Dixon TS-M105A

wizardofid

wizardofid

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I'm so Goth, my wrists slit themselves
Hopefully 3rd times the charm

In the last 4 months I have had nothing but bad luck with 10 inch tablets, it started off with a Mecer With a intel sofia quad core that had 8 dead pixel, and performance issues which I had to send back.

Last week I got a Tiaggo 10 Inch with a broken SD card read send that back as well ;)

Finally today the 3rd tablet arrived.

Little black number called Dixon TS-M105A

No dead pixels check
SD card reader working and functional check
Wifi working check
GPS working check
Bluetooth working check

So all the biggies that I had issues with the last tablet all fine.

I am actually quite surprised by this tablet, it has an IPS screen doing 1280 x 800, while it still is nothing spectacular, previous tablet sported a TFT screen and 1024 x 600, While it only runs on 1Gig ram and 8gigHDD it is plenty when you add an SD card to the mix up to 32gig.However the website mentions 2gig ram, however I researched before hand and knew it only comes with 1 gig, honestly I am happy with that I will however be taking on takealot with regards to incorrect specs.

Another surprise is it's running android 6.0 instead of the advertised 5.1 so a little newer OS also means with android 6 you can format and use it as internal storage, which I will do once I have added a 32gig SD card currently only 16gig memory cards, little pointless.

Some minor things that I spotted.

Power and volume controls on the side of the tablet, all things considered not bad placement, I do however have an issue with placing the USB and audio port on top of the tablet as you are going to use the tablet in landscape more the most. Whoever watches movies in portrait mode should be shot.

The box considering the price 1.1k is devoid of extra no screen protector, or any thing else, just the tablet, charger and USB cable.

So I will be hunting for a 10 inch flip cover and screen protector next week. ;)

Build quality is pretty decent and thin, do have issue with the space around the tablet with sides having very little grip space.Some thing I do like is that is has the front camera in the middle of tablet instead of to the side, on the back on the same spot as the USB and audio port is the protective cover remove that and you can add dual sims and SDcard.

Audio is better this time around, but a bit on the soft side on the back of the tablet little pointless putting it behind the tablet.

Camera is 2mp nothing to write home about, does have a flash, which is nice as most tablets I have seen in this range doesn't have and sort of flash.

It runs MTK8321 1.3ghz quad core CPU with Mali400 so no latest and great games, but considering the chipset it is able to do H.264 and I have seen the MTK8321 in action before so I know it's able to run a fair amount of slightly older demanding games like GTA 3 and Primeworld defenders, which I will definitely test out later.

Only other thing the back of the tablet isn't exactly non-slip, and because this is a china brand tablet good luck getting and sort of support or updates and such.It also doesn't have native screen casting, it is a basic feature any android device should have.

Still early but I managed to tick off 2 important things, no dead pixels and the SD card reader that works, overall I think I got a lucky packet this time around with every thing working as it should.

For using the internet and watching videos and playing the casual game its a nice deal at the price as well 1.1K with those specs is what you generally spend on 7 inch tablets, so having a 10 inch IPS screen with 1280 x 800 isn't actually a bad deal at all.

I do watch a lot of video's there is a huge difference between 7 and 10 inch screens, I find it far more enjoyable on 10 inch then 7 inch screen.

Also glad I chose this over the telefunken 10 inch, definitely a much better deal overall. :D
 
ODTech said:
Just get a Samsung.
Click to expand...

Why conform to isheeple ? Your are essentially paying a premium for the brand name, I have looked at the hardware on offer on various devices, devices with same specs are often considerably cheaper.What puts me off is that it's still peddling and dumping old stock on various markets and at a price premium, especially their 7 inch tabs.

A samsung device with specs like above while weak would cost twice as much, and your device gets preloaded with bloatware.The dixon had ZERO bloatware, other then facebook and chrome.There wasn't the usual bloatware you come to expect, samsung store this and samsung that.

I stay far away from samsung, period, only name brand I will get is lenovo, while generally their devices also costs a bit more then the rest, their devices are top notch, definitely looking at getting a better tablet next year, Some thing like this
https://www.gearbest.com/tablet-pcs/pp_709285.html but my target next year will be 4gig ram and min 64gig HDD.Now show me a a new or current samsung 10 inch device with specs like the lenovo at the same price or better specs at that price.

Chances are you won't :D I am more then happy to plotter around the kiddies pool and stumble a few times, for a casual tablet the Dixon really is a nice tablet, played around with it some more last night, the viewing angles are top notch for an IPS screen, I could still see the screen at 45 degree angle.With the tiaggo which had a TFT screen it had no viewing angle either then directly.

Tiaggo also only had WCDMA where as the dixon has HSDPA+, the speed difference is significant. ;).To be honest samsung can go suck it ;)
 
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As someone that owns a Samsung and a Xiaomi, you can't beat the S-AMOLED screen on a Samsung. Obviously it costs 3 x the price of the Dixon but it's got solid local backup support and a full range of accessories.
 
wizardofid said:
Why conform to isheeple ? Your are essentially paying a premium for the brand name, I have looked at the hardware on offer on various devices, devices with same specs are often considerably cheaper.What puts me off is that it's still peddling and dumping old stock on various markets and at a price premium, especially their 7 inch tabs.

A samsung device with specs like above while weak would cost twice as much, and your device gets preloaded with bloatware.The dixon had ZERO bloatware, other then facebook and chrome.There wasn't the usual bloatware you come to expect, samsung store this and samsung that.

I stay far away from samsung, period, only name brand I will get is lenovo, while generally their devices also costs a bit more then the rest, their devices are top notch, definitely looking at getting a better tablet next year, Some thing like this
https://www.gearbest.com/tablet-pcs/pp_709285.html but my target next year will be 4gig ram and min 64gig HDD.Now show me a a new or current samsung 10 inch device with specs like the lenovo at the same price or better specs at that price.

Chances are you won't :D I am more then happy to plotter around the kiddies pool and stumble a few times, for a casual tablet the Dixon really is a nice tablet, played around with it some more last night, the viewing angles are top notch for an IPS screen, I could still see the screen at 45 degree angle.With the tiaggo which had a TFT screen it had no viewing angle either then directly.

Tiaggo also only had WCDMA where as the dixon has HSDPA+, the speed difference is significant. ;).To be honest samsung can go suck it ;)
Click to expand...

You are right i can't but you get what you pay for. Your little story in the original post is the proof.
Another thing, I think Samsung is one of the easiest brands to find parts for. Even for my old S3 i easily found parts when needed and i could also install CM13 (Android 6). Try finding parts and a upgraded OS for Dixon.
 
Fox1 said:
As someone that owns a Samsung and a Xiaomi, you can't beat the S-AMOLED screen on a Samsung. Obviously it costs 3 x the price of the Dixon but it's got solid local backup support and a full range of accessories.
Click to expand...

I would agree screen quality of samsung is great, still doesn't justify the premium price.Budget 10 inch tablets sub 1.5K is pretty much mediocre, and in that price range is also pretty hard to find.

There is the telefunken 10 inch which to be honest isn't all that great, spreadtrum quad core with a TFT screen not all that great.

NEON IQ 10 inch TFT screen.

STYLUS 10IN which has the intel sofia/rockchip chipset, which to be honest bar the IPS screen is perfectly horrid, the CPU is barely able to keep cool and constantly throttles, which means apps hangs even crashes most of the time.

Tiaggo 10 inch decent but TFT screen with 1024 x600 is horrid and the viewing angles are even worse.

Not even going to mention the Sansui 10 inch as that is a dual core with 512mb ram, not even remotely worth it

The dixon is the best of this lot honestly.


However the best local 10 inch tablet, is Parrot interactive 10.1" rare as hens teeth, IPS screen, 1280 x 800, 16gigHDD 1gig ram, 3G, and far better build quality then all the tablets above combined, and it has the added bonus of a dedicated charging port and HDMI, normal price is around 1.5K, only drawback is it's still running android 4.4.

10 inch tablets have become considerably cheaper especially in the budget area, 2 years back it would be tough to find one under 2.5k.

Because I live in a rural area, electricity can be iffy especially with summer thunderstorms, so handing having a device around to browse the net on, watch a tv show or two, play an odd game or so, I use my tablet at night to watch some vids and in the morning do the usual email quick browse and done, rest of the day considering I work from home there is the TV and computers ect.

I don't see the point of spending that much on a device that see less time then a bog roll ;)
 
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ODTech said:
You are right i can't but you get what you pay for. Your little story in the original post is the proof.
Another thing, I think Samsung is one of the easiest brands to find parts for. Even for my old S3 i easily found parts when needed and i could also install CM13 (Android 6). Try finding parts and a upgraded OS for Dixon.
Click to expand...

Considering the price, do you really need to find parts for it ;) It comes with android 6, again for the price do you need android 10, the life span of the device is going to shorter then my 3rd future ex-wife's marriage.Perfectly happy with that ;)

I still have my lenovo A1000 and planning on replacing that with a 7inch 3/4g tabby. ;)
 
Had the tablet close to a week now.Battery good for 8 hours, wifi brilliant, 3G brilliant, no complaints with regards to the screen, especially handy that it has mirravision that allows tweaking the screen colours.

Two minor issues.
It's a bit iffy with side loading apps, I basically backup all apps that I have installed or downloaded from the google store especially the OBB files, saves me from having to download them again, I have had two occasions where apps didn't install directly from the tablet one downloaded app and one google store app.

Pushed the apps from adb no problem, oddly enough.Far easier to use adb any ways.


Second issue while minor, is annoying, I had to switch off auto screen rotation as a few landscape apps on start, don't rotate correctly and are upside down, might be a compatibility issue who knows.

Other then that the OS is stable and loads apps quickly, Graphics intensive games like GTA and primeworld defenders 1 and 2 works flawlessly with no lag on the rare occasion it does is due to having apps loaded in the memory, closing the apps quickly resolves the issues.

Definitely a happy chappy, it also runs particularly cool, youtube worked flawlessly, and wifi streaming is a pleasure, got allconnect from the google play store, and works brilliantly with the wecast, both browser, network, and finally casting what is on the tablet.
Don't really need screen mirroring so it's all good ;)

Going the weekend to find a flip folder and screen protector for the tab ;)
 
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Nice review. You've probably helped someone buy this tab for the holiday season if they were doubting. Reminds me of some cheap rechargeable batteries that I bought from Cash Converters which are lasting me as long as my Duracel's.
 
Fox1 said:
Nice review. You've probably helped someone buy this tab for the holiday season if they were doubting. Reminds me of some cheap rechargeable batteries that I bought from Cash Converters which are lasting me as long as my Duracel's.
Click to expand...

What really surprised me is the IPS screen and res of 1280 x 800.For the price it is pretty darn cheap, just would have liked a screen protector and a flip cover included, even if it increased the price, flip folder provides extra support, and screen protection.

I have an asus Eee soft material bag that I have been using for close to 4 years for all my tablets, and the 10 inch fits snugly, the bag is just a magnet for dust and hair however.

The dixon is definitely a nice tab for the casual user to browse the net watch a few movies and play the odd game, the mali400 really isn't all that bad it won't play need for speed, but I have a PC for that.On holiday I preloaded what I wanted to watch took the wecast with, plugged that into the TV and bobs your uncle.Should have taken the router with from some or other reason, if you connect to the wecast it disconnects the 3G, so currently can't do any web streaming.
 
Hey man, how's the tablet treating you? I need to buy a tablet for my daughter so was wondering if you'd recommend this for an 8 year old? She wants a 10 inch tablet. She had a Lenovo 7 inch since she was 5 (with no cover, mind you) until I accidentally knocked it out of her hand and the screen cracked, the cracks have reached a point where its difficult to see on the screen now.

So would you recommend this?
 
Still works great battery life is still good, played games on it the entire day and managed to get 6 hours out of it, what I like it has battery saving mode so you can push the battery life a bit, with that, and was still able to play games with battery saving mode enabled.

The only minor annoyance is that the tablet doesn't have the normal update menu under about and requires that you use USSD menu to check for updates wifi, and bluetooth all worked without issues and 3G also worked fine with youtube and streaming video without issues.

You will have to get a 3rd party app if you want to do screen casting, got allcast and works like a dream, going to visit my brother next week then I want to test out chrome casting, with ES file explorer and google own apps.

Definitely one of the best 10 inch budget tablets available locally.
 
Hi there.
Are you still happy with this tablet? I am considering getting one. According to the advert on Takelot, this model has 2G of RAM, whereas you say it only has 1G. (My present old Sansui tablet has 1 G and I cannot even update the existing apps anymore). Are you positive about the 1G?
Secondly, does the unit have some form of GPS capability, as I would like to use it while on holiday overseas shortly.
Thanks,
Allen
 
allen001 said:
Hi there.
Are you still happy with this tablet? I am considering getting one. According to the advert on Takelot, this model has 2G of RAM, whereas you say it only has 1G. (My present old Sansui tablet has 1 G and I cannot even update the existing apps anymore). Are you positive about the 1G?
Secondly, does the unit have some form of GPS capability, as I would like to use it while on holiday overseas shortly.
Thanks,
Allen
Click to expand...

Hi

It's 1gig with android 6.0 8gig rom is on the low side(I smacked takealot on the head about it before but they just don't care), but it's supports up to 32gig mSD cards,with android 6 you can move apps to the SD card or format the SD as internal storage.

Just for the Higher screen res and IPS screen makes it worth getting ;) GPS works as I have tested it out, with an navigational app, it's able use cell towers, data and GPS signal so is able to get signal quite quickly you are also able to set which one you want to use for navigation to save battery life.

qW2zPzq.jpg
 
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