Review Of Alldocube iPlay 50 Mini Pro – The Best Selling 8.4-Inch Android 13 Tablet On The Market

Alldoube has launched two best selling tablets in the 8-inch category this year that runs the Android 13 OS. It started with the Alldocube iPlay 50 Mini with a Unisoc T606 processor in May, but when that became an immediate best seller, Alldocube decided to launch a more powerful version of that tablet with a MediaTek Helio G99 processor and even higher specs, which is the Alldocube iPlay 50 Mini Pro in this review. It launched in the US the last week of September.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/ALLDOCUBE-Android-iPlay-50-Mini/dp/B0CG31J44

They are both 8.4-inch tablets with the same design and exterior, but they have different specs and different performances. The two tablets can be confused at first by looking at the images, since they look the same and are marketed with the same background and wallpaper which contains a beautiful red fish (Super Red Halfmoon Betta).

Performance
Powered by the octa-core 2.2 GHz MediaTek MT6789 “G99” processor with a Mali-G57 MC2 graphics processor, 8GB of LPDDR4x RAM, and 256GB of fast UFS 2.2 storage, the Alldocube iPlay 50 Mini Pro suddenly became the most powerful tablet in the 8-inch Android tablet market in USA and internationally. It has also set aside an additional optional 8GB of storage for virtual RAM, where you can use 8GB of the storage for more RAM should you need to, simply by going into Settings -> Memory Expansion, and then chose the number of gigabytes you wish to set aside for that purpose, up to 8GB.

So you can work with a total of 16GB of RAM, which is very good for a pocket sized tablet. And having more RAM makes it possible run a larger workload at the same time or run more apps simultaneously without closing them down. A microSD card slot on the side also supports memory cards up to 512GB in size.

I ran it through Geekebench 6.2 which tests the processor, and got benchmark scores of up to 713 in single-core and 1882 in multi-core. When testing the graphics processor, I used 3DMark and got a score of 3303 in Sling Shot for the OpenGL ES 3.0. You can even see it live in the last video on this page, as well as get an impression of the speakers.

All normal Android games run fine with a frame rate of 30 fps and Full HD up to a resolution of 1920 x 1200, and with so much RAM, it's possible to use it for work, and you can connect this tablet to a larger monitor if you want to either wirelessly through an app or the USB-C port directly (or through a USB-to-HDMI adapter), and pair a mouse and keyboard through Bluetooth for a full office setup.

Editing videos also went smoothly. Editing and saving a 10 second video clip with a 2560 x 1440 resolution (the max video resolution of the rear camera), took just 4.3 seconds in the popular video editing app InShot.

The Mini Pro supports Widevine L3 but not L1, which means there are some streaming movies from Netflix it won't run in Full HD.

I don't know about the frequency of software updates, but during my first week of testing it, at least I received one firmware update from Alldocube.

Screen
The 8.4-inch screen is a fully laminated in-cell screen with a Full HD resolution of 1920 x 1200, with up to 320 nits brightness. It's delivered with two screen protectors on it. One for the shipping and transportation that you will peel off as soon as you get it, and another one for regular use.

Even with the screen protector on, the display is smooth to touch and easy to swipe with my fingers. The colors are accurate and natural, and the sharpness and contrast is good. With the latest Android 13 it's also very easy to set your own color temperature to match your own preferences, so if you prefer a warmer or cooler color tone on the screen, that's easy to adjust in the settings.

I even tested the Alldocube iPlay 50 Mini Pro with Alldocube's own stylus pen, and was surprised by how good the screen was in picking up even the smallest pen strokes accurately without glitches. So that's a nice bonus. You can use the digitizer pen for either drawing, writing by hand with hand writing recognition, or even more complicated video editing.

The screen also handles fingerprints well, and is not particularly reflective either despite being a glossy screen. Touch responsiveness is excellent, and it doesn't pick up on accidental touches when you hold close to the screen from the side bezels.

Sound
The sound quality is acceptable for simpler games, sound alerts, listening to short conversations or videos, and so on, but the audio is otherwise thin and lacks bass if you use the mono speaker to watch movies or listen to music with. But Alldocube ships the tablet with free earbuds that also have mic on them, since this is a 4G LTE tablet after all that you can also make phone calls with.

So if you use the earbuds, you get more bass. Or you could simply add a small Bluetooth speaker with stereo to improve the sound.

The 3.5mm audio combo jack is located at the bottom of the tablet when used in landscape mode with the folio cover. This means the headphone jack points downwards. That's not a problem without the cover as we can simply rotate the tablet 180 degrees. But used with Alldocube's folio cover, the earphone cable will stick out more than there's room for, so I recommend using either wireless earbuds, headphones, or wireless speakers if you use this particular cover, or get another cover or stand that's lifted up a little higher and makes room for the protruding cable.

Internet connectivity
The wireless internet options are 4G LTE, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth 5.2.

The dual-band a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi has fast speeds and wide cover. I was able to place the router in one end of the house and get good signal strength and lag free 2K video streaming when I went to the opposite end of the house, while still going up and down a floor. So if you have an average sized house, you should get good coverage all over your house and on just outside of your house too.

Navigation and location sensors
Alldocube iPlay 50 Mini Pro has both GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and Beidou location sensors, and on a clear day it was able to lock onto as much as 39 satellites with an 11 sec time to the first fix. So that makes this a good tablet for location and navigation apps, whether you're on holiday, walking, bicycling, or driving.

There's also FM radio on this tablet with automatic scanning for channels.

Other sensors includes an accelerator and a haptic motor used for vibration alerts or feedback in games that support that.

Cameras
The front camera is a 5MP camera with a photo resolution of 2560 x 1920, and video resolution up to 1920 x 1080 for video chats or live streams. It has a good focus and exposure, and even performs okay in lower lit conditions.

The rear camera is a 13MP camera, with a lens that sticks out a little on the back, and has a maximum photo resolution of 4096 x 3072 for a 4:3 ratio, or 4096 x 2304 for a 16:9 ratio. It can even shoot video at up to 2K, with the maximum video resolution being 2560 x 1440 at 30 fps. The auto focus is quick and functions well, but it has a tendency to overexpose some photos it highly lit conditions.

The rear camera is great for scanning documents, since the auto focus allows us to get up very close, as close as 3 inches. Which can be used for macro photography too.

Battery life
The G99 chipset is generally efficient with the power usage, so from the 5000 mAh battery capacity, I've been able to get a battery life of around 9 1/2 hours on a charge with the Alldocube iPlay 50 Mini Pro.

That's with local video playback in Full HD and mid-range brightness, in accordance with the standard battery life measurement. So that's also good. And the standby mode is good too, which is common with all the popular MediaTek processors. So this is a tablet that can be left in standby mode for many days without losing much power.

Battery consumption seems stable and predictable, and when using the included power adapter, it charges from 1% to 100% in under 2.5 hours, through the USB-C port which supports charging and data transfer at the same time if you want to connect it to a USB hub with lots of accessories. The tablet actually supports up to 18W PD fast charging.

Exterior and dimensions
Despite being an 8.4-inch tablet, the physical dimensions of this tablet are actually smaller than the traditional 8-inch tablets from just a few years ago, since the screen space is used more effectively, with more narrow bezels.

My girlfirend was baking pie earlier today while I was testing the Alldocube iPlay 50 Mini Pro, so when I put the tablet on the kitchen scale, it weighed in at 310 grams. And it is indeed just 7.5mm thick too, though 10mm where the rear camera is. But essentially it's a very portable tablet.

The grey metallic metal body has a smooth but finely texturized matte and grippy texture on the back, which makes it easy to hold on to for longer periods of time. The build quality is solid, with no cracking and the tablet is very stiff when I tried flexing and twisting it.

There's a USB-C port on this tablet that can do it all, but Alldocube has also included a small USB-C to full-size USB-A adapter in the box.

Conclusion / Pros and Cons
I can see why the Alldocube iPlay 50 Mini Pro has quickly become the best selling tablet in the 8-inch Android 13 tablet category. If we weigh up the pros and cons, then the cons are the lack of Widevine L1, the speaker, and the direction of the headphone jack.

The pros are all the rest of the specs and features of this tablet, which are many.

It offers a lot of tablet for the money and has great versatility whatever someone wants to use it for, which makes it the best tablet in the 8-inch Android tablet category today.

– Tom Bowen