Review: Cube U25GTC-C4W 7" tablet
Final Score: ★★★☆ (2.88 out of 4)
Key Specifications:
- From: DX.com, sku 349335 (Discontinued)
- Price: $69.99 (Provided as a free sample for review)
- CPU: MTK8127 (1.3 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7)
- GPU: Mali-450 MP4 @ 600 MHz
- RAM: 1GB
- Storage: 8 GB
- Screen: 7" IPS, 1024x600 resolution
- Connectivity: WiFI, Bluetooth, GPS, HDMI
Pros:
- Nice IPS screen
- Low standby battery drain
- Good deal with GPS and HDMI out included
- Decent build quality
- Good perceived speed during general usage
- Slightly faster Mali-450 GPU
Cons:
- No physical volume rocker
- Interface in Chinese out of the box
- Confusing Chinese keyboard out of the box
- Some Chinese bloatware apps (easy to remove)
- No way to take screenshots
- No rear camera
Introduction
Cube is a Chinese tablet manufacturer that is fairly well known amongst customers in the market for a budget tablet. I ran across the Cube U25GT while searching for a tablet with an IPS screen and an MTK8127 processor for well under $100. At only $69.99, the Cube U25GT is definitely an affordable option, but is it worth even that paltry price? That's what I'm here to find out.
Hardware Quality: ★★★☆
Build Quality: ★★★☆
The Cube U25GT delivers a fairly good initial feel out of the box. As expected in this price range, it's all plastic, including the screen. Nevertheless, there are no sharp edges or other signs of abnormally poor manufacturing, such as plastic mold flashing remnants. Body flex and creaking under moderate torsional pressure are both minimal. The screen looked good out of the box, with an included screen protector. There was one speck of dirt underneath the screen, but apart from that the screen was clean.
The rear panel is plain, smooth, white plastic, with no contour lines. Instead of that, I would prefer some kind of texture. But it is a bland, inoffensive design that I can't really find fault with.
(The rear plastic protector is still in place in this photo.)
The screws aren't too pretty. Apart from that, notice the lack of a volume rocker. This is rather annoying, forcing the use of the on-screen volume controls. It also makes it impossible to take a screenshot with a power+volume button key combo, and this is further hampered by the lack of a software screenshot function. Normally I don't take screenshots when I'm using my tablet, so this is kind of a moot point. But for the purpose of this review it was rather annoying to not be able to take screenshots.
Battery Life: ★★★☆
Here's a fairly strong point of the Cube U25GT compared to other tablets. Battery life is quite good under all of my battery test cases:
- Screen on time: 7 hours, 7 minutes.
- 480P video loop: 6 hours, 30 minutes
- Browser + WiFI: 6 hours, 8 minutes
- Picture slideshow: 5 hours, 45 minutes
- Standby battery consumption: Negligible
The last bullet point about standby battery consumption seems to be the weakest point in many budget tablets, which tend to drain their batteries at a bit more than 1% per hour during standby in airplane mode. The Cube U25GT is pleasantly free of such standby battery drain, which makes it a great option to throw in a backpack or underneath the car seat for only occasional usage. It's nice to know that you won't pick it up dead if you don't use it every single day.
Screen Quality: ★★★☆
This is another strong point of the Cube U25GT. The 7" IPS screen has good color saturation and viewing angles. The 1024x600 resolution within the 7" diagonal viewing area makes for pictures and text that look pretty good to my eyes.
Colors look lush and accurate. The screen brightness is quite good, and is enough to be visible under bright ambient light. There is no light sensor. My only complaint is that minimum brightness is not low enough, which needlessly wastes battery power at night. Screen touch sensibility is decent, but every once in a while I have to hit a small button twice to make it react. The 5-point multitouch works well.
But as mentioned, the most important reason to look for an IPS screen has to do with screen viewing angles that are much better than the older TFT display technology:
WiFI Performance: ★★★☆
In other online reviews of older Chinese tablets I've read a lot of complaints about poor WiFI performance. But on this Cube U25GT I honestly can't find any fault with the WiFI. It easily sustains my full upload and download bandwidth (which admittedly at 2 Mbps up / 0.6 Mbps down isn't much) on OpenSpeedTest.com. Connected my NAS with ES File Explorer over my not very fast wireless LAN, it downloaded a 188 MB file at an average speed of 969 kBps. My much more expensive laptop does almost the same at 1 MBps. In an area of my house where my laptop has a poor but stable signal, the U25GT takes a long time to get an IP address, but eventually connects and allows for slow internet navigation over the weak signal. Incidentally, my Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphone directly next to the U25GT was unable to connect to WiFI in this area of poor signal. So overall, WiFI performance concerns are set to rest with the U25GT.
Speaker Performance: ★★☆☆
The speakers are about average for a tablet. Sound is tinny with very little bass, and overall volume is just adequate. I ran an Audacity recording test, in which I recorded the first 25 seconds of a John Kilzer song with Audacity on my laptop, and then did a contrast test that measures the difference in decibels between the background noise and the foreground (tablet speaker) volume. It returned an unimpressive 2.4dB. So in a loud environment, or to appreciate the finer details of your music, you'll want an external speaker.
Camera Quality: ★☆☆☆
You really shouldn't be using a tablet as a primary device for taking pictures, but if you do you won't like the Cube U25GT. They didn't even bother to include a rear camera, which frankly isn't much of a loss given the abysmal cameras usually found on cheap tablets in this price range. There is a 0.3 megapixel front-facing camera that might be useful for video-conferences, giving the person on the other end a hazy suggestion of the face of the person (s)he is talking with.
Software Experience / Performance: ★★★☆
Perceived Speed: ★★★★
One of the most important aspects of a nice tablet is the perceived speed. This is essentially a loose term for the overall impression of speed, or lack thereof, while using the tablet for daily tasks. Benchmarks don't tell the whole story; rather, snappy opening of apps and switching between them, fluid transitions, and smooth web browsing all translate into a general feel of speed. The Cube U25GT does very well in this criterion. It never leaves me waiting, and it's enjoyable to use. As a matter of fact, it's notably snappier than a typical Samsung smartphone or tablet running Android, which are usually bogged down by bloatware and modifications to the operating system. Boot time is acceptable, at 28 seconds from the appearance of the bootsplash until arriving at the lockscreen. I also tried the X-Plane flight simulator, which has rather high quality scenery graphics, and performance was flawless.
Benchmarks: ★★☆☆
Benchmark results for the Cube U25GT under Antutu, GFXBench, and Vellamo are less than flattering. But for a typical user that is not a heavy gamer, performance is more than adequate. I'll upload some benchmark screenshots to my Google Drive:
U25GT Benchmarks
Stock OS Experience: ★★☆☆
The Cube U25GT runs KitKat 4.4.2. The experience is good, with a some exceptions that mar the overall system. Out of the box, the interface comes in Chinese, which is very confusing for most users who don't speak Chinese. Here is a helpful article that explains how to change the language from Chinese to something else. After changing the language to English, here's what the default launcher looks like:
There was a fair amount of useless Chinese apps that I consider to be bloatware, which I proceeded to remove. Fortunately, they were removable without rooting.
Another major annoyance out of the box was the Chinese on-screen keyboard, which did contain roman characters among many other Chinese ones, but which nevertheless was extremely confusing for me to use. The keyboard app also constantly popped up notification messages in Chinese and occasional update messages showing two buttons with Chinese labels. Fortunately, the official Google Keyboard is available from the Google Play Store.
After installing the Google Keyboard and removing the Chinese one, the device became much more enjoyable to use.
As mentioned in the hardware review section, the lack of hardware volume buttons is further exacerbated by the lack of a screenshot button in the OS, which as far as I can tell makes it impossible to take screenshots.
The Cube U25GT unfortunately does not come rooted out of the box, or at least it doesn't ship with a Superuser app. However, it was pleasantly easy to root using Kingo. Basically, it only requires one click and a reboot.
The U25GT comes with the usual Google Apps, most importantly including the Play Store. However, I don't enable a Google account on my devices, which leads to greatly improved battery life. When I need to install an app from the Play Store, I use a site to download APK files directly from the Play Store.
A concern that frequently comes up relating to Chinese devices is the possibility of the device being shipped with spyware or other types of malware out of the box. I am happy to report that I scanned the Cube U25GT with Malwarebytes and Lookout Security & Antivirus and both reported the device to be clean.
Here's the state of the built-in 8GB storage by default:
Value: ★★★☆
This review criterion attempts to balance the tablet's ranking in the previous review criteria with its overall ratio of features to price. The Cube U25GT costs $69.99, and it comes with quite a few features for the price.
Bluetooth: The U25GT does have Bluetooth (the absolute cheapest Chinese tablets don't), which works well.
GPS: The MTK8127 SoC used in the U25GT offers high value by virtue of the included GPS radio. At least in my region, it takes a while to get a satellite lock, but it does work. The 7" Cube U25GT would make a great dashboard navigation unit for a car.
HDMI: Another high-value feature included on the MTK8127 SoC is HDMI out. I don't own any devices to test it with, but it is reportedly capable of doing 1080p Full HD video playback and recording. This feature is surprisingly absent from many other tablets in this price range.
The other pros and cons already discussed in this review, combined with the device's moderate $69.99 price tag make the Cube U25GT a pretty good value, earning it 3 out of 4 stars for value in this category.
Conclusion
The weighted average for the Cube U25GTC-C4W 7" tablet computes to 2.88 out of 4 possible stars. So we'll round it off to a very respectable 3 out of 4 star overall rating. The Cube U25GT offers an attractive combination of a nice screen, a snappy user experience, with GPS and HDMI, all sustained by a very respectable battery life, all for only $69.99. In my opinion, it is an extremely attractive option for budget-conscious tablet buyers that favorably compares with devices that cost many times as much.
Many thanks to DX.com for sending this tablet for review. Please leave your comments below, and share this review on your favorite social media.
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