Pipo M1 Max 1.6ghz Android Jelly Bean Tablet Hands On Review

A few days ago I reported on the excellent looking Pipo M1 Android Jelly Bean tablet, excellent because it offers a dual-core Rockchips 1.6Ghz CPU, Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean OS and great looking 9.7 inch IPS screen all for a great price. Best of all mine arrived yesterday! Hands on photos after the jump!

I personally own the original iPad and an Ainol Novo 7 Android tablet. I love my old iPad, but it has become extremely slow, and while the Novo 7 is a good tablet the small screen size really put's me off from using it (in fact no one in my family every uses the Novo 7!).

So I found myself in the situation where I wanted a 9.7 inch Android tablet which was faster than my current iPad while being cheaper than the iPad 2 or current new iPad, and I found the Pipo M1!

The Pipo M1 costs just $215 and features some awesome high performance features which are usually reserved for tablets twice and sometimes 3 times the cost!

The Pipo M1 comes in a very thing good quality box with foam inserts to keep the 9.7 inch tablet from getting damaged in transport. The box is so thin that the included mains charger and data connection transfer wires actually come in a separate smaller box.

I ordered my Pipo M1 from Pandawil and when it arrived it came with a pre applied screen protector which was a nice and unexpected surprise!

Instructions are included with the M1 however they are written in Chinese, but being and Android tablet anyone who is able to touch a screen should have no problem operating the Pipo M1.

The body of the Pipo M1 has an alloy rear shell which features an embossed Pipo logo on the back and striped pattern. The rear also has a 2 mega-pixel rear camera which offers basic photo capture capabilities.

The sides and edges are made of plastic which is punctured from time to time with various physical controls such as the volume rocker, power/lock button and back buttons.

Along the bottom edge there is a micro SD card reader which lets you boost the built-in 16GB of internal storage, a 3.5mm head-phone jack, two micro USB ports, HDMI out and the external speaker.

A glass display covers the entire front of the Pipo with a generous bezel for holding the tablet and there is also a front facing camera which is claimed to be a 2 mega-pixel unit like the rear and can be used for video calls.

Once turned on the 9.7 inch screen of the Pipo M1 really springs to life! It's really is an impressive display and offers excellent viewing angles even in bright, direct sunlight.

The screen has a resolution of 1024 x 768 and has a maximum viewing radius of 180° thanks to similar IPS technology as found on most modern tablet and phone screens.

I took the photos of the Pipo at a coffee shop today in the sun, and as you can see even with bright reflections across the screen the content displayed is still easily visible!

Under the good-looking and rather lightweight body the Pipo M1 has some serious hardware which manages to have this low-cost Chinese tablet opening apps, stream video and browse the internet with very little effort.

At the heart of the M1 is a dual-core Rockchips RK3066 CPU which runs at a staggering 1.6ghz! With the dual-core processor humming along at that rate Pipo haven given the M1 1GB DDR3 RAM and a Mali 400 GPU so that the Pipo tablet copes very well with pretty much anything you throw at it.

I ran Quadrant and Antutu benchmarks while at the coffee shop to which once completed yielded impressive results!

The Pipo M1 dual-core Android JB tablet scored 8119 on the Antutu benchmark.

And managed a respectable 4044 on the Quadrant test.

Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean comes as standard on the Pipo M1 tablet which runs like a hot knife through butter, whist sliding down a velvet waterfall!

As you can already see from the impressive spec highlights include the 1.6ghz CPU, light weight body, fantastic IPS screen, and Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean.

There is also the rather huge 8000mAh battery which seems to be lasting very well, although I can't comment on just how long it lasts as I haven't used the Pipo for long enough yet.

Up till now the only notable low-grade hardware I've come across are the camera which aren't the greatest in the world. That said the rear camera is easily better than the one found on the rear of the iPad 2, and the front is fine for video calls, but not much else.

The home and lock screen buttons also take a little getting use to as they are both located in similar positions on the tablet and you can sometimes find yourself locking the screen rather than hitting the back button.

If you are in the market for a high performance and stylish Android tablet I highly recommend the Pipo M1. If offers solid performance, a great screen, good battery life all in a lightweight and great looking body.

The M1 is available in both black and white models with at Pandawil for $215.

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