E-Boda Revo R85 Review

It seems that China isn’t the only country to be unleashing affordably priced tablets with appealing designs. Eastern European manufacturers have started carving their own place in the market and this the case of E-Boda, a brand native to Romania, which currently has quite a few offerings available for customers to grab.

Its latest endeavor, the Revo R85, seemingly comes equipped with a feature not common to many tablets out there – quad video playblack – basically the ability to play four separate videos at the same time without experiencing any hindrance. But we’ll talk about that a little bit later.

style="color: #aa3333">Design

The Revo R85 is supposed to sport a design reminiscent to the iPad mini, with a magnesium backplate of silver color. Actually the models available for purchase at the moment come sporting this particular look, but the variant we got for testing is a little more somber, bundling a dark magnesium cover.

On the back, one can see the speakers and the main rear snapper, which I’ll detail in a moment.

On the right side, we have the power button (which you have to press a little too long for the slate to get started) and the volume button. On the top left there’s the audio jack, while on the right we have the micro HDMI out, the microSD card, and the mic.

The 7.85-inch display has a pretty thin bezel and, in the upper part, located centrally, one can spot the frontal camera. At the bottom you’ll find the power port.

The tablet has round corners and is pretty light and thin, so holding it with one hand is not a problem whatsoever, since the device weighs a meager 408 g / 1.05 lbs which is decent, compared to today’s standards.

style="color: rgb(255,102,0)">Display

I bet you’re pretty curious to hear about the performance of this Eastern European slate, so let’s get started. The Revo R85 features a 7.8-inch IPS display with a resolution of 1024 x 748 pixels, and the manufacturer says this is perfect for “watching HD movies and reading eBooks.”

Granted, they got the eBook part right, but when browsing media content, one finds some of the colors a bit faded out and the luminosity and contrast are quite humble.

The resolution isn't extraordinary either, but it’s still at market standard, and since you’ll not be using the tablet to perform demanding or advanced tasks, you’re not going to have a problem with viewing pictures or browsing the Internet.

style="color: #aa3333">Power and Performance

Copying the Chinese model, E-Boda has packed inside the Revo R85 a Rockchip RK 3188 processor coupled with 1GB of RAM. There’s 16GB of internal storage offered on board, so users can store all the files, and the microSD gives the opportunity to expand the storage.

When you start using the tablet, performance seems to be quite smooth. Granted, you can easily open applications and browse without any added lag but, after a while, performance slows down. I encountered some issues with the YouTube app, which crashed a few times, maybe due to my lack of patience.

On the bright side, I played a number of games like Heroes of Dragon Age, Temple Run, The Sims, and Hobbit: KoM and I had no problems there. The graphics were smooth and rich (a little disappointed with the colors as I mentioned above) and the response to taps was within parameters.

I used AnTuTu benchmark to perform some tests on the tablet and it managed to score 17,842 points, placing it just below Google’s Nexus 10.

I should mention that the default operating system onboard is the good, old Android 4.2.2 and, so far, the company hasn't said anything about updating the device to Android 4.4.

style="color: #aa3333">Software

Since the Revo R85 comes bundled with Android, users will have access to all the goodness of the Google Play Store, so they can install applications and games.

Apart from that, the Revo R85 doesn't offer a lot in terms of pre-installed software. There’s the MobileMarket, an app that acts as a secondary Google Play store, so users have the option of downloading additional content in case they have exhausted Google’s portal (hard to believe, but still a viable option).

There’s also an Explorer app that lets you browse your SD card, Internal Memory, and USB contained files more easily. Furthermore, you have access to a native Messenger service of sorts, for which you can sign up or log in with your Facebook account.

A particularly horrible app has caught my attention. It’s called plainly Music and Video and wants to be a YouTube video streaming service of sorts.

Users can browse through the shaky interface and choose between Rock, Country, and Latino videos to play. What I found dismaying were the actual video thumbnails, stretched to the maximum. On top of that, the videos load poorly and some of them were downright unavailable.

The tablet also comes with the SeeNow on demand streaming app, which allows users to watch their favorite movies and TV shows, but you’ll have to pay for it in the process.

To conclude with an useful app, users will also find the WiFi Display, which lets you pair other devices with your tablet.

Now for a little something I haven’t seen with any tablet I have handled or tested. The E-Boda native Video playing app has a special function which allows you to play a video in thumbnail mode. The box can play the video at the same time you’re using other applications or browsing through your tablet’s apps and games.

It even allows you to play the video while you have YouTube on. As for the quad-video playback feature, our test version didn't have it, so we can’t say if the tablet freezes or not, but I have my doubts, since the YouTube app crashed a few times. But to be fair, I managed to play two videos at the same time, with one of them being in thumbnail mode.

Another feature I’d like to highlight here is the virtual keyboard, which is not quite responsive after a while and you have to tap multiple times on a key in order to get the job done.

style="color: rgb(255,102,0)">Audio

The Revo R85’s speaker grills are located on the back of the tablet, so if you’re propping the tablet somewhere they will be covered. I tend to favor tablets that have the speakers in front, like the NVIDIA Tegra Note 7 so the sound comes towards you, as opposed to its going in the other direction.

Nevertheless, they provide decent sound quality without much distortion, but be warned there’s no bass tones here.

style="color: #aa3333">Cameras

Photography enthusiasts will probably be disappointed in this department, as the tablet has a 0.3MP frontal camera for web chat and a 2MP rear one, which takes mediocre pictures both in broad daylight and normal room conditions. Nothing to get super excited about here, but if you need to take a few quick snapshots, the camera will deliver.

style="color: rgb(153,51,102)">Connectivity

The device can be connected to the Internet via W-Fi and users can also pair it with a 3G dongle via an OTG cable. Moreover, the R85 has Bluetooth 4.0 and an HDMI out I have already mentioned, to be used when you want to connect to a HDTV.

Battery

As for battery life, I was quite impressed, I didn't believe it would last up to 7 hours of multiple use (browsing, social networking, gaming, and video playback), but it did. The charger seems to have an acceptable size, so you’ll be able to squeeze it in your travel bag when you are on the go.

The Good

The tablet features a pleasing design and is very light and easy to handle. It will provide a decently smooth browsing experience for most apps and games, but more demanding users will probably get annoyed with some of the lag involved.

The Revo R85 is a decent slate after all, and those looking for a basic tablet experience will be pleased with the product, because all the essential is present here. You can browse, watch videos, and play games, the rest are just details.

The Bad

As I mentioned before, some apps freeze and the tablet gets laggy after you use it for a few hours. Furthermore, the virtual keyboard isn't that responsive and that horrible video pre-installed app I stumbled upon will haunt me for some time. I’d like to say that the price for this product was a good one, but e-Boda sells the tablet for approximately $213 / €155.

Now consider the fact that a Nexus 7 2013 is priced starting at $229 / €313 in the Google Play Store, and if you look around the web a little, you have the chance to find it a discount.

style="color: rgb(153,51,102)">Overall Impressions

The slate is perfect for those who want to utilize it for the standard features. You can’t get that productive with it (although you have an Office sort of app) so you’ll naturally end up using it mostly for media and browsing. I’m sorry to say that, for this price, you might end up getting something better from a brand vendor, but if you’d like to support the local tablet manufacturers, go for it.