Alldocube kNote 5 Review
- erictung1999
- Dec 29, 2018
- 4 min read
The Alldocube KNote 5 is a nice looking mid-range 2-in-1 tablet with an optional keyboard that was released to market in April 2018.
This is the first tablet I have had a chance to look at from Alldocube, a brand owned by Shenzhen Alldocube Technology and Science Co. Alldocube is a tech-giant in China, which is known for manufacturing MP3, MP4 tablets and personal computers and other electronic appliances. The company now aims to capture the international market by launching gadgets which the world has never seen before, the gadgets which tend to change human perception, the device which is typical to revolutionize our lives, gadgets which make our life more comfortable and more comfortable.
Specs:
Dimensions: 289 mm x 180 mm x 18 mm
Weight: 2100 Grams (With Battery)
Build: Metal Body
Chipset: Intel Celeron N4100
CPU: Quad Core 1.1GHz, Up to 2.4GHz
GPU: Intel HD Graphics 600
Operating System: Windows 10
Memory: 4GB LPDDR4
Storage: ROM 128GB
Expandable storage: microSD card slot up to 128GB
Display type: FHD IPS Screen
Display size: 11.6 inches
Screen resolution: 1080 x 1920 Pixels
Wi-Fi support: 802.11 (a / b / g / n / ac)
Bluetooth support: 4.0
GPS support: N/A
USB: Type-C
Rear camera : N/A
Front camera : 2.0MP
Battery: Non-Removable Lithium-Ion-Polymer 4,000 mAh battery
Color : Blue , Dark Gray
This tablet comes with a Type-C to USB 3 adapter, a quick start guide and a power supply which is rated for 12V 2.5A. The keyboard for the kNote 5 looks like the keyboard for the kNote 8, but at a smaller version. The keys on the keyboard is nice to type on, and the touchpad they're using is not Windows Precision drivers supported. The keyboard is also not a backlit keyboard. The weight of the tablet alone is 825g, but with the keyboard, it is 1.33kg in total.
The bezels are rather large at the front. At the top of the screen we do have a front facing camera which can be used for video calls like Skype. There are two tiny little dots beside the webcam, and those are dual array microphones. The screen is not fully laminated like the kNote 8 but fortunately the gap between the touch digitizer and the underlying screen is rather small, like only 1mm. At the bottom you will see a 5-pin POGO port for you to connect your keyboard.
On the left hand side we do have a Type-C port which can be used for DC in charging, data and display out, a power connector and a microSD card slot. On the right hand side you will find a 3.5mm jack for you to connect your headphones or external speakers, power button and volume buttons. There are also dual firing speakers at the both sides of the tablet.
After first boot up we get 104GB of free storage. Take a look at the Device Manager, it doesn't show up the brand of the SSD used in this tablet, probably will be using BWIN SSD. The speeds of the SSD are not really wonderful: 450 MB/s of sequential reads but only around 145 MB/s of sequential writes with this particular SSD, but it is still faster than eMMC 5.1.
We did a benchmark and the Geekbench score is a little lower than expected: 1775 of single-core score and 4658 of multi-core score. The RAM clock speed of 2133 MHz may affect the score a little bit, it should able to support 2400 MHz of RAM. But the main reason is they've set the TDP of 6W instead of 9W, so this should affect the Geekbench score the most.
Checking at the microSD card slot performance, and it is not running at USB 3 speeds, we did a file transfer test and the speeds are only around 25 MB/s. It seems that the card slot is wired to a USB 2 hub which is unfortunate. And while the touchpad does not support Windows Precision drivers as mentioned above, it does very usable with good accuracy and fine movements.
Now looking at the screen, it is an IPS panel, 1080p resolution, 16:9 aspect ratio, with good color reproduction here. The maximum brightness tops out at 220 lux which is okay but not too great. It is visible at indoors but you may face some problems when using it outdoors. One good thing is the darkest brightness setting is really dark, so it is great for night time use without damaging your eyes. The YouTube 4k streaming is perfectly fine with zero dropped frames, but the speaker output is really lacking volume, it is hard to hear the sound coming from this tablet.
I've installed BatteryBar Pro, and it gives an estimate info of approximately 5 hours or more battery life, which is not really good, considering it only has 4000mAh battery which is really small for a tablet but many phones are using the same capacity of battery also.
Pros:
a. DDR4 RAM and faster than Apollo Lake
b. Great keyboard and the touchpad is okay
c. Uses an SSD amd not eMMC
d. Good overall build, it is well put together
e. Type-C charging support
Cons:
a. No full sized USB ports
b. No stylus support
c. Speakers are far lacking volume
d. Screen is a little dull with 220 lux max, should be brighter
e. Only 4GB of RAM and 2133MHz speed but not 2400MHz
f. 4000mAh battery, only good for 4-5 hours maximum
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