly weak as on the display, everything seems blurred and distant. Video recording is possible with a maximum of 1080p at 30 fps – that’s fine. The front camera is only suitable for video calls where the camera quality is not crucial.
Alldocube iPlay 50 – photo series
Alldocube iPlay 50 – photo series
Furnishing
The Alldocube iPlay 50 is powered by a Unisoc Tiger T618 processor. The chip is more common in this price range and always delivers acceptable results. It’s no different with the iPlay 50: The tablet scores well on average in PCmark with its 7700 points, the performance is more than sufficient for everyday use and is on a par with the Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 (test report). Apart from casual games like Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja it is less intended for gaming, as the 3Dmark test “Wild Life” shows with 740 points. In everyday life, the experience of the benchmarks is confirmed – regular tasks are really executable, on larger games like PUBG however, it fails.
The chip is accompanied by four to six gigabytes of LPDDR4x RAM, our test device also had an internal memory of 64 gigabytes, but depending on the variant up to 128 gigabytes are possible here. The internal memory can be expanded via the hybrid card slot – but then you cannot use a SIM card at the same time. This device is connected via Wifi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 and optionally via 4G thanks to the integrated SIM card slot. This aspect is definitely worth emphasizing as cellular connectivity really isn’t a given at this price point. Telephone calls can also be made via VoLTE. To use the built-in FM radio, you have to plug a headphone cable into the jack connection. The built-in microphones and speakers are usable, but don’t offer any sound fireworks. They are reasonable for the price.
software and updates
Unfortunately, a major criticism of the Alldocube iPlay 50 is the operating system, as is the case with many other Chinese devices. While we are pleased that pure Android 12 is used here without any unnecessary additional user interface, the installed version is very outdated. The Google Play system update from May 5, 2023 could be installed on our test device, but the security patch was from September 5, 2022 and was therefore almost a year old. It’s so old it’s starting to get unsafe.
Also exciting: In the settings there is no option to search for a system update and there is no additional app for it either. A few days after setting up the tablet, however, we received a message that an update was available – but after installation the security patch was the same, the changelogs are meaningless.
battery pack
What the Alldocube iPlay 50 can be proud of, however, is the battery life. Since the device uses a relatively dark screen and an energy-saving chip, the PCmark battery test lasts almost 10 hours. The value is good, in real use this translates to around a day and a half of regular use without the need to recharge the device. Charging is via a USB-C cable with 10 watts, which is just about okay, but takes around 3.5 hours.
Preis
The Alldocube iPlay 50 with 6/128 GB in black costs with the coupon code BGTSRWT618 at the Chinese retailer Banggood until 31.08.2023 only 129 Euro. The variant with 4/64 GB is available with the code BGTSRWT6184 ab 108 Euro. Deliveries are made from stocks in the Czech Republic.
Conclusion
All in all, the Alldocube iPlay 50 is a solid entry-level tablet that is particularly well suited for entertainment, web surfing and e-mails. The low price justifies most of the problems, although we would of course have been happy with a slightly higher-quality display. If you are looking for a good-looking and well-made tablet for less than 150 euros, the iPlay 50 will not disappoint.